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Detailed Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks FAQ Page Now Online [Culture Dish]

I've been working for a while to develop a Frequently Asked Questions page to answers the most common reader questions about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Well, it's now online, and it addresses questions ranging from why HeLa cells are immortal to how the Lacks family is benefiting from the book. It also includes answers to commonly asked publishing questions, like, How do I break into science writing?  You can read it online here.  If you have burning questions not answered there, leave them in the comments section below -- I'll add to the FAQ as questions arise and time allows. 

Detailed Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks FAQ Page Now Online

I've been working for a while to develop a Frequently Asked Questions page to answers the most common reader questions about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Well, it's now online, and it addresses questions ranging from why HeLa cells are immortal to how the Lacks family is benefiting from the book. It also includes answers to commonly asked publishing questions, like, How do I break into science writing?  You can read it online here.  If you have burning questions not answered there, leave them in the comments section below -- I'll add to the FAQ as questions arise and time allows. 

Another View of the Gambling Bill

Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, writing in Card Player, has a very optimistic take on the new gambling bill from the poker industry's perspective. It's perhaps a bit too optimistic, but it does suggest another possible basis for a court challenge. I'll post a long excerpt below the fold: Even though the Attorney General's office has publicly taken the position that the 1961 Wire Act forbids online poker, in 10 years they have not put their money where their mouth is. Why? The judiciary (that is, the interpreting body) has already held that the 1961 Wire Act doesn't speak to poker. It only applies to…

Open Textbooks

Georgia Harper saw an interesting article in USA Today about Open textbooks and, among else, says: Open access is just one part of a much bigger and more complex picture. I am very optimistic that open access will find its way into the book market (or what we call books today), but again, it's not like that will cut off the flow of revenues. Quite the contrary. It just makes it possible for a lot more people to benefit from the work of authors while authors and those who help them ready their works for public consumption still reap sufficient financial rewards to make creating worthwhile.…

UK inquiry into personalised medicine: the tension of personalised healthcare in a public health system

Mark Henderson reports that an influential UK think-tank, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, has launched an inquiry into personalised medicine: The Nuffield working party includes nine scientists, social scientists, lawyers and philosophers. It will consider whether genetic tests ought to be regulated more tightly, and whether people who buy them and then consult their GPs about the results should have to pay for such follow-up advice. The inquiry will also examine other aspects of direct-to-consumer healthcare, such as MRI and CT scans [...] Hugh Whittall, director of the Nuffield Council,…

Worthwhile and/or Interesting Medical Sites

Just for kicks, in case anyone cares, and is not already familiar with these sites, here are a few that I use: class="inset" alt="" src="http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/430/20060421021059/www.merckmedicus.com/ppdocs/us/hcp/images/redesign/img_mm_logo.jpg" align="left" border="0" height="39" width="140"> href="http://www.merckmedicus.com/pp/us/hcp/hcp_home.jsp">Merck Medicus is a great site.  I had to provide some medical license information, so I don't think it is available to everyone.  That is annoying, but I understand why they do that.  The site provides free access to…

The unauthorized autobiography of George W. Bush

I get a lot of mail from publishers, and this one had me going for a moment…one thing I don't get is much mail from right-wing sources (other than the usual excoriations, of course.) This one looks so much like authentic Republican PR that it took a moment for it to sink in. Speaking from the heart, not from the brain, this legendary Commander-in-Chief takes us on a journey through his momentous life. The great man we hear here displays his mother's steely resolve and vindictive temper, his father's keen mastery of language, and his own unique gift of deciding. That's a work of genius……

The Psychological Secrets of Online Flame Wars

What is it about email that causes an otherwise civilized person to write and send an offensive, rude or downright mean message to someone else? That is the question that John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., addressed in his 2004 paper published in CyberPsychology & Behavior. Suler found that several psychological factors lead to disinhibition online: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online…

Call for submissions to Nuffield Council on Bioethics inquiry into personalised medicine

I just received the following email from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics - I'd recommend anyone interested in the future of personalised medicine in the UK consider submitting their views to the inquiry. I'll be putting together my own submission, which I'll also post here on Genetic Future. Medical profiling and online medicine: the ethics of 'personalised' healthcare in a consumer age The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is currently running a consultation on Medical profiling and online medicine: the ethics of 'personalised' healthcare in a consumer age. The paper provides background…

The other conference I missed…

…was the SkepchickCon in Minneapolis this past weekend. This was a consequence of some extremely ugly last minute flight rearrangements from Germany that brought me home significantly later than I had planned (although Lufthansa did helpfully tell me I could get back earlier if I would just buy that seat in first class in an earlier flight…for an additional $5000). Melissa Kaercher did make the grand effort of connecting me up virtually over skype for the Evolution 101 panel, but unfortunately, the internet in my hotel went totally kablooiee 5 minutes after the panel started. Oh, well. I…

Alovasudden, SCIENCE!!!

I was just derping around at Cycle Gear this afternoon, when alovasudden, SCIENCE!!! Couple: *debating about what color helmet to buy - its summer, should they get the white/yellow one instead of black/blue* Cycle Gear Dude: "The material that makes helmets work as helmets insulates you from the 'heat' of the sun.  We did an experiment last summer-- we put a white helmet and a black helmet out in the summer sun for four hours, with a cup of water underneath. There was like, not even a degree difference between  the temperature of the water between them." Me, from across the store: "HAAA!…

Important and cool nature and conservation news.

You really must give up seafood from the ocean. Or at least, there is an argument that says this, and you can read it here. Wolverines. I once saw a wolverine in a state that was known to not have wolverines anymore. That was a long time ago and I think they are recognized as having returned to those forests. Now, we have wolverines in Colorado for the first time since 1919. I am shocked and amazed that wolverines had been extirpated from Colorado. All ivory is bad. Antique, modern, you name it. If you buy ivory, you are poaching an African Elephant. I assume you knew this already,…

Wanted: Quantum Loonies

Dude, can I get a Canadian aerospace company to win a United States federal contract and as a consequence have to fund my quantum computing research? Dalhousie research is taking a quantum leap into next-generation computing. The university has received $2 million from Lockheed Martin that will benefit the university's basic scientific research in an area of quantum computing, physics and material sciences. The money, to be spread over four years, is part of the company's commitment to spend $242 million in Atlantic Canada as part of its industrial benefits obligation arising from the federal…

Goodbye, Seattle P-I

My original hometown of Seattle,Washington, is experiencing a profound loss, a loss that has been or will soon be experienced by other cities throughout the country. Seattle is losing their morning newspaper, the Seattle P-I. Today, the last print version of "the P-I" will be published, although the paper will maintain a presence on the internet as an electronic-only newspaper -- the largest newspaper to do so -- so far. Certainly, as a regular reader of five electronic newspapers who doesn't subscribe to any print newspapers, I am part of the problem. However, I do eagerly read the NYTimes…

I am Worth More Dead Than Alive!

tags: cadaver calculator, online quiz Thanks to my drinking pal (and blog pal) Orac, I now know that, as corpses go, I am worth a fair amount, it would appear, according to the cadaver calculator. In fact, I'd guess that I am worth more dead than alive! How about you? $5150.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating

Musical Audition 2.0: Live, from Carnegie Hall, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra

Beautiful -- YouTube and Carnegie Hall are holding online auditions for the "world's' first collaborative online orchestra": In short, YouTube is offering a new twist on the familiar formula of how to get to Carnegie Hall: Practice, practice, upload. From the Washington Post, YouTube Announces Auditions for Its Own Symphony Orchestra You can even download the score for the audition piece, "Internet Symphony No 1: Eroica."

#scio10 aftermath: first thoughts on "Online Civility and Its (Muppethugging) Discontents.

There was one session at ScienceOnline2010 which I did not Tweet as it was going on -- the session I led with Sheril Kirshenbaum and Dr. Isis. Here's how that session was described in the conference program: Online Civility and Its (Muppethugging) Discontents - Janet Stemwedel, Sheril Kirshenbaum and Dr.Isis Description: Janet, Sheril, and Isis regularly write about the role of civility in dialog with the public and other scientists. In this session, we will discuss the definition of civility, its importance in the communication of science, and how the call to civility can be used to derail…

An Interview with Dr. Isis from On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

When Dr. Isis first joined ScienceBlogs, she attracted attention with her bombastic commentary, gravity-defying shoes and a persona that steamrolled the stereotypical image of the safety goggle-wearing white male scientist. Those who oppose her are immediately forced to face their preconceived notions of what it means to be a scientist and acknowledge the gender barriers that exist in the field when she innocently asks, "What's wrong with being an incredibly hot woman and someone who does good science?" But who is the real Dr. Isis, and what makes her tick? To find out, I ventured to a realm…

Morning in Carrboro

This morning bright and early, I went to Weaver Street Market (the one in Carrboro, not the one a block away from me), where I met Paul Jones for coffee and a session of people-watching - a Saturday morning tradition. Carrboro is like a miniature version of San Francisco in a sense. While Chapel Hill is populated by Birckenstock liberals (hey, I am one, so I feel comfortable), in Carrboro you can wear, figuratevily, anything you want: Birckenstocks, sure, but also sneakers, clogs, slippers, high-heels, army boots, cowboy boots, loafers, sandals, Tevas, or go barefoot and, no matter what,…

Will employers scrap their health plans and send employees to exchanges? Do we want them to?

One of the things policy wonks are keeping an eye on as the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented is the proportion of employers who stop offering employees insurance and instead give their workers money they can use to pay premiums of plans sold on health insurance exchanges (or marketplaces). As Robert Pear reports in the New York Times, though, a new IRS ruling will discourage employers from doing that. The IRS will not consider employer arrangements that give workers premium funds (for purchasing insurance through exchanges) to satisfy the ACA requirements, which means employers could…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with John McKay

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked John McKay from Archy and Mammoth Tales blogs to answer a few questions. Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? I've…

The Friday Fermentable: Rosemount Estates, Robert Oatley, and Nugan Shiraz

If you're in Australia or North America, chances are your first experience with Shiraz was in the form widely-available from Rosemount Estates. Shiraz is derived from the same stock as Syrah that is grown in France's Rhone Valley. The Australian "father of viticulture," James Busby, brought Syrah to the continent in the 1830s while collecting vines in Spain and France. I think I bought my first bottle of Rosemount Shiraz in 1996 or 1998 for $7.99 USD; it can still be had for $10 or $11. In this grad student/postdoc-friendly price range, the wine was quite drinkable as compared with too-…

Well, well, well, well...look who's a pharma shill now!

Because of my stands against dubious medical "therapies" and outright quackery and for science- and evidence-based medicine, I have been the frequent target of what I've come to call the "pharma shill gambit." It's a pretty stupid and common ad hominem attack in which the attacker, virtually always an advocate of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) tries to smear those of us who argue against pseudoscience and for science-based medicine as being hopelessly in the pocket of big pharma to the point where we make the statements we do because we're "shills" for the drug companies.…

Isiah Thomas to Coach Knicks?

ESPN is reporting that New York Knicks owner James Dolan is going to buy out the last 4 years of Larry Brown's contract ($40 million left on it, so you gotta figure it's gonna cost half that to buy it out) and that he is then going to name Isiah Thomas as coach. I'm almost giddy with anticipation of next season if this happens. There appears to be no truth to the rumors that he will then move the team to Washington and rename them the Generals, but only time will tell for sure. To paraphrase Huey Long, Thomas must have pictures of Dolain with either a live boy or a dead girl. Nothing else…

Links 11/28/10

Links for you. Science: How complexity leads to simplicity (video) Lost & Cast Away: Ten Amazing Uninhabited Islands Mapping fitness: landscapes, topographic maps, and Seattle Other: Mistaken assumptions: jobs, business and tax cuts Corporate America Hearts Obama (from 2008, but worth reading in light of the last two years) GE to state: Give us money or these jobs buy it Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving Compromise on Social Security and Medicare? Why My Center-Left Friends are Wrong NONE DARE CALL IT SABOTAGE....

Online Poker is Not Illegal. Will That Matter?

I've been doing a bit of research, spurred by this article by Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, on the legal status of online poker. And I've found that most of what Shulman says is spot on. She points to a Federal court ruling in the case of In re Mastercard International, the full text of which can be found here. But first, let's look at what the new Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act actually says. It says that banks and financial transaction companies can no longer accept electronic transfers, credit cards, etc. that are involved in "unlawful Internet gambling." And how does it define "…

Gender Balance of SF Awards

John Scalzi is asking for discussion of the Hugo Award nominees, noting that other than a brief controversy over the fact that only one nominated work in the fiction categories is by a woman, there hasn't been much discussion. This reminded me that it would be good to put in another plug for the foolproof solution to the problem: Buy a membership to next year's Worldcon, and vote for whatever you like. The membership rates will go up after tomorrow, but for right now, $40 will get you a supporting membership, which carries full voting rights for the next round of Hugos, and I believe gives…

Whitey Bulger Convicted, and the Trivers Willard Hypothesis

Whitey Bulger has finally been convicted of a small percentage of all the bad things he is said to have done. The Boston Globe has the details. James J. “Whitey” Bulger, the notorious Boston gangster who rampaged through the city’s underworld for decades before slipping away from authorities and eluding a worldwide manhunt for more than 16 years, was convicted today in federal court of charges that will likely keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Don't count on that. Whitey has slipped from the clutches of justice several times before. He'll probably make a break for it between…

Sullivan on death of newspapers

Forgive if I'm obsessed with this death-of-journalism thing -- Andrew Sullivan has a nice piece in the Times of London about dying newspapers. Like Surowiecki, he fears the loss of the deep reporting that newspapers are already doing less of, and for which so far we have no real replacement venue. Stunning stat from the story: The Baltimore Sun, a pretty big and renowned paper (and the basis for The Wire) gets about 17.5 million page views a month. Sullivan's blog at Atlantic gets 23 million: The operation largely run out of my spare room reached many more online readers than some of the…

"A Tantalizing Hint of Dark Matter?" No.

One of the reasons I write here on ScienceBlogs is because of our associations with the New York Times, a journalistic news source that I'm proud of on most days. Today is not one of those days. It isn't just the Times, either, the BBC is busy botching this story, so is the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and pretty much everyone else, except for TG Daily, which got it right. If you go down to the bottom of Soudan Mine in Minnesota, you'll see an usual site for a mine: a group of giant physics experiments! Why? At the bottom of mineshafts, you have up to hundreds of feet of Earth protecting you…

SiBlings, Part II

Here is the second part of the introduction to SEED sciencebloggers, the next eleven (check out the first part if you have missed it yesterday). I hope you like them and appreciate the breadth and depth of writing here (so, yes, if you have a blog, and you are registered with Technorati - which if you have a blog you should be - please make scienceblogs.com, as well as any or all individual blogs here that you may like, one of your favourites) Have you checked Digital Biology Fridays on Discovering Biology in a Digital World yet? Sandra Porter shows you how YOU can do molecular biology at…

Here's a Technology That Will Revolutionize Publishing

Regular readers will know that I'm not an intertubez triumphalist. But I read that the Harvard Book Store has bought itself a fancy gizmo to print any book in about four minutes: Battered booksellers, especially independent ones, have so far withstood the punishing shock-and-awe offensive of Internet Age marauders like Amazon. Now, they have a secret weapon that they hope will continue to lure customers into their stores: would you believe it's a machine that can print up a fresh new paperback copy from a menu of 3.6 million books? Harvard Book Store cleared out space behind its History,…

A Free MIT Education = MITx

Yes, earning a degree from MIT can be costly. Believe it or not, MIT has been offering free course materials for ten years now. If you're an educator, and you're not familiar with their extraordinary OpenCourseWare, you're missing out. One hundred million people so far have learned from this free open source. OpenCourseWare, a free online publication of nearly all of MIT's undergraduate and graduate course materials. Now in its 10th year, OpenCourseWare includes nearly 2,100 MIT courses and has been used by more than 100 million people. MIT announced today that OpenCourseWare was just…

Quorum Sensing and the Blogosphere as a Superorganism

A microbiological metaphor for the blogosphere (from November 27, 2005): Heh! I always wanted to write this post. Being lazy is actually good sometimes. Just wait long enough and, lo and behold, someone else will write your post! Saves you time and energy. Daniel Conover, whom I had great pleasure to meet in person at the ConvergeSouth conference, wrote a very thought-provoking post: Bacteria, blogs, holographic consciousness and The Singularity. There is a lot of biology there, but that is just a pretext for trying to understand what the Internet, and blogs in particular, are growing up to…

What Food Stamp Cuts Mean: The Picture Book Edition

The Washington Independent ran pictures taken by Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, showing what a week's worth of food stamps will buy you: Remember this amount of food includes supplemental funding from the ARRA. Here's what one week looks like when you get rid off the supplemental funding: Here's what will be lost: First, I'm not seeing a whole lot of caviar or filet mignon here. Second, how the hell is a child supposed to learn on a diet like this? (I bet teachers unions are behind this somehow...).

Scilla siberica

Spring is coming slowly, but it's finally coming. These squills have been awakened by heat radiating from our house, but still they reach for the sun. In other news, Discover Magazine continues to buy over top Sb bloggers, and I have finally learned the story behind the state of Oklahoma's weird panhandled outline. Briefly put, it ended up that way because the state of Texas allowed slavery but the Union allowed it only south of a certain line. And so when Texas joined the Union, it ceded a ribbon of land that was north of the slavery line.

Lowe's or Home Depot?

If you're considering purchasing some supplies for home repair from one of the mega-chains, you might want to consider their advertising policies. Archy makes a good case that you should shop at Lowe's—they don't support barking mad reactionary freaks. Of course, it's a bit irrelevant to me, since I don't have either one near me. Instead, we've got four or five small locally owned hardware stores. Their owners might be sympathetic to Bill O'Reilly, but they don't have enough money to buy air time on his show.

I approve this purchase

The Talk Origins Archive Foundation is bidding to buy the movie Expelled from its bankrupt owner. They're looking for donations to use in bidding in the auction (note: donations will be used for this purpose, but they obviously can't guarantee they'll win; if they don't, the money will be used to support the foundation in other ways). I think it would be wonderful and ironic if the most heavily promoted creationist propaganda film of the decade and its unused footage became the property of a science education organization, so help them out if you can.

Cat loses weight on underwater treadmill!!

You have to see this to believe it. This video from CNN shows how a 31-pound cat is losing weight by walking on an underwater treadmill. I wonder how they were able to get this cat to even stay in the water. I think my cat would lose more weight in the process of fighting to stay out of the water. I would also have to buy A LOT of bandaids before attempting it. In fact, I am pretty sure the cat in this YouTube video "saying no" to a bath is a close relative of my cat:

State of the Wild

550 cites will have populations of more than 1 million by 2015. 58% of the known human pathogens are zoonotic - they can jump between humans and animals. 371 people have been diagnosed with avian influenza as of March 2008, including 235 deaths. 5,000 western lowland gorillas have died from Ebola virus over the past several year. Visit Wildlife Conservation Society's State of the Wild website (or buy the book) to learn more about the state of the wild. You can also watch video presentations of the recent event in New York City.

Electric Wave Park

A new blog I discovered, and seem strangely drawn to, is Information Junk, the findings of a San Franciscan librarian. Via IJ, I see that PG&E has agreed to buy power from a "wave park". No it's not a water park with lots of tourists creating energy through unspeakable means. Rather it's eight buoys bobbing in the water 2 1/2 miles offshore of Northern California, each buoy generating electricity as it rises and falls with the waves. The array, schedule for completion in 2012, will produce enough wattage to light 1,500 hundreds homes or 5 during Christmas.

Around the Web: On women science bloggers

Since the Perils of blogging as a woman under a real name panel at ScienceOnline 2011 there's been quite a bit of commentary floating around the science blogosphere about how women are represented within that community. A kind of introduction: The perils women sciencebloggers face are not that different than those we face in the real world... though the exposure of the internet can occasionally make it less safe. And the risks that women avoid out in the world, are not unlike those we avoid in the blogosphere. That was one of many important conclusions made in the panel Sheril Kirshenbaum,…

Education and Outreach at ScienceOnline2010

Every year, we pay special attention to sessions that explore the use of the Web in science education. This year is no different - there are several sessions to choose from: Citizen Science and Students - Sandra Porter, Tara Richerson (science_goddess), and Antony Williams Description: Students are a great resource for projects that require large numbers of volunteers. We will discuss examples of projects that combine student learning with authentic research and the power of blogs to connect students with projects. Discuss here. Science Education: Adults - Darlene Cavalier Description: "…

Education and Outreach at ScienceOnline2010

Every year, we pay special attention to sessions that explore the use of the Web in science education. This year is no different - there are several sessions to choose from: Citizen Science and Students - Sandra Porter, Tara Richerson (science_goddess), and Antony Williams Description: Students are a great resource for projects that require large numbers of volunteers. We will discuss examples of projects that combine student learning with authentic research and the power of blogs to connect students with projects. Discuss here. Science Education: Adults - Darlene Cavalier Description: "…

I Hate the Great Firewall

Here's just short note to tell you, Dear Reader, that the Great Firewall of China is fucking annoying. I am unable to access Twitter, Facebook, any Blogspot blog and often most of Google's services including Gmail. Meanwhile, the Chinese populace is so closely keyed in to what's happening in the West that girls in remote Qingtian are wearing exactly the same ultrashort denim shorts as their contemporaries in Stockholm this spring. But I guess the Great Firewall is intended to keep domestic dissidents from reaching an audience as much as or more than to keep the Chinese from learning about the…

Not Exactly Rocket Science on Amazon!!

My book's listed on Amazon! Now, because it's published print-on-demand, I think that Amazon will continue to list it as "Out of stock" until it gets about 5 or so orders in. When they have proof that people will actually buy it, they'll actually keep some copies in stock. Sooo... If you're interested in the book and don't mind about when you get it, please order a copy from Amazon. If you want a copy before Christmas, I'd recommend ordering from Lulu (and before 12 December). If you've already ordered a copy of the book and read it, I'd be grateful for any reviews on Amazon that you…

Holy crap: Trust

One of the many reasons why I love being a science blogger, is it lets normal people peek into the lives of scientists and our culture. I joked at a recent OKC Atheists meeting that no one would ever make a reality TV show about my lab work-- while it is conceptually awesome, its just not fun to sit and watch (someone needs to do a montage of a Western Blot to the 'Rocky' theme). But I can do little blog posts about the scientific culture, like this one. If there is one word I would use to summarize being a scientist, its 'trust'. Yes, we are highly critical of one anothers work. But we…

Links for 2012-03-21

Drug smuggler? Victim of scholar envy? UNC prof in Argentine jail - Crime/Safety - NewsObserver.com A 68-year-old UNC-Chapel Hill physics professor with three degrees from Oxford University is being held in an Argentine prison on charges of trying to smuggle two kilograms of cocaine. Paul H. Frampton, who holds the title Louis D. Rubin Jr. Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, said in a telephone interview that he was arrested Jan. 23 at the airport in Buenos Aires after the drugs were found in his checked luggage en route to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Frampton said he…

The Queen Surveys the Scene

"What the hell is this?" "We're remodeling the garage into a family room." "Oooh! That's a good idea!" "Thanks. We're so glad you approve." "So, where are you going to put the bunny hutch?" "I beg your pardon?" "For me to keep my bunnies in!" "You don't have any bunnies." "Not yet, I don't, but now that we'll have room, you can buy me some. I can play with them in here, or out in my yard..." "Ah, no. I don't think so. We won't be buying you any bunnies." "Then why did you buy the bunny hutch?" "The what?" "The hutch. The thing with the hard mattress surrounded by bars, upstairs. It's for…

The futility of being Cheri Yecke

Yecke, Minnesota's former odious education commissioner, is now campaigning to be odious education commissioner for the state of Florida. Her history in our fair state is now a bit of a stain on her reputations, so she hired a company called "reputationdefender" to sanitize the internet for her. This company googles up people who have said unkind things about their clients and sends out email threats to them, telling them to take it down. Their first target: gentle Wesley Elsberry. What's particularly weird about this is that the post in question is simply a collection of news clippings with…