Maureen Dowd: What Rough Beasts?

New York Times ^ | 5/7/05 | Maureen Dowd

[wagglebee]

I love chimeras.

I've seen just about every werewolf, Dracula and mermaid movie ever made, I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator, and the Sphinx of Greek mythology is a role model for her lethal brand of mystery.

So when chimeras reared up in science news, I grabbed my disintegrating copy of Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" to refresh my memory on the Chimera, the she-monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail: "A fearful creature, great and swift of foot and strong/Whose breath was flame unquenchable."

Bellerophon, "a bold and beautiful young man" on flying Pegasus, shot arrows down at the flaming monster and killed her.

Chimeras with "generally sinister powers," as Nicholas Wade wrote in The Times, seemed to be a lesson in "the pre-Darwinian notion that species are fixed and penalties are severe" for crossing boundaries.

Chimeras got attention again in the mid-80's, Sharon Begley of The Wall Street Journal noted, when embryonic goat cells were merged with embryonic sheep cells to produce a "geep," when a human-mouse chimera was born and when "scientists took brain-to-be tissue from quail embryos and transplanted it into chicken embryos. Once hatched, the chicks made sounds like baby quails."

The U.S. Patent Office balked at an attempt last year to patent a "humanzee," a human-chimp chimera. But as the Stanford University bioethicist Henry Greely told Ms. Begley: "The centaur has left the barn."

Knowing that mixing up species in a Circean blender conjures up nightmarish images, the National Academy of Sciences addressed the matter last month - stepping into the stem-cell vacuum left by the government and issuing research guidelines.

While research on chimeras may be valuable, the guidelines, in a fit of "Island of Dr. Moreau" queasiness, suggested bans on inserting human embryonic stem cells into an early human embryo, apes or monkeys.

The idea is to avoid animals with human sex cells or brain cells, Mr. Wade wrote. "There is a remote possibility that an animal with eggs made of human cells could mate with an animal bearing human sperm. To avoid human conception in such circumstances, the academy says chimeric animals should not be allowed to mate," he explained. Human cells in an animal brain could also be a problem. As Janet Rowley, a University of Chicago biologist, told a White House ethics panel: "All of us are aware of the concern that we're going to have a human brain in a mouse with a person saying, 'Let me out.' "

Mary Shelley was right. Playing Creator is tricky - even if you chase down your accidents with torches.

President Bush's experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq created his own chimeras, by injecting feudal and tribal societies with the cells of democracy, and blending warring factions and sects. Some of the forces unleashed are promising; others are frightening.

In a chilling classified report to Congress last week, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, conceded that Iraq and Afghanistan operations had restricted the Pentagon's ability to handle other conflicts.

That's an ominous admission in light of North Korea's rush toward nukes, which was spurred on by the Iraq invasion and North Korea's conviction that, in bargaining with Mr. Bush, real weapons trump imaginary - or chimerical - ones.

The U.S. invasion also spawned a torture scandal, and its own chimeric (alas, not chimerical) blend of former enemies - the Baathists and foreign jihadists - with access to Iraqi weapons caches.

The Republican Party is now a chimera, too, a mutant of old guard Republicans, who want government kept out of our lives, and evangelical Christians, who want government to legislate religion into our lives.

But exploiting God for political ends has set off powerful, scary forces in America: a retreat on teaching evolution, most recently in Kansas; fights over sex education, even in the blue states and blue suburbs of Maryland; a demonizing of gays; and a fear of stem cell research, which could lead to more of a "culture of life" than keeping one vegetative woman hooked up to a feeding tube.

Even as scientists issue rules on chimeras in labs, a spine-tingling he-monster with the power to drag us back into the pre-Darwinian dark ages is slouching around Washington. It's a fire-breathing creature with the head of W., the body of Bill Frist and the serpent tail of Tom DeLay.

[wagglebee]

I've seen just about every werewolf, Dracula and mermaid movie ever made, I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator, and the Sphinx of Greek mythology is a role model for her lethal brand of mystery.

And when that's not enough she just looks in the mirror!

[wagglebee]

[freedumb2003]

FReeper Rule 1902.1(a)(r):

[wagglebee]

Look at #2!!

[woofie]

next time post those pictures and forget the Dowd column

[wagglebee]

How's this?

[Socratic]

"...I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator..."

Don't ya just love those novelty items which use your own photo?

[freedumb2003]

Yep -- good to see folk are on the job! :)

[West Coast Conservative]

[ErnBatavia]

"Hey, Mo...would you wash my back?"

[LibKill]

Very cool, but Xenalyte is prettier.

[humblegunner]

Chimeras got attention again in the mid-80's, Sharon Begley of The Wall Street Journal noted, when embryonic goat cells were merged with embryonic sheep cells to produce a "geep," when a human-mouse chimera was born and when "scientists took brain-to-be tissue from quail embryos and transplanted it into chicken embryos. Once hatched, the chicks made sounds like baby quails."

1962, Canada, Quantam Labs, LLC.

[MisterRepublican]

What an appropriate subject for the Queen of the Harpies to be discussing.

[humblegunner]

Xenalyte is prettier.

Yes she is!

[woofie]

can you ask her to drop that fur thing? Im in PETA

[Nam Vet]

I just love it when the Catherine Zeta-Jones pics Maureen Dowd articles are posted.

Nam Vet

[Little Bill]

If the pics below are of Mo, she is Black Irish and beyond the pale. The average Irishman is like a rock before the tide. The black Irish are a foreign race and unconvertible. My old ma is an example.

[Cyclopean Squid]

The best lack all conviction
While the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Hmmm. Sounds a bit like the Senate.

[Dan from Michigan]

The pics are of Catherine Zeta-Jones(Welsh). Michael Douglas kicked Dowdy to the curb for her.

[SmithL]

Welcome to Free Republic
; )

[xJones]

next time post those pictures and forget the Dowd column

The Dowd columns present the only excuse for posting lots and lots of Catherine Zeta-Jones photos.:)

[Anti-Bubba182]

Lol! I thought:

"I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator"

...And another Medusa in my mirror.

[jdm]

" I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator, and the Sphinx of Greek mythology is a role model for her lethal brand of mystery."

Medusa magnet on this lib's fridge? Makes sense. Flip the prefix of the word "Medusa" and you have "DemUSA." I'm thinking too hard, aren't I? Grasping for straws!

[carlr]

It is hard to grasp how monumentally stupid this creature is.
Luckily she only writes for a low class rag not a higher paper like "My Weekly Reader".

[jdm]

First two syllables I meant to say -- not prefix! Geez. I'm not on my game today.

[SmithL]

The Medusa was alive until she looked it in the eye.

[jdm]

What I really meant was first two syllables excluding last letter of the second syllable. I picked a bad week to stop meth cold turkey. :)

[Disambiguator]

Chimera, the she-monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail: "A fearful creature, great and swift of foot and strong/Whose breath was flame unquenchable."

Maybe it's just me, but when I read this, Hillary! comes to mind.

[Steel Wolf]

Allow me to quote this passage above.

As Janet Rowley, a University of Chicago biologist, told a White House ethics panel: "All of us are aware of the concern that we're going to have a human brain in a mouse with a person saying, 'Let me out.' "

Mary Shelley was right. Playing Creator is tricky - even if you chase down your accidents with torches.

President Bush's experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq created his own chimeras, by injecting feudal and tribal societies with the cells of democracy, and blending warring factions and sects.

Now, on what planet is this considered good writing? It makes no sense at all.

[spinestein]

"Mo" spends eleven paragraphs babbling seemingly without purpose or direction about scientists creating chimeras by gene splicing and then "Bammo", this;

[President Bush's experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq created his own chimeras, by injecting feudal and tribal societies with the cells of democracy, and blending warring factions and sects. Some of the forces unleashed are promising; others are frightening.]

What a simple, yet intelligent analogy she's come up with to describe President Bush's foreign policy.

No, wait. That other thing. Convoluted, yet idiotic.

[HitmanLV]

the Sphinx of Greek mythology is a role model for her lethal brand of mystery.

MoDo is a poor writer - what is specifically worth emulating about deadly mystery? Classic case of her writing over her head. It's a miracle she gets published - this stuff isn't even high school newspaper level.

[Little Bill]

A branch of my family is Welsh, they are dark haired and mostly blue eyed. Old Zeta-Jones has the same completion as my mother did when she was young. My mothers family was from Ulster, and are blonds and blue eyed for the most part, except for dear old ma, she looks Spanish or Italian except for the Irish nose.

I asked my Grandma about it, she blamed on the milkman, joke, heavily Catholic, married for 65 years.

[HitmanLV]

the Sphinx of Greek mythology is a role model for her lethal brand of mystery.

MoDo is a poor writer - what is specifically worth emulating about deadly mystery? Classic case of her writing over her head. It's a miracle she gets published - this stuff isn't even high school newspaper level.

[xcamel]

MoDo Bird.

Extinct, Thank Heaven.

[Little Bill]

I have a couple of years on you, welcome to FR newby.(LOL)

[razorback-bert]

I am tired, I read it as "What rough BREASTS".


Made sense since it is Maureen.

[SmithL]

I knew that.

I also knew that I should have been ashamed of myself.

Oh well.

heh heh heh

[sageb1]

"Chimera" must have been the "word of the day" on Dowd's desk calendar and she decided to look it up.

[wagglebee]

"Chimera" must have been the "word of the day" on Dowd's desk calendar and she decided to look it up.

Because God knows she has been called a beast often enough!

[Crawdad]

Maureen Dowd is a peckerwood.

[baseballmom]

ROFLOL, I got it anyway.

[Doctor Raoul]

I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator...

She forgot it's actually a picture frame.

[wagglebee]

It's actually a just a mirror.

[Doctor Raoul]

Mo's drinking heavy again...

[thelastvirgil]

What a torturous path this dumb, pinko, frigid broad leads us down in order to finally declare how much she detests Republicans in general, and President Bush in particular. One more barrel of ink wasted on foggy logic.

The horror!

[river rat]

I've heard some opinions - that believe the "Black Irish" are actually descendants of Greeks who sailed to Ireland and Scotland.....
Semper Fi

[Xenalyte]

Awwww, y'all are makin' me blush.

[PGalt]

Dowd has the mind of a gargoyle.

[humblegunner]

Awwww, y'all are makin' me blush.

S'OK.. yer cute when ye blush.