Listics

Dr. Lindsay Bennett is a resident in dermatology AND internal medicine at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. I met her the other day while I was wussing out over a skin condition. Her mentor, or whatever they call them, is Anne Rosin. Dr. Rosin is my dermatologist. Lindsay is her sidekick. I have to say that it’s a wonderful thing having two beautiful women poking and prodding palpating and stroking and giving you direct and concerned attention. It’s kind of sad though when they talk over your head about the moles and freckles and warts and rashes and say things like “at this stage of the game” when you know that means that there’s no hope for an old fart like yourself and any dreams you may have had of a complete integument transplant from some willing 20 year old donor just won’t be coming true.

So, I have this need to be hip and cool and naturally I had to tell Lindsay that I knew another Dr. Bennett, and ask if she was related. Slim chance, no cigar….

I was led to post these memories, from last week and from the 1970’s, by Halley’s post about bonding with her woman eye doctor. Who says that there aren’t lots of women in technology? I’m sure parity is still quite a ways off, but the UC (Long) and Moffitt Hospitals of Les Bennett’s day had way fewer women in the lead roles. The women then were nurses and the men were doctors. But the tide had begun to turn.

Ecologists talk about carrying capacity. When a species exceeds the carrying capacity of its native environment there is a die-back. Thus turns the wheel of life, in ebbs and flows. People on the planet are in a peculiar position. We can understand this concept of carrying capacity and we can try to do something about it. Why would we as a species welcome a die-back? Sheesh. If the lemmings could see it coming they’d probably take the month off and hunker down in front of the TV set.

It’s been my commonplace observation that there are a lot of peopole living on the planet today and that means that there will be a lot of people dying in our time. I don’t want to turn Sandhill into an obituary column, yet I don’t want to fail to mark the passage of loved ones, dear ones, important ones, and simply ones and twos whose passing marks me in some way.

The father (and father-in-law) of some friends died this week. Max Brown was 88, and now he is gone.

Thanks to Halley for the link to the NewsGator announcements from CES.

Turner’s getting back in touch with his inner Cooter.

It appears that Meg H. is going to the Stern Women in Business Conference. LEONARD Stern… what were you thinking?

Catching up on some reading this morning, I found Stu Savory’s Christmas Eve piece about holiday season beliefs and traditions. Spooky… the picture he paints of the US as a belief oriented society. But I wonder if he isn’t mixing up his pagan traditions a little? I always thought the pine tree traditions were similar but distinct from the Norse “world tree” perspective with Yggdrasil, the sacred ash at the center of all existence. And digging deeper into etymological distinctions, it was my understanding that it’s “in the pines, in the pines where the sun never shines.” So what does this have to do with “hauling ashes?” Just wondering.

Lewisburg, PA. December 26, 2003. yourDictionary.com … today released its Top 10 Words of 2003, featuring words that have made the news this year. The complete list includes the top phrases, the top names, the best and worst product names, top Enron inspired words, top YouthSpeak words, and others.

A Top Ten List or Three…" title="Bookmark using any bookmark manager!" target="_blank">

What a wonderful 24 hours I have had! Soon the travelogue will continue and perhaps the grinch-o-log will begin. I have a few acid observations to make and most people are just too nice to share this kind of stuff. But for now, I’m crawling into bed with a good book and keeping my ears tuned for sleigh bells.

To all a goodnight.

Getting ready to head out the door. Going to San Francisco. Maybe have lunch with Tom Shugart if we can connect.

I read on Joi Ito’s blog that John Perry Barlow is blogging. Started a new “People List” here by adding him through the TypePad list making utility. Very transparent. Over the next week or so I’ll rebuild my links and blogroll here.

Tom asked in a comment if people should change links and I equivocated. But given my pace of change, if you’re editing your blogroll and you have a moment, you might as well change Sandhill to reflect the new URL…

http://sandhill.typepad.com/sandhill_trek/

I’ll be glad you did!

But I’m still committed to staving off link-rot. Anything ion the old blog that you might have linked to will be preserved with the Radio permalink.

There will be a lot of integration and domain mapping and data conversion and all that hoot… but I’ve broken free of Radio. I’m out of the clutches of the raw meat man. No longer will bugs be downloaded overnight.

Here I am composing in a form window again though. I have to get out of the box and into textpad and simply use the form to upload.

With this little bit of basic template formatting and account creation out of the way, I think I’d better go do some housework.