Far Out

15 April 2010

Today, the three of us ventured to the Como Planetarium. Jennifer, having lived her childhood only about a mile from the place, had been there on field trips through school, but for Owen and me, this was a first. When I was at the science museum one day in my pre-teens, I picked up a flyer that talked about the planetarium, and I stuck it on the fridge for months, asking my parents if we could go to one of the shows. They never did.

So, now, since my son is interested in astronomy, we went. And…it was decent. The teacher heading up the program had plenty of enthusiasm, an broke concepts down so that even the youngest in the audience (Owen?) could understand. He kind of had a Bill Nye-ishness about him. Unfortunately, we we far back in the line, and so, once we gained admission, there was no place to sit but in the front row. The seats reclined, but we still had to tilt our heads back 90 degrees. I kept contorting my neck in all sorts of crazy positions to see overhead. People who came in after us had to sit on the floor, which might have actually been better, because then they could lay down or turn around as needed.The full-capacity crowd was due to the subject: planets.

It took the teacher a while to get around to the planets. He first used a TV screen up front that showed an image of the planets to scale. He detailed their names and composition, and when he asked what Pluto was made out of, Owen shouted out the answer, which boosted his self-confidence to a level that still has yet to renormalize.

After this into, the teacher turned off the lights and projected a reproduction of last winter’s night sky. He spent about a half-hour discussing various constellations. Yes, I agree, it’s good to know where the zodiac is, so as to find the planets, and, yes, all the constellations are useful, but I get tired of the whole: “See that star there? It connects to that one, and then to that one, and that one, and that forms a lion!” No, it doesn’t. Let’s just say that this particular group of stars is Leo and leave it at that. Taurus does not look like a bull; Virgo does not look like a young maiden; Cancer does not look like a crab. At least, not to someone who abstains from LSD. The big dipper looks like a dipper, the stars in Orion’s belt form a straight line, and that’s it.

Finally, about 50 minutes into the program, the teacher took us out to a planet. We checked out Mercury, Venus, zoomed into the Valles Marineris and ‘landed’ on Olympus Mons on Mars, then went out to the outer planets. We visited one Galilean satellite, flitted above and below Saturn’s rings, saw a quick shot of an artist’s conception of Pluto, then zoomed out to the Oort Cloud. No Neptune or Uranus…I was bummed. My father-in-law, who is a fan of Uranus in the most juvenile way possible, would have likewise been let down.

Lastly, we sped out to the edge of the universe, and then came back and ‘landed’ on Earth, near the Twin Cities.

I’d like to go again sometime – get some better seats, maybe, and see if he spends more time on lesser-known Solar System objects. Maybe we need to wait until Owen gets a bit older, though, he was a bit freaked out at the room’s darkness.

16 April 2010

So, I was informed yesterday that my cousin Amber when in for her scheduled c-section to have baby #2 extracted from her belly. My mom told me this coupled with a grave voice that quickly led into details of Amber’s preeclampsia. I was told my cousin was so sick that she was not allowed to be near her baby, and that only her husband could be with her. My mom left out some details that were  filled in by my sister’s call an hour later…

Turns out, my cousin’s liver had swollen and she was losing blood. Lots of it. This is bad news because…(drum roll)….Amber is a Jehovah’s Witness and therefore believes that receiving a blood transfusion is against god’s wishes. In a study last decade at St. Sinai Hospital in New York, Jehovah’s Witness women were found to die in childbirth at a rate of 512 per 100,000 live births due to obstetric hemorrhaging. This is 44 times the general population rate, which died at a rate of 12 per 100,000.

My sister called me primarily because she was mad at the religion. She had learned that a pack of elders had arrived at the hospital to “support” Amber. As my mom pointed out to my sister (via text messaging), they are just doing their job in supporting Amber’s wishes…which is true, as a Witness, Amber is committed to abstaining from whole blood – but their presence at the hospital certainly serves to ensure she complies with organizational wishes. Think of it this way: if Amber and her husband were alone at the hospital, they could discuss the risks/benefits of transfusion and make a decision in private. With 5+ elders on hand, however, it’s not likely she’d agree to a transfusion regardless of how dim her recovery prospects are.

Today, my sister called again to further vent about “our mom’s family.” In a sharp exchange of text messages, my mom said: “No matter what Amber chooses, we’ll still love her.” My sister, not always the best wordsmith, replied: “I’ll still lover her – can you say the same about your family?”

My sister is especially distraught, as Amber is her favorite cousin. And with good reason: alone of our dozen Witness cousins, Amber alone does not shun my sister. She was one of the few family members to attend my sister’s marriage to a non-Witness (back in 2002), and, when my sister was remarried in 2005, Amber was the maid of honor. Besides my immediate family, Amber was the only one of my relatives to visit us in the hospital at Owen’s birth.

I am writing this several hours after I last spoke to my sister; no word yet on Amber’s condition.

If you want to learn just how ridiculous, inconsistent, and arbitrary the Watchtower ruling on blood is, CLICK HERE.