I find a couple of things bothered me, but strangely the movie is growing on me. A bunch of things kind of bothered me right off the bat, but now I’m figuring out that there are a few extra layers that make it watchable a second time. I won’t say much more, there is some spoilage and I haven’t formalized my thoughts into any kind of review or essay. But it has caused me to go back and rewatch a movie and episode of the original series, and I’ll post my experiences with them in a day or two along with how I think they all mesh together. If you (how many readers? One or two of you?) still haven’t watched the movie and you care, well I guess you’ve been warned.

But one thing I can say: the 3D in this one was well done. Subtle, but enhancing the movie experience.

Here is the post: The Abuse of Russian Women

The links were broken, I added a couple of new ones.

This is the comment.

 I personally think your husband’s mother is the lowest type of human being. She picked her husband. She should stay with him. You husband probably has a female personality now. I have been on the net for 10 years now. It looks like the best way to live with a Russian lady is the same as an Asian lady. You just do not say anything. One Russian lady is blonde in one picture, red head in another, and brown hair in another. I ask her her real color. She throws a temper tantrum. This appears to be a typical Russian lady. All the abusive words come out. Russian woman are on the average bad news. They are like women from a ghetto. The only difference is they are Caucasian.

Maybe it’s a troll, but who cares. There are people like this in the world, so it’s worth replying to.

Emotional response: I’m shocked all the way down to my toes. Not too angry though. Just sad.

Analytic (but probably still emotional) response: So, first, our friend claims that a woman should stay with a man she married even if he is abusive because she chose him.

In the particular circumstances I talked about, and I suppose in majority of abusive circumstances, the man my MIL married wasn’t abusive when she married him. She didn’t choose abuse. Things got a little tough, he turned to drink, and was an angry drunk. There might have been little signals. But a woman – especially a relatively inexperienced young woman – doesn’t have a manual telling her what to look for to avoid an abusive mate.

If a man abuses a woman or their children (and this man was abusive to his children) he forfeits his right to be married to that woman. He is unworthy. He has proven to be someone who controls the people around him through violence. God does not require us to tolerate that kind of situation.

But lets assume a woman who marries a man she knows is abusive. She’s been emotionally manipulated. She thinks, perhaps, either that marriage will change him or that she is worthy of nothing else. Both of those are wrong. But at the time, she doesn’t know that. If by some miracle she learns that the abuse is not her fault, and that she doesn’t have to tolerate it – then she absolutely has the right to leave even if she chose the situation in the first place.

You see, we all make mistakes. Sometimes our decisions that we make because of lack of experience, or because of bad experiences before, are bad for us. Very bad for us. Repentance means we can leave the baggage behind. If someone was on drugs, and did the work to get off them, should they be forced to keep doing drugs because they chose it once upon a time? Of course not. If someone made the mistake of marrying an abusive person, should they be forced to continue to endure the violence of that person? Of course not!

Then, Tom puts down all Russian women and assumes (I’m not sure how, based on my original text) that my MIL is just like them because she refused to stay with an abusive man. He puts Asian women in the same boat. How is Tom meeting all these international women? It makes me wonder what his motivations are? Perhaps he is the abuser, the controller who requires a completely submissive wife and when he can’t find her in Russia or Asia, where he thought he might, he calls them trash.

This, women, is a man to avoid.

Let’s pound a few extra nails in the coffin.

My DH, without the handlebar mustache.

My mother in law probably raised my husband so that he has a female personality now?

Excuse me while I die laughing. Except that it’s completely offensive to every single mother and every child raised by their single mothers. To every mother who left a bad man because she wanted a better life for a child. Really, is an abusive man supposed to teach a boy how to be a man?

My husband is his father’s son. Prone to being very stressed and anxiety. Except he doesn’t drink, and he controls himself. Thanks in part to his mother showing him that such behavior was intolerable. He is the son of his culture. I’ve never seen him cry. He is not very ‘sensitive’ and finds it very difficult to step outside of traditional gender roles. It can be frustrating at times.

And yet, even with the flaw of not doing the laundry or the dishes, my husband is the man who encourages me to write, to learn, to be more. He wants me to be fulfilled. He doesn’t ask that I go make money even though that would help relieve some of his stress, that’s his job and he is supporting me as I raise good but challenging children, as I write and create, and volunteer. He is deeply concerned that his daughters do the same thing – find their passion in life and excel. Go to school. Work hard. Be good to other people. Be honest. Love God and love others. Always try to become better than what you are.

Also, he’s a fantastic cook.

If that’s female, then bring it on and a little more. I could have used some help changing diapers.

I suppose I’ve rambled in my venting. And I’ve missed a few of the things. But here is the point, Tom. If your words are sincere, you sadly do not know what it means to be a good man who provides a true sanctuary for a good woman so that together, you can grow children into good people. We are all flawed in different ways, and when we come together as husband and wife, it’s up to us to accept them as well as help each other excel and grow better.  But we are not required to accept the flaw of violence – either physical or emotional.

If you want to find a good woman, become a good man.

Sitting here with my family while they watch TV, laptop on my lap where it should be. Outside it’s really cold.

So, what’s up this year?

I’m secretary for Young Women. If you don’t know what that is, our church has a program for teenage women from 12 to 18 years old. It helps them learn how to study the scriptures and receive personal revelation so they can gain their own testimony of Jesus, it teaches life skills and encourages them to get an education so they can be self reliant, and we do a lot of community service. Generally we do this through Sunday services and weekly activities.

I’m still the Family School Organization (FSO) president at my son’s charter school. It’s not as organized as I’d like it to be, so I’m trying to get a committee of good parents to take care of things. Coming up is parent appreciation the week of Valentine’s day. That’s an intense week.

I have hardly written at all the past few months. There is just so much else going on. Besides these out of the home projects, I’m helping my hubby start a new business. And raising the older children. I have them in college, high school, and elementary school. It can be a challenge integrating all of that. I’m trying to live my life in a way that I’d be proud of myself if were to find out I’d be dying soon. No, I’m not dying soon but opportunities do die.

I’m not going to give up time with my children for a writing career. I’ve seen that with too many people. It’s a real enough problem that writers even write about it in fiction. Guess what? Being a writer doesn’t make us special exceptions to the rule. We have deadlines on kids, and it isn’t when they move out. Let’s not let those pass. And our spouses are more important than our careers too.

And sometimes, even if the kids are really good, they’re challenging in ways that might impact on writing. I’m creatively used up a lot these days. My children are brilliant geniuses. No really, I have the psychologists’ test on at least one of them. Gifted, they tell me.

I’ve lost myself in real life. I thought I’d be out of this stage at this point, but I’m still in it.

Also up this year, I’m going to grow a garden again, so I can stick it to the profiteering corporate grabbers. Oh, I mean, be self reliant. Already looking for the seeds, which will be heirloom. I learned a lot last year, and though I didn’t get all the fall stuff done my plot is better off now than it was before and I’m starting earlier than March.

Resolutions:

• I’d like to continue my goal of getting more organized. I’ve let the housework schedule slack because of stuff. I may need to change it up so I’m cleaning the whole house in one day. I don’t know.
• In keeping with the above, make sure I have to do lists. To do lists lets me clear my brain of things until I need to do them. So then I’m less stressed because I only have to remember to go over my to do list.
• Study scriptures just before family prayer. The last is already fairly well established and we’ve tried with the first. I think the problem is that sometimes, reading chapter by chapter consecutively gets boring even for the older kids. So rather than that, I am picking special scriptures beforehand, a few verses, and we will discuss. So it won’t be just reading but true study with the whole family.
• We don’t do family home evening very well. I think if I do the above, then throw in a song and video and let the discussion happen longer that might do the trick.
• Reinstate an exercise program that only takes half an hour a day. I’ve let it slide, because I have very little time. So, I’ll be getting up at 5:30 to do it.
• Get down to 140. I’ve weighed less in the last five years, but my face looks really gaunt at those weights. So, 140 it is. It’s a good weight for 5′ 8″.
• Get the charter done for the FSO and get it organized so it runs awesome.
• The secret guilt resolution that I don’t want to say because I’m worried I’ll fail: Write at least weekly in my blog and do the social networking stuff to keep it up.

That’s a lot. But it’s all really stuff I’ve already been working on, and using the New Year for a new beginning to give an extra push. Writing them down is like making my to do list.

When I watched the recent  ”Rock Center: Mormon in America”  they asked if our strict code of conduct meant we were too uniform and conforming.

I liked how it was answered by the wife in the family they interviewed. (BTW, nice to see an interracial family represented!)

“I don’t see it as a kind of uniformity code that we all have to march to. I want to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to live the commandments of the Lord. And they bring me happiness. I’m not doing anything that I don’t want to do.”

You can view the segment here.

But I wanted her to say more. I wanted her to say we aren’t uniform at all!

Our strong code of conduct allows us to live healthy, be free of worrying about what others think and free of the consequences of selfish behaviors. Our diversity isn’t in our outward appearance. That’s a shallow kind of diversity. It’s in our talents. We are each unique, and by striving for excellence and lifting up those around us, we will shine in many diverse way, making the world a better place.

Our universe is very ordered and predictable, enough so that we’ve been able to discover that there are rules by which it runs, such as the law of conservation, the laws of thermodynamics, planetary laws of motion, and more. These aren’t laws to be obeyed, but sets of descriptions (often mathematical) about the way things work. There are no exceptions to those laws. If we find exceptions, it means we got it wrong somewhere and need to do some more observation.

It sounds like a recipe for too much uniformity. But it’s not. It’s because of this scaffolding of orderly activity that molecules could come together in a great dance and evolve into something more. Life is fantastically diverse, from the simplest single celled creatures to dinosaurs, sequoia trees, butterflies, tigers, salmon, humans, and millions more species that exist and have existed on the earth.

The commandments of the Lord are the same way. They are not descriptions like scientific laws, but they are a recipe for order. Following the commandments encourages true diversity and will help our society evolve into something more.

If a Mormon (or anyone else, for that matter) keeps the Word of Wisdom, they don’t have addictions sucking out their time, talents, and health. Further, the Word of Wisdom encourages us to eat an overall healthy diet. This healthy lifestyle supports a well functioning brain and allows hard physical work.

When we keep the Law of Chastity, our family life is stable and our marriage is a strength to us. Not only is this good for the married couple, it’s good for our children, who grow up with a strong support system. This is good for our social and emotional state.

Modesty is a supporting law to Chastity. It’s not that our naked skin is ugly, or sinful. It’s that we are beautiful creatures, and our beauty distracts our ape minds. Now, sex is great, but not all the time and not with just whoever happens to be walking by being beautiful. Even if we’re decent human beings who are faithful to our spouse, it takes brain power and time to turn our thoughts back to the task we were previously doing. Modesty helps us to turn it on or off when we need to.

And then there is another kind of modesty: humility. This means we don’t put ourselves above others. We are teachable. And if we’re teachable, we can learn more our whole lives. And if we learn more – you got it. More diversity. Also, a humble person isn’t worried about their status. They don’t try to keep up with the Joneses. This means that they don’t feel the need to conform to damaging social convention and traditions. On the flip side, they don’t judge other people either. So they’re happy to work with someone who is outside their typical experience. They’re even happy to learn from people who they might otherwise disagree with on many subjects.

And the most important commandment: Love one another. When we lift each other up and celebrate who each individual is, this is the ultimate affirmation of diversity.

Other strong ethics of the LDS religion is that we increase our learning and our talents throughout our life, work hard, stay out of debt, and become self reliant.

Now, add these all together. Mormons aren’t just trying to make a living so they can party on the weekends and holidays, though sometimes their jobs are just a way to support their family. They are trying to improve themselves and make the world a better place, often through their work. They keep clear heads in order to do this. This is why you see so much success among business minded Mormons. This is why a wave of Mormon speculative fictions writers is breaking out.

And finally, I think the 13th Article of Faith sums it up well.

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

In my last post, I said I needed to get the basement clean. Well, I did. The cold storage, the second kitchen (which was being used as “just go put that there” storage), the office, the bathroom, and the living area which is still kind of used as storage but is now neat and will become my project room. We have a downstairs apartment because we thought my mother in law would be spending her last years with us. Well, she didn’t and now our house is too big, but we can’t sell it. Instead of bemoaning this fact, I’m owning it and will use every square foot of it. Eventually.

My task, now that my space is manageable, is time. I’ve got a weekly system for keeping my house clean. This is on top of daily tasks like dishes, counters, clutter, etc.

• Mondays: Vacuuming
• Tuesdays: Change sheets and dust
• Wednesdays: Clean bathrooms
• Thursdays: Plan menu and grocery shop
• Fridays: Clean kitchen
• Saturday: Extra jobs and yard work

Warning: Begin Mundane. It may need to be tweaked. It occurred to me that it might be more logical to change sheets and dust the day before vacuuming. I’m keeping track of how much time it takes too. The first week, I spent monday working up the plan. I know it seems simple now, but I did some research and pondering to figure out what would work best for my house. So only a little vacuuming got done. The other jobs were nearly all day, or at least five hours long. The second week, they’ve been down to between 30 minutes and five hours. It was the menu and shopping that was five hours. I still have plenty of room to streamline. Apparently, some women get some of this done in 15 minutes a day. I have a bigger house, but not that much bigger. BTW, I figured out I saved quite a bit of time not folding and putting away sheets, but just waiting until they’re clean and then putting them on the beds. End Mundane. At least for the blog.

Once done with this, I write or do FSO (family school organization) stuff for my son’s awesome charter school.

As for the garden, the cucumbers are almost done, the peppers are doing pretty well, the tomatoes are invading and we’ve eaten a spaghetti squash. We also eat carrots occasionally. The pumpkin and watermelon are goners this year. Victims, I think, of watering difficulties and possibly the wrong amount of sun. It’s fall now, and so I will plant garlic and lettuce. When I tear out the other plants, I’ll put down a cover of clover. I’m also going to plant clover in my lawn.

And for my writing, I’m taking an online class to reboot. I like writing prompts. They are fun. I’m interested to see what the feedback is like.

Other times, I’m just busy. That would reflect this spring, and summer, and last fall/early winter.

My garden – man I need to get some pictures up. Hah! Just found an extra ipod/iphone USB cord, so that will be more likely now. It really is a pain to take the one from the charger two floors up in my room and bring it down to the basement.

Back to the garden: It’s beautiful. There are wild successes, and sad failures. The strawberries gave me a handful, and then somehow stopped getting enough water or something and the ‘straw’ I used did have seeds in it. So they failed. The onions: not a single sweet one survived and very few of the others are surviving. But one onion plant went wild really quickly and flowered. Crazy. The sugar snap peas grew beautifully, but the early and harsh heat reduced their production. I think I will start them earlier next year.

Note to self: Yes, you’re tough but hand watering a desert garden is just craziness! Pure crazy, girl. Get a soaker hose. Suddenly, your garden will THRIVE.

Did I tell you it’s organic? And we’ve now eaten the first tomatoes. Cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers are all happy. The spaghetti squash is too. The watermelon and pumpkin, which are not near the main garden, are doing okay too.

Another thing that has kept me busy is my housecleaning.

It all started when I realized that to be as productive as all the projects on my plate, I had to be organized in time and space. At first I was thinking only about time, and tried looking for organizer apps and goal setting apps so I could get down a five year plan. But as I searched in this direction, it became apparent that having an organized space would lead to less stress and would give me more time.

My bedroom, including closet and main bathroom are clean and wonderful. My bedroom has always been the quiet place to escape, but now it’s quite literally a sanctuary. Finding clothes is easy.

My kitchen is easy to work in. This means more cooking, less expense.

One thing that has happened is that for a little while, I’ve dropped the kid’s regular chores in the kitchen. Instead, I’m trying to model the kitchen for them and give them tasks now and then. This is working better.

In fact, the whole main floor is in much better shape. My husband can inform me that someone will be over in just a few minutes, and that won’t be a problem at all. The upper floor as well. We could have company stay over with very little notice also.

The basement, however, is still the dungeon. It’s the next BIG THING.

These things, plus a family history project and a Japanese home stay student have kept me busy all summer.

And now, my brain is stuffed with things to say. Big thoughts about the world. Pictures of my garden to download. Etc.

Fall is coming and it is my most productive writing time of the year. I expect to finish my molecular biology book this fall, and work on my related molecular biology blog. Plus, the very big story, more than a novel, that I’ve played with and done fiction fridays with is still bouncing in my head. I think I’ll go all Tolkien on it and be happy with having it take years to simmer, and write short stories about it the world to flesh it out while I write the big one. The world is rich enough already in my head that there is lots I can write about.

I worked every day last week for this. Before I committed, I learned that in the beginning it would take about twenty hours a week. Well, that’s if you aren’t working with an old garden plot that needs to be weeded. I have probably spent about forty hours on this ground. We got a lot out last fall, but not the grasses. I hate grass in my beds.

Three east to west beds terraced above one north to south bed.

After that, time to compost. I had two bags of a compost mix I bought. I spread those on the far south and east beds. I then spread a mix of steer and chicken manure compost (ratio is steer:chicken – 5:2). Continuing to do a bit of yard clean up and making my own compost. But it’s hard. The compost keeps on shrinking. How can I make a 3′ x 3′ pile if it does that?

I’m trying the organic thing. Why organic? Because I believe in biology. I like the ‘first do no harm’ ideal. I think it’s smart to think of my garden soil as a living ecology that I can work with to help the plants. I feel like I’ll be able to grow vegetables that are tastier and healthier.

But I’m scared. I don’t really understand the soil well and not all plants are the same. I’m still at the ‘do what I’m told’ stage, and all the seed and transplants don’t assume organic. That’s a lot for a beginner gardener. Also, watering. In a desert. When, and how much? I’m putting all this work in, and what result will I get?

So, what have I planted so far? On April 7th, I planted carrots with a cardboard box over them so the soil won’t crust over. But went I checked it today, there was quite a bit of drying. Argh. Hope it’s okay this early in the game. I watered again and soaked the cardboard. That same day, I also planted peas (with innoculant), and the sweet onion sets. Today, April 9th, I started the plain onion sets and the green onion seeds. Then I spread the rest of the lettuce. My last lettuce, I kind of treated like weeds. Just scattered them about and left them. No watering or anything. Didn’t do well. These lettuces are on my freshly composted soil with fertilizer and I’ll make sure they get watered.

Two rows of peas, planted 1-2 inches apart. I'm not normally paying so much attention to row spacing, except I'll need a trellis for these. Cardboard in the corner is over the carrots. Hope that works.

I am using a fertilizer. It’s an overall organic one, with lots of micro-nutrients and starters for beneficial soil organisms. So, let’s hope.

Well, my seedlings are doing well, anyway. Their first leaves have shown, and I gave them a bit of fertilizer in my last watering. That isn’t organic. I figure it’s an artificial environment anyway, with the soil sterile. I raised the lights about an inch. Tomorrow I’ll be thinning them all out. I think it may be time to transplant them too.

These are the cherry tomatoes.

In my last post on cell structure, we took a look at cell membranes which are made of a phospholipid bilayer. They protect the cell and cell organelles from the outside environment while letting a few players in and out to do their job. But what is it that membranes protect? Primarily, DNA (short for DeoxyriboNucleic Acid), a molecule that can make copies of itself. How DNA works was the next thing that blew my mind in biology, and pretty much cemented what I wanted to study.

DNA is the ultimate celebrity superstar of molecules. It’s the subject of many a science fiction story, volumes of textbooks and encyclopedias, various t-shirts, jewelry, and a scarf I want to knit someday. Everyone has heard of it, knows what it looks like, and knows that it carries our genes. If DNA is news to you, then you are probably fairly young or you’ve been living under a rock.

So how does this double helix encode our genes? You might think of a gene as that bit of information which gives us our eye color, makes us tall or short, shapes our nose, and gives us ADD (or not). While many of these things can be traced to a single gene, the more accurate definition of a gene is a sequence of DNA which gives instructions to put together a protein.

DNA has an alphabet of four letters, called nucleotides, nucleobases or bases for short. These nucleotides can fit together in two matching pairs called base pairs. The base pairs make up the rungs of the twisted ladder structure of DNA, with the sides being the twinned backbones of the macromolecule. The base pairs connect to each other across the rung, matching molecular shapes in the middle to make a light bond which can be zipped or unzipped. On one side of the ladder is the complementary template, and on the other is the actual code that creates a protein when transcribed.

These four nucleobases of DNA are Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), and Thymine (T). A pairs up with T, and C pairs up with G. Ever watched the eugenics dystopian movie Gattaca? It’s title refers to the bases of DNA.

Three of these bases together make a word, called a codon. This codon represents an amino acid. The twenty amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. There are also codons which say stop and start. This dictionary of codons which can be translated into amino acids, or stop and start is called the genetic code. How we got this genetic code is one of those mysteries that we still haven’t solved.

When making a protein, DNA is unzipped by certain enzymes, and a copy of it is made. This copy isn’t DNA, but RNA – a single strand instead of a double strand. Instead of Thymine, RNA uses a base called Uracil which still pairs with Adenine. Once the sequence of RNA is copied from the DNA (beginning at the start codons and ending at the stop codons), it is moved to a part of the cell where the protein can be built. This special sequence of RNA is called messenger RNA, or mRNA.

A DNA molecule being unzipped, transcribed, and it's mRNA template going on to a ribosome as a molecular blueprint for building a protein out of amino acids.

Another form of RNA is transfer RNA, or tRNA. tRNA is connected to an amino acid and has an anti-codon which has the three bases matching the codon for the amino acid. The mRNA goes to a ribosome, which is kind of a molecular reader. There can be up to 10 million ribosomes in a single cell. As the mRNA clicks through the ribosome, tRNAs connect to the proper mRNA codon, and then their amino acids are bound together. In this way, the long protein chain is created.

DNA doesn’t just code for proteins. In fact, only about 1.5% of the human genome represents protein sequences. It also has regulatory sequences, which control what proteins are made and how much and structural sequences for the chromosomes. And there can be a lot of repetitive DNA which doesn’t appear to do anything, though we can’t be positive about that right now. All of these can affect our genes and how they’re expressed – in other words, what kind of inborn traits we have. But some of it does appear to be fossils of a type: broken copies of sequences we use or perhaps ones we no longer use. It’s this extra DNA which is another proof that species, including humans, have evolved over time. In the human genome, there are over 3 billion base pairs with approximately 23,000 protein coding genes. We are still exploring what each of those genes do.

So, cell membranes and DNA were the two sirens that pulled me into biology. Before I go any further into the other cool molecules, I think it’s a good idea to get the lay of the land. In my next post on cell structure we’ll take a brief look at a whole animal cell and get a simple description of each of the cell organelles.