Considering the amount of time I spend in doctors' waiting rooms, I would be about the best-informed person around if only the selection of magazines provided were better. The dentist and regular doctor's offices are so deficient in free reading material that I bring my own and then leave it to improve the tone. They do have Car and Driver most of the time, so I'll have to give them some credit. The podiatrist has a fine selection of news magazines, but not, alas, The Economist. Quality rag, but way too expensive to subscribe to. The blood lab always has several National Geographics, and that lessens the sting (as it were). The Harvard Library of these brightly lit, but ultimately grim, places is the cardiologist's: not only travel magazines full of impossible dreams, but, lo and behold, Discover too. I get there early in order to read the whole delicious thing. And the view of the river is excellent, too.
There was a mention, in the issue I found today, of research which claims our brains can be traced back to an ancient (600 million years ago ancient) worm, Urbilateria. Well, that had to be checked out (on Neurophilosophy.wordpress.com) when I got home. It seems all vertebrates -- that's us! -- worms and insects are thought to have a common ancestor based on a body plan of bilateral symmetry and organization of nervous systems in centralized cords. And old Urbi was there at the beginning, full of possibilities.
Quite an inheritance from an old, forgotten worm.
Just to say, stay out of the waiting room and into the reading room. The doctor's office is not the source of information, ethical or physical. And don't tell Ms. Palin we all came from worms. Ewwww! That's gross. How about we came from the Roman Gods dress in togas and swirling in the waves of pleasure?
ReplyDeleteWas there a toga party for us worms and nobody invited me?
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