Basis Swap Quotes

In the past, we used to discriminate on the basis of skin color and gender (and still do at times), but now with elective abortion, we discriminate on the basis of size, level of development, location, and degree of dependency. We've simply swapped one form of bigotry for another.

I've never known anyone with the capacity for sugar that Adeena has. She'd demolished her waffles, which she'd drowned in syrup, and then ordered a slice of triple chocolate tuxedo pie, another sugar bomb. If I ate the way she'd did, I'd have lost a foot to diabetes by now. Martha slid our desserts in front of us, and Adeena and I hummed in appreciation after taking our first bites. The lemon icebox cake was cold and creamy, with a background sweetness and a whole lot of tang. As I often did when sampling delicious desserts, I tried to deconstruct what was in it. Graham crackers, cream cheese, whipped cream, and a ton of lemon curd seemed to be the basis of the recipe. Similar to the ginger calamansi pie I'd made, but simpler and no-bake, if I decided to buy the graham crackers instead of making my own. Definitely worth experimenting with, as I had a jar of calamansi curd tucked away in the fridge just begging to be used. I made a note on my phone later, maybe as a summer offering. As per usual when eating out, Adeena and I swapped plates so we could taste each other's desserts. "What do you think, girls?" I grinned at Martha. "Delicious. I love how the lemon cake is sweet and tangy, but you don't go too far in either direction." Adeena added, "It's the perfect counterpoint to my chocolate pie, which is divine, by the way. Rich, creamy, and so satisfying.

Poor black families were “immersed in a domestic web of a large number of kin and friends whom they [could] count on,” wrote the anthropologist Carol Stack in All Our Kin. Those entwined in such a web swapped goods and services on a daily basis. This did little to lift families out of poverty, but it was enough to keep them afloat. But large-scale social transformations—the crack epidemic, the rise of the black middle class, and the prison boom among them—had frayed the family safety net in poor communities. So had state policies like Aid to Families with Dependent Children that sought to limit “kin dependence” by giving mothers who lived alone or with unrelated roommates a larger stipend than those who lived with relatives.

Findings have become common on brain-like processes outside of the skull. The conductive structure inside the heart, like pacemaker cells, which organizes the heartbeat, can be known as the brain of the heart, just as the intestine's brain is the ganglion cells in the gut. Conduction system independence is shown when a transplanted heart continues to beat even though the nerves that connected it to the central and peripheral nervous systems of the donor have been severed. The interaction between the independent processing of the heart and that of the brain is complex and not fully understood. The trillions of bacteria that outnumber the cells of the body by ten to one are even more enigmatic, residing mostly within the digestive tract but also on the skin and in the brain and other organs. We think of these bacteria as pests, but these micro-organisms were simply introduced in vast stretches along the double helix of human DNA over eons. The consequences are immense and essentially uncharted for what we call "being alive" The bacterial part of the body, taken as a whole, is called the microbiome. It is not sitting on the skin or in the gut passively, nor is it invading the body. Actually, the microbiota is the barrier between "in here" and "out there," containing DNA, antibodies, and chemical signaling that allows the brain to do the same stuff. There is no clear role of the microbial DNA that is incorporated into our genomes, but at least this is ancestral material that we have assimilated as our own. More suggestively, this once-foreign DNA in all higher life-forms may be the swapping mechanism for genes. These discoveries demonstrate that our intelligence extends to the whole of ecology. Everywhere mentality has a physical basis. Any attempt at isolating it in the skull comes up against serious objections. Instead of treating cynicism with unbounded consciousness, we need to see that every perception is unbounded. By going beyond the illusory boundaries of the disconnected body, you cannot see, hear or touch anything in the universe. Watching a sunset is like watching yourself, actually.

Booze and Your Boys Hoping to toast some big baby news soon? You might want to consider swapping your accustomed toasting beverage before that big news even comes through, or cutting back on how many toasts you make during conception season. Too much alcohol (as you may have been dismayed to discover at one point or another) can impair a guy’s sexual function—a function you’re now counting on. But worse than that, research indicates that daily heavy drinking can damage sperm as well as reduce their number (in some men, even one or two beers or glasses of wine is enough to temporarily keep the boys down). Too many rounds on a regular basis can also alter testicular function and reduce testosterone levels (not a good scenario when you’re trying to make a baby). Heavy drinking (equivalent to two drinks a day or five drinks in one sitting even once a month) by the dad-to-be during the month prior to conception could also affect your baby’s birthweight. So for best baby-making results, your best bet is to drink only occasionally and lightly—or