Adam Sunny Flanders

Some of you will recall my excitement last Summer upon the discovery of a seedpod on my Madagascar Jasmine plant (see my plant page). I was recently able to finally harvest the seedpod and collect the seeds, of which there were about 100! They trail light feathery strings, much like dandelions. I tossed a few in the air and allowed them to gently float down to the floor. The tassles could easily be removed from the seeds, which I have stored in a dry tube.

After orchids, Madagascar Jasmine is my favorite flower – it produces large white waxy flowers that will literally cause your entire room to smell like jasmine for weeks or months. MJ is most commonly used for bridal wreaths and I always wind mine (I have two) around a steel hoop. They are extremely aggressive growers and low maintenance. I have never grown one from seed, so this will certainly be a new adventure for me! I currently have some healthy tomato plants growing along with some lemon herb. My stevia seeds are challenging to grow, but I have had some success getting them to germinate. I would like to be able to grow my own stevia since I use it to sweeten my tea – I drink about 1-2 gallons of tea every day, no joke. Anyway, here are some pictures of the seedpod and seeds…

I’ve also just begun transforming my Arabaidopsis plants – well technically transforming their meiotic genes in order to produce a transgenic line from the resulting seeds. I will be creating an entire page on my website devoted to my research, when I get some time. I really want to get my paleogenetics website up ASAP.

Also, Pride Week has been a huge success so far. The drag show is tonight at 8:00 PM. I will try to film it like I did last year. You can still watch the entire show by visiting http://www.umaine.edu/wildestein or my YouTube account. The Rainbow Pride Flag has been waving all week on the campus mall and Jenny Boylan, author of She’s Not There and transgender activist and professor at Colby College, spoke to a standing room only yesterday…the room’s capacity was 300 seats! I’ve read her book and she’s written 11 others, including a children’s / young adult book dated for release May 11th – I’m excited to read it, having just finished Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. Boylan’s book is titled Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror. You can read more about Jenny’s UMaine appearance here. She continues to be an inspiration for all of us who believe in being true to ourselves.

This also may interest some of you – a video panning of Streptomyces, a soil bacteria we studied in my microbiology lab. I used a simple gram stain and my video microscope at 400X to capture the image below.

Just when things are looking dark, sometimes they can turn around. Things are darkest before the dawn. My grandmother has once again proved herself to be incredibly strong. In fact, I just got off the phone with her. Despite hospital-talk about planning for the worst, my grammy now seems to be doing much better than before, allowing me to have a full conversation with her over the phone just now. She’s been through a lot of difficulties in life and I’ve unfortunately continued that tradition in my own life, but she continues to show me that our potential is limitless and that we can overcome any obstacle with faith and perseverance…and smile and laugh about it at the same time!

I love you Grammy Flanders!

Some of you have asked about an RSS feed for my blog, and I will be adding one very soon. Also, my paleogenetics website is coming along well and should be published soon, I’ve just been really busy with my classes – it’s been a big exam week and finals are at the end of the month. I have a lot of interesting things going on in my life that I promise you will all hear about this Summer. My Arabidopsis plants have just begun to bolt (flower) and I spent a fair amount of time today preparing media that will be used to genetically alter them, as part of my senior thesis. Pride Week is this coming week at UMaine. I haven’t taken a minute to look over the schedule yet.

And then last night I went to the emergency room because of having panic attacks and they discovered I have hypothyroidism, which probably has exacerbated my clinical depression and fatigue. But I’m glad to know because it means I can do something about it, and it’s good to know I’m otherwise in excellent health. I’m a strong proponent of medication. The person I was 2-3 years, because of my depression, I don’t even recognize today, having taken Zoloft for so long now. Sometimes you can’t just “think away” a psychological problem, anymore than you can think away a broken bone. The hospital placed me back on an anxiolytic I took a while ago and I haven’t had even a twinge of anxiety since.

As a last note, my grandmother suffered a stroke a couple weeks ago and she’s still in the hospital with little or no improvement – she’s not even able to speak. I immediately flew home when my mom called me. Not much can be done – I’m trying to enjoy the irregular warm weather with friends to help deal with the situation because I really care about my Grammy Flanders and I know she would want me to be doing happy things, like she and I always have, like mini golf and bowling, right up to the day she was hospitalized. In my flickr photostream you can see one of my friends and I enjoyed a day skating at Acadia National Park. I just got a bunch of camping gear and I’m also anxious to get back in the water to continue scuba diving, though the weather has been kinda crappy lately. In terms of my grandmother, the doctors have been asking my dad those questions that may imply a difficult decision, but we all have to go through the cycle of life and death. I’m grateful that my mom encouraged me to make an effort to spend more time with her in the past year or so.

One time, after my ex broke up with me and I was just a total mess and started hibernating in my room, my grandmother sat down and hugged me and I asked her, “When your husband [my grandfather, who I never met] died, how did you deal with it? How did you keep going?” And she said, “Well, I just figured I’d see him again someday. No point in getting all upset over it.” The Buddhist view of death is interesting and it’s always rang true with me. Buddhists see no beginning or end, only change. Life is a part of death and death a part of life. Thich Nhat Hanh probably says it better in No Death, No Fear…

“Looking deeply, we can also see that the waves are at the same time water. A wave may like to seek its own true nature. The wave might suffer from fear, from complexes. A wave might say, “I am not as big as the other waves.” “I am oppressed,” “I am not as beautiful as the other waves,” “I have been born and I have to die.” The wave may suffer from these things, these ideas. But if the waves bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water. Then her fear and complexes will disappear.”

Christmas 2008

I really liked this ad concerning equal rights for same-sex couples. It’s well-produced and even for me, having had over a decade in gay rights activism, it made me step back and think, “Wow, discrimination is really hurting people right now, every day.”

Today I received an email from the Human Rights Campaign letting me know about an outrageous act. Parents of students at Constance McMillen’s (see 3/16 blog below) high school organized a secret prom for straight students and then created a fake (decoy) prom for Constance and mentally disabled students, thereby excluding them by tricking them into missing the real prom. This shows just how far bigotry goes in this small Mississippi town. As would be expected (rightfully so), the school and other individuals are in deep – expect more lawsuits. A Federal judge has already ruled that the school violated Constance’s constitutional rights.

You can show your support for Constance by signing the HRC Petition. I’m sure the discrimination at this school will only further ensure the passage of a currently pending bill in Congress that will make it a Federal crime for public schools to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Here in Maine, we already passed a similar state law in 2005, prohibiting discrimination in not only education, but also employment, housing, credit, and public accomodation. Sexual orientation, under Maine law, includes gender identity and the law has already ensured the rights of a transgender elementary school student.

“Ah, happily do we live without hate amongst the hateful; amidst hateful men we dwell unhating.”
~The Dhammapada

With all the fighting that’s going on – war and political/social battles, we should all remember to cultivate peace and that individuals who hurt us do so because of a personal problem of their own. Therefore we should not fuel the fire, rather walk in peace and extinguish the flames. Getting angry at someone gives them the power they wanted to begin with and ends up causing you more harm. Instead of getting upset and waste my day being angry, I’d rather go rollerblading or hiking or scuba diving. It’s sunny weather – go out and enjoy the day or read a good book!

All she wanted to do was take her girlfriend to prom, but instead her Mississippi school cancelled prom just to stop her. I’m sure some of you are already familiar with Constance McMillen as her story circulates the major news networks. By doing this the Itawamba County Agricultural High School has violated the law and Constance’s rights. Christine Sun of the American Civil Liberties Union is now representing Constance in a lawsuit against the school. I’m sure they will win – the school’s behavior is something we’d expect from a 3rd world country with no civil rights.

On Facebook you can become a fan of Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom!, which at the time of this writing has over 300,000 supporters! The ACLU offers information about gay and lesbian rights at prom. The ACLU points out “Fricke v. Lynch, a federal court [ruling] that [stated] any policy excluding same-sex couples from proms or school dances violates the right to free expression guaranteed by the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Other decisions have found that enforcing outdated notions that only boys can wear tuxedoes and only girls can wear dresses to Prom is illegal.”

This reminds me of my high school situation in 2005 when I was suspended for a week from Belfast Area High School for wearing a t-shirt that said, “It’s OK to Be Gay.” You can read the article by clicking HERE or visiting my Activism Page. In my case the ACLU also intervened and threatened BAHS with a lawsuit if they didn’t allow me to wear my pride t-shirts and have equal access to school resources for my Gay-Straight Alliance, as required by Federal law. Unfortunately the homophobia and anti-gay harassment continued from both students and teachers, and I transferred to Searsport District High School, graduating that same year. In fact, the superintendents both signed a superintendent’s transfer admitting the grounds for transfer (without tuition costs) was because of student and staff homophobia and harassment. I definitely empathize with you, Constance. Keep up the fight!

Definite cute thing of the day. Speaking of dinosaurs, my new website based on paleogenetics is coming very soon, probably sometime this week. I’ll post a link as soon as it’s ready to be published!

Daniel Radcliffe has become the new face of The Trevor Project. He just filmed a public service announcement for the organization, which focuses on suicide prevention efforts among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered teens. In the video below he discusses the fact that he has known many gay men and that he thinks it is very important for a big star like himself to support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth. He says this there is no other issue that he is more passionate about. I think this is great, following right on the heels of Dumbledore’s outing as gay. The second video below gets the main stars’ reactions to Rowling’s outing of Dumbledore. It’s cute and funny. Just more reason to love the series that got me into reading to begin with!

Today the District of Columbia began issuing licenses for same-sex couples. The DC Council recently ruled overwhelmingly in favor of same-sex marriage and some of them spoke to the fact that it would be wrong and unfair to allow voters to determine minority rights. Congress even had the opportunity to intervene and they did not, which seems to suggest an overall support for marriage equality in our Federal government.

The arguments in the Federal Prop.8 Trial rested last month and we await a decision. Judge Walker, who is presiding over the Prop.8 Trial, has apparently come out as a gay man. The fundamentalists are of course claiming bias, which is ridiculous, but I hope he does have a bias because this whole majority-voting-on-minority-rights thing has gone on long enough. We need the high courts and/or Congress to start making these rulings in favor of same-sex marriage so it can be legalized nationwide and the argument can be put to rest, just as the issue of interracial marriage was put to rest in 1967 following the Loving case, despite over 70% of Americans being opposed to it.