Judging people by their covers

Apparently, looks really do matter. If the author's premise is true, society is already Gattica-like without need for those pesky dna-tests. What I find interesting is that apparently there's a bit of science going on as regards the whole beauty-thing. Really interesting--Russ and I have long decried greater society's slavish devotion to what we call "boring beauty", and perhaps there's something to that.

Then again, there's the empirical angle, which's intriguing. I'm no fan of Marilyn Monroe or Twiggy, but apparently what they both have in common with the oh-so lemurly Audrey Hepburn is a 0.7 waist/hip ratio, and that's considered important. It makes you wonder if one day public gyms will offer, for the proverbial nominal fee, a quantitative "beauty analysis". In one way it's really interesting, and in another, quite discomfiting. None of us like to think of ourselves as automata....

The Great Sheep Dip of 2005

Who knew sheep's fluffiness was a mass survival trait?

(07-08) 18:59 PDT ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) --

First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per head is around $2,700.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."

Koan of the Month

As related in the Genjokoan of Dogen Zenji:

Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"

"Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."

"What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.