Occasional Tales

It's not even next week. It's been reported in The Guardian that Steve Jones is claiming that humans have reached their evolutionary zenith ( We're as good as we can get, says evolution expert ). In the past, I've wondered about human evolution in that ailments which would still have been fatal until fairly recent times in human history can now be cured. But that is without, say, modifying a person's genetic structure to allow them to pass on an inherent immunity to their offspring. That person survives, but has no genetic advantages to offer future generations. However, I find it unethical to subscribe to Nature's callous and brutal indifference to humanity even although I understand that natural selection is a part of existence. But it's not just humans either. Think of the species of domesticated animals which we've genetically engineered to yield better and increased amounts of meat, wool, milk etc. When the animal falls sick we either summon the vet

Passing through. Well, here I am again. Two months have passed since the last entry. August in Chengdu continued to be grey and wet with rare sightings of sunshine. Unfortunately, sunshine often coincides with a hint of blue sky rather than actual blue sky because there's often a thin layer of cloud or pollution which admits sunlight, but not much else. When I saw some pictures of bright sunshine and clear blue skies in Beijing just recently, I realised how much I'd been missing such things. We went to Pudong (near Shanghai) for the usual start-of-term conference only to find that returning teachers didn't have to attend the first day, which meant that I was able to go into Shanghai for the first time ever and look round. But because I thought I was going to be stuck in a hotel for three days, I didn't bother to take my camera with me. Of course, the weather was absolutely ideal for taking photographs. And then it was back to school. This term held no surprises. The cla