Sunshine Skyways

Time flies when you are having fun, and it's hard to believe that another month is over, and 2006 is only a month away. 2005 has been a pleasant year. We went to New Mexico for a week in July, which was great. Here's one photo from that trip.

There is no general consensus regarding types of blogs. PC Magazine contributing editor, John C. Dvorak and President of Knowledge Jolt, Inc., Jack Vinson, claim there are only two basic categories of blogs. For Dvorak, they are: 1) the Traditional Blog, "where a Web surfer shares his online discoveries," and 2) the Web Diary, "where a person shares his or her thoughts of the day" (my emphasis).[1] Vinson's categories are very similar, if not essentially the same: 1) the Filtering Blog, which links to websites, frequently with commentary, and 2) the Exposition or Expository Blog, which is primarly about writing, rather than linking. Two examples of Dvorak's Traditional Blog and Vinson's Expository Blog are Robot Wisdom and Daily Kos. Two examples of the Web Diary or Expository Blog are Stephanie's Diary Blog and My Poetry Blog.

Wikipedia,however, identifies ten basic categories of blogs, which are based on differences of the primary focus of the blog:

1. News and Political: These blogs break, shape, and spin news stories and discuss political issues, usually from a particular ideological perspective. Popular examples are the right-wing blog, InstaPundit, and left-wing blog, Daily Kos. Other examples are Josh Marshall's blog, which was instrumental in forcing Trent Lott to resign his position as Senate Majority Leader, Scripting News, Wonkette, AndrewSullivan.com, and Howard and Jim Dean's blog, Blog for America.
   
2. Personal: These blogs focus on personal thoughts and experiences, and include diaries, poetry, prose, photos, and so on. Examples of these blogs are Stephanie's Diary Blog, Random Thoughts from a Random Girl, My Poetry Blog, David Byrne's Journal, and Judith Polakoff Photography.
   
3. Topical: These are blogs that focus on particular topics. Wikipedia divides this category into 7 sub-categories:
   
   1. Health: These are Patient and Caregiver blogs. Two examples of Patient Blogs are My Breast Cancer Blog and Online Support Group for Those With MS. Two examples of Caregiver Blogs are The Patient's Doctor and The Caregiver's Blog.
      
   2. Literary: These blogs are about literature. Three examples of Literary Blogs are Bookslut, The Elegant Variation, and Rake's Progress.
      
   3. Travel: Travel Blogs focus on the journey of an individual or journeys of many. Examples of Travel Blogs are Arun's Travel Blog, Lorenzo Gariano's Everest Ascent 2005, and Travel Blog.
      
   4. Research: These blogs present individual or group research or report findings of recent research. Examples are Medical Research Blog, Cross-Media Entertainment, and Schizophrenia Research Blog.
      
   5. Legal: Blogs about the law that are created by lawyers and law students. Examples of Legal Blogs are Energy Legal Blog, a law student's blog by Nicholas Holtz, and Ars Boni Et Aequi, a blog about German law in English.
      
   6. Media: The media is the focus of these blogs, with some serving as media watchdogs. Examples of Media Blogs are Bewildered Herd, Who Owns the Media?, and HypergeneMediaBlog.
      
   7. Religious: These blogs discuss religious topics and aetheism. Examples of Religious Blogs are Velveteen Rabbi; SmartChristian Blog; The Buddhist Blog; the Quaker Blog, Consider the Lilies; and My Scientology.
   
   
4. Collaborative (which are also called Collective, Group, or Community Blogs): Everyone or individuals within a group can create posts in a Collaborative Blog. Two previously mentioned, Online Support Group for Those with MS and Travel Blog,, are Collaborative Blogs. Three other examples of Collaborative Blogs are dane101.com, Whedonesque, and the widely known MetaFilter.
   
5. Educational: These blogs are created by students or teachers or are about education. Two examples of Student Blogs are Earthshine Student Blog and this blog, Sunshine Skyways. Two examples of Teacher Blogs are Bernard's Blog and Teacher Blogs, which allows teachers to communicate with parents of their students. Two examples of blogs focused primarily on education are Dave's Educational Blog and pharyngula.
6. Directory: These blogs are about links; they collect numerous websites with interesting content. Robot Wisdom falls into this category, and so do a lot of News and Political Blogs. The Cosmetic Surgery Directory is another Directory Blog.
7. Forums/Other CMS systems: These blogs facilitate online discussions about topics selected by one of a few site owners. Only the site owners can post a new topic in Forum Blogs. Examples of Forum Blogs are Monterey Peninsula Real Estate Discussion Forum/Blog.
8. Business: There are 3 sub-categories of the Business Blog: Entrepreneurial, Corporate, and Advice.
   1. Entrepreneurial: Blogs by entrepreneurs or about entrepreneurship. Examples of Entrepreneurial Blogs are Canadian Entrepreneur and The Entrepreneurial Mind.
   2. Corporate: Blogs that are published by or with the support of a corporation. Examples of Corporate Blogs are KowaBunga! Technologies Corporate Blog, Google Corporate Blog, and HiWired's Corporate Blog, written by its tech support team.
   3. Advice: Blogs that provide business advice or advise clients. Examples of Business Advice Blogs are All Business and Small Business Marketing Toolbox, which is offered by Hewlett Packard for its customer.
9. Personification: These blogs are written for a non-human, such as a cat or dog. Examples of Personification Blogs are I Crap in a Box, Bosco Dog, and The Shirley Letters, a hamster's blog.
10. Spam: Spam Blogs are divided into two sub-categories:
    1. Link spam: Link Spam (also called Comment Spam) is spam found within a comment to a legitimate blog: the bogus comment includes links to the spammer's website. For more information and illustrations of Link Spam, check out the report, Detecting Spam Web Pages by Marc Najork.
    2. Splogs: These are bogus websites, which doesn't have any written value; basically, it's a advertisement dressed up to look like a blog. Examples of Splogs are Refinance to a Low Rate Mortgage and Breast Enlargement Information.

Content is as diverse as the subjects that people talk about. Consequently,, one could could easily add the following and much much more to the above list:

1. Investment Blogs, which are blogs that give investment advice, such as The Big Picture.
2. Celebrity Blogs, such as actor Wil Wheaton's blog.
3. Food Blogs, which are all or mostly about food, such as Cooking With Amy.
4. Sports Blogs, such as a New York Yankees' fan's blog.
5. Movie Blogs, such as Film Fodder.
6. Tech Blogs, such as Tech Dirt.
7. Homelessness, such as The Homeless Guy, and
8. Sex Blogs, such as Twiddly Bits' Sex Blog.

Another interesting approach was used by Krishnamurthy, who proposed a classification scheme that divides blogs into four basic types along two dimensions: personal versus topical, and individual versus community, to create four quadrants.[2] The first type of blog combines the personal and individual, which is best illustrated by online diaries, such as. The second type combines the personal with community, and is represented by support group blogs, such as the Online Support Group for Those With MS. The third type combines the individual with topical, which is like an online column, such as Baghdad Burning. The fourth types combines community with topical, which has collaborative content, and is illustrated by online book clubs, such as Women Who Dare to Read.

Finally, as for my own attempt to classify blogs, I think one can propose that there are three basic categories, with each having multiple sub-categories. The first category would be blogs that are all links, no commentary, such as Robot Wisdom, that are structured solely to direct the viewer to other websites. One could say these blogs are externally driven. The second category would be blogs that include links and commentary, such as filter blogs. The third category would be blogs without links, such as diaries, which are structured solely to keep the viewer's attention within the blogger's webpage. Without links, a blog can be said to be internally focused. Each sub-category would be connected to the primary focus on the weblog, that is the content, such as news, politics, health, etc.

[1] That the author used "his" and not "her" to describe Traditional Bloggers and both "his" and "her" to describe the Web Diarist is included within an exploration of perceived gender differences in blogging in a future post.
[2] Herring, S.C., Scheidt, L.A., Bonus, S., and Wright, E. (2005) "Weblogs as a Bridging Genre" in Information, Technology & People, 18(2), 142-171.

Bernard's Blog has an interesting post for November 26, 2005, with a link to a same-day article in the Guardian about MIT Professor, William J. Mitchell, who is the author of multiple books, such as Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City, Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City, and City of Bits: Space, Place, and Infobahn. Bernard notes in his post that he is particularly interested in Mitchell's "notion of the importance of 'unassigned space,'" because his department at Manchester Metropolitan University is curently exploring "new ways of using [its] buildings to go beyond the simple notions of lectures and seminars, to make more use of 'in-between spaces.'"

For Mitchell, as quoted in the Guardian, "Unassigned space, what used to be thought of as non-productive space, is actually where all the real action happens" in the wireless laptop culture. In cyberspace, "[y]our own address is not pinned to a place; it is simply an access code, with some associated storage space, to some computer located somewhere on the Net" (Mitchell). Consequently, for those who do information work, your work space can become ANY place where you can sit down, go online, and conduct information work, such as an airport terminal, hotel room, library, telecommuting center, coffee shop, train, one's home, or remote mountain cabin. Of course, whether your work space moves with you or not depends upon the technology and approval of your employer/institution and the acceptance of the owners/managers of commercial establishments and other places where you sit and go online. For example, although sitting at one's laptop at coffee shops may be accepted and encouraged by owners/managers of those venues, the same activity may not be welcome in many restaurants.

Currently, I telecommute once a week from my home, which, for me, is a welcome blending of real space and virtual space. I can wake up an hour later, forego an eighty-mile roundtrip drive, use my desktop to go online, and do my job. I'm home, but at work at the same time. I dream of the day that I can telecommute all of the time, so that I can spend 5 to 6 months in Vermont and the remaining months in Florida. I don't want a virtual Vermont to visit while I'm living in Florida; I want to really be there, and not experience it as a real virtuality.

It never seems to fail. Any time that I am at my desktop computer, one of my cats HAS to jump up on the desk, stroll on or near the keyboard, block my view of the screen, then eventually sit on my lap. In fact, I have one on my lap right now. What is it that compels my feline friends to behave this way? I can walk into the family room, sit myself down on the couch, and put my feet up to watch tv, and odds are not one of my cats will jump on my lap or seek the same kind of attention.

Today was a beautiful November day in Florida, so we went to a local golf course to play a round. Rather than rent a cart, we walked the course and enjoyed the scenery, which included a young alligator, a few hawks, and snowbirds. Snowbirds are temporary residents of Florida that prefer Florida's warmer winter temperatures to snow and ice. They also seem to prefer life in slower motion. I suppose, since most, if not all, snowbirds are retirees, life is better after retiring from the "rat race." And why not savor life's moments when wintering in Margaritaville? Unfortunately, for folks like myself, who are in the fast lane (either by choice or circumstances), getting stuck behind a snowbird can be frustrating. They drive v...e...r...y s...l...o....w...l...y and sometimes change direction unexpectedly, especially if they are new to the area. Perhaps, if I were retired (which isn't going to happen soon unless I win the lottery), I would take my time and be in slower motion.

As stated in Part One, there were 23 weblogs known to exist in early 1999 according to a list published in Camworld (The Blog Herald: "A Short History of Blogging"). With so few blogs at that time, it is understandable how Rebecca Blood could have stated in The Weblog Handbook,, that "it was easy to read (daily) all of the weblogs on Cameron's list, and most interested people did."

The primary reason why there were relatively few blogs until mid-1999 is that their construction and maintenance required knowledge and skills typically limited to web developers. However, those knowledge and skill requirements ceased in July of 1999 when Pitas, the first free web-based tool designed to enable individuals to publish their own blogs easily and quickly was launched (Hadrian Summitt: "The Chronicles of Blogs"). Once Pitas was available, "suddenly there were hundreds of blogs" (Rebecca Blood: "Weblogs: A History and Perspective").

In August 1999, one month after Pitas was launched, two more blogging services were launched: Blogger, created by Pyra Labs, and Groksoup, created by Paul Kedrosky. By late 1999, Edit this Page and Velocinews (both under the umbrella of Userland) were released, which further increased the number of blogs (Jenna Thomson: "Blog History"). Now anyone could use any of these software products to quickly and easily create blogs without knowing anything about HTML or the structure of the World Wide Web. Futhermore, in late September of 1999, Diaryland was created, although at that time, personal journals/diaries were not considered to be blogs.

Early blogs were small in number and primarily or all about commenting on and linking to other websites; they pre-surfed and filtered news and information. However, the number of blogs exploded after 1999, and as the numbers increased and continued to increase, the content and format of blogs changed. Blog publishing software, especially Blogger, gave people the opportunity to dedicate a post to whatever topic(s) s/he chose to write about. Consequently, new blogs weren't just pre-surfing and filtering news and information as earlier blogs had done; instead, they were being used to tell personal stories, facilitate personal and group discussions, communicate news events, tell jokes, communicate other topics of interest, and explore new technology. Furthermore, they were being created and used by individuals, groups, schools, libraries, and businesses with little knowledge of and sometimes little interest in the nuances of the Web (ibid).

To say that there has been an explosion of blogs may be an understandment. According to Perseus, at the end of the first quarter in 2000, there were an estimated 29,500 blogs, and by the end of that year, 197,000 blogs. By the end of 2001, there were 951,000 blogs, and by the end of 2005, there is expected to be over 53.3 million blogs.

With tens of millions of blogs on the Web with varying content and format, definitions of a blog had to change and they did. Many definitions, but not all, now include personal journals and diaries as blogs, although purists, such as Ryan Kawailani Ozawa, continue to disagree. Nonetheless, whether a purist or not, a blog has become much more than it originally was. In the Fall 2003 issue of the Nieman Reports, Rebecca Blood adopted a broader definition, and defined a blog to be "a frequently updated Web site, with posts arranged in reverse chronological order, so new entries are always on top," although later in the same article she seems to retreat from that definition by adding that "Hypertext is fundamental to the practice of Weblogging."

Wikipedia defines a blog as "a website for which an individual or group generates text, photographs, viedo, audio files, and/or links, typically but not always on a daily or otherwise regular basis." According to Merriam-Webster, a blog is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer." Neither of these definitions suggests a blog must have links to and commentary about other Web sites. However, Ask Yahoo! retains a more traditional notion of a blog by defining a blog as a "personal or noncommercial web site that uses a dated log format (usually with the most recent addition at the top of the page) and contains links to other web sites along with commentary about those sites.

Perhaps, in time, blogs will become more standardized and commodified, and eventually there will be one definition that everyone agrees on. However, until that time, Wikipedia's definition is the one that I prefer because it goes beyond blogs comprised entirely of the written word to include photo, video, and audio blogs.

END OF PART TWO

It's Saturday, and it has been a nice day to sit back, take care of home projects, and listen to music, such as Iris DeMent's album "Infamous Angel." I first became aware of Iris when her song, "Our Town," was played at the closing moments of the final episode of the U.S. television series, Northern Exposure. It's a sad and soulful song, and it was perfect background for the ending of the show. Two years ago my husband and I saw Iris perform in Alexandria, Virginia, at the Birchmere, and she was great. She puts a lot of feeling and thought into her lyrics and I just love her voice.

Here's a photo of my latest painting. It's the first time that I've incorporated CDs into a painting.

Today in the U.S. it's Thanksgiving, a federal holiday, meaning many working-class Americans, like myself, have a day off. We decided to take advantage of the nice weather and explore the Emerson Point Conservation Park in Palmetto, Florida. At the Park is the Portavant Temple Mound; the 1200 year-old Indian mound is the largest in the Tampa Bay area. The Park "contains a variety of native ecosystems including beaches, lagoons, salt marshes, mangrove swamps, extensive underwater grass flats, tropical hardwood hammocks, tropical stands, and upland wooded areas. With these diverse communities that area provides a rare opportunity to view numerous native Florida plants and animals" (Park Handout).

One of my favorite ads is a 2001 European commercial for Hyundai: Toy Boy. C'est bon, n'est pas?

Currently, I am taking an online sociology course: Sociology of Cyberspace. The first assignment concerns blogs, and part of that assignment requires answering the questions, "What are blogs?" and "How have blogs developed?" There is no static definition of blog; what a blog is now is not what it was years ago, and, no doubt, it will further change, for the reason that its appearances and uses in Internet communication have changed and continue to change.

There is no general agreement as to when the first weblog was created. Some blog historians, such as Dave Winer, claim the first weblog was created was created 13 years ago by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN. For those like Winer, Berners-Lee's 1992 webpage was a weblog because it included links to new websites as they came online. However, other historians, such as Jorn Barger disagree. Barger's "Weblog resources FAQ," does not identify Berners-Lee's webpage as the first weblog nor does it include the 1992 webpage among the early prototypes, although Barger defines a weblog as a "webpage where a blogger ... 'logs' all the other webpages that she finds interesting," and Berner-Lee's webpage seems to fit that definition. Instead, Barger includes the National Center for Supercomputing Application's (NCSA's) 1993 Mosaic What's New page, created by Marc Andreeson, and Justin Hall's Justin's Home Page (1994) as early prototypes of weblogs. The 1993 What's New page listed postings in chronological order from newest to oldest and provided links to other webpages, and Justin's Home Page in 1994 included comments about and links to other webpages, along with photos and personal information. Barger suggests Dave Winer's Scripting News was the first weblog because it "formalized many characteristics in 1997." Because Scripting News was the first to include periodic postings in reverse chronological order, comments about and links to other websites, and a sidebar with links to archives and other URLs, it seems Barger's working definition of a weblog is one that has the following elements: periodic reverse-chronological postings, comments about and links to other websites, and a sidebar with hyperlinks to other websites of interest.

According to The Blog Herald, "the first use of the term 'weblog' in relation to the delivery of content on a website" comes from the abstract of a 1995 paper entitled, Exploiting the World-Wide Web for Electronic Meeting Document Analysis and Management by Gitesh Raikundalia and Michael Rees. However, popular use of the term didn't begin until after Jorn Barger's webpage, Robot Wisdom, generally considered to be one of the original weblogs, identified itself as a "weblog" in December 1997 (Rebecca Blood:December 2004).

On January 26, 1999, Cameron Barrett, creator of another early weblog, Camworld, published an essay entitled, "Anatomy of a Weblog," which defined a weblog as a webpage that: 1) is updated regularly, 2) has a "nice, clean easy-to-use design and user interface," 3) has a theme, 4) isn't patronizing, 5) includes a mailing list, and 6) has a community "maintained by repeat visitors and list members who contribute" to the webpage. Replies and comments to that article motivated Jesse James Garrett to identify 23 weblogs that "were known to exist" at the beginning of 1999, and he forwarded that list to Cameron Barrett, who published the list on Camworld Rebecca Blood's "Weblogs: A History and Perspective").

Weblogs were rare at that time because their construction and maintenance required a blogger to have knowledge of both Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)" and File Transfer Protocol (FTP), plus the abilities to update content and establish protocols for archiving and indexing old material. That combination of knowledge and skills belonged to web developers, so it is not strange that early bloggers were web developers.

Peter Merholz is credited with coining the shortened version of the term, "blog," when he posted in May or April of 1999 in the sidebar of his weblog, PeterMe.com, that he pronounced the term, "weblog," as "wee blog" or "blog" for short (Juiceenewsdaily.com's "History of Blogs". Shortly thereafter or at the same time, Brigette Eaton began using the term, blog, when she launched Eatonweb Portal, which was the first portal dedicated to listing blogs, and which further popularized the term (The Blog Herald's "A Short History of Blogging". Although Eaton defined a blog (weblog) as a webpage with dated entries, her listing excluded personal journals, which were webpages with dated entries, apparently because blogs were about logging the World Wide Web, not logging one's life.

From the above, it should be clear that in the early development of blogs whether a webpage was identified as a blog or not depended upon one's definition. For example, some such as Winer and Blood in 1993, argued that links to other webpages were an essential element of any blog. In other words, it was all about content: a webpage with dated postings that commented about and linked to other websites was a blog, whereas a webpage with dated postings about personal experiences was not.

END OF PART ONE

Here's a photo of one of my cats, Buddy, lying on his back on top of a patio table. He was so relaxed, and he stayed there for about half an hour. Buddy was rescued in Northern Virginia. He's a great cat.

A few years ago I took Swedish language courses at the Swedish School (Svenska Skolan) in Falls Church, Virginia. Since moving to Florida two years ago, I have been unable to continue in the language. An internet search of the Consulate General of Sweden's website lists adult Swedish language courses in the U.S.; however, there are no schools listed in Florida. For those living in the Metro DC area and are interested in learning or improving upon your Swedish, I highly recommend the Swedish School.

A very close friend of mine, Phyllis McSweeney, died last Friday in Marblehead, Massachusetts. I first met Phyllis when I was tutoring students at North Shore Community College, then in Beverly, Massachusetts, many years ago. She was a full-time student in a 2-year nursing program and a full-time LPN and mother of 5 children in a single-parent household. I was working full-time and exploring what I wanted to do in my life. The particular courses that I helped Phyllis with were Anatomy & Physiology I and II. To make it more interesting for her, and especially for me, I created stories to go through, in detail, every anatomical system of James Bonds' body: respiratory system, digestive system, reproductive system, etc. Although there were days that Phyllis was physically exhausted from doing so much (like working a very long shift the day before), she never missed a tutoring session and always had a warm smile. She stuck it out when others would have quit. Phyllis got her Associate's Degree and became an RN. Best for me, however, she became a dear friend with an open mind and caring heart. I'll miss her very much.

I find myself thinking about the December 21, 1993, Village Voice article, "A Rape in Cyberspace." At first, the author seems surprised by the physical effects that imaginary play can have. She seems to believe an isomorphism of sites and practices exists: the real world is the world of the body, of physical practices (real actions and effects), whereas a MUD is of the mind, of imaginary practices (unreal actions and effects). So, she is surprised that some authors/players of LamdaMoo felt violated when their virtual characters were assaulted in that virtual world. However, such thinking seems very naive to me. Written and spoken words have emotional impacts; just ask someone who has been the victim of emotional abuse. In the virtual world of LamdaMoo, it was the norm that authors/players owned and controlled their own characters. However, one author/player broke the social contract by taking control of some other authors'/players' characters. The violator had one woman's character disembowel herself and another player's character "sexually service" the violator's character, Mr. Bungle. On the one hand, one could dismiss the actions of the violator and devalue the feelings of the victims by saying that "It was just a game, and the creator of Mr. Bungle was just being an innovative player. No one really got hurt. The offended players were oversensitive." On the other hand, a social rule of the community that had been created in LamdaMoo was that authors/players owned and controlled their own characters: no one's character acted against the will of its author. The person who took control of others' characters violated that rule. Just as rape forces a person to act against her/his will, the creator of Mr. Bungle forced others' characters to act against the wills of their creators. If rape is not acceptable in the real world, why should it be acceptable in LamdaMoo? I heard, but could not find in an Internet search, that in Japan a person murdered another person in retiliation for a theft that had occurred in a MUD. Althought the theft was imaginary, the rage and murder were not. If any of you know of that event of Japan, please send more information through a comment.

Currently on display at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Tampa, is "Bodies: The Exhibition," which opened August 18 and closes in February 2006. (The museum's website is www.mosi.org/). The exhibit shows preserved human bodies and body parts, and the U.S. company, producing the exhibit, is Premier Exhibitions. The company obtained the bodies and body parts from the Dalian Medical University of Plastination Laboratories in China, which used a polymer preservation process called plastination.

The coming of the exhibit was announced at the end of July by MOSI officials who said the exhibit would be both educational and memorable. Of course, a big question for many was, "Where did the bodies come from?" According to the July 23, 2005, issue of the St. Petersburg Times, Dr. Roy Glover, medical director for Premier Exhibitions, told the Times that all of the bodies had been donated to medical facilities for educational purposes. However, before the August 18th opening, the Florida Anatomical Board voted "No" to the exhibit because board officials said the bodies were unclaimed and unidentified in China, and thus, individuals had not given their consent to having their bodies being donated and publicly displayed. Nonetheless, the MOSI said it would open the exhibit on time despite the fact that the board did not give its permission, and it did.

Over 12,000 visitors came to see the exhibit during the first four days. According to Alligatoronline, Lynn Romrell, of Florida's Anatomical Board, said the exhibit was in violation of Florida law. Nonetheless, the state's Attorney General said that the law was too vague to warrant legal action against the museum.

The St. Petersburg Times noted, in its July 28 issue, the apparent contradiction in Dr. Glover's earlier statement that the bodies had been donated. Of course, one can say that he didn't lie; he just didn't say it was the Chinese government that had donated the bodies to the medical facility. Dr. Glover reiterated that the bodies were obtained legally, and said it was possible to exhibit the bodies legally and ethically without consent of the individuals or their families. Michael Sappol, the curator/historian of the National Library of Medicine and the author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in 19th Century America, says "'the Chinese government is a notorious violator of bioethical standards'" (St. Petersburg Times, July 28, 2005).

So, is the exhibit ethical? What is certain is the company's vested interest in drawing in crowds to pay for the bodies and reap in profits.

Who were the people whose bodies are on display? Certainly, one can simply repeat what has been said above: they were unknowns because their bodies were unclaimed and unidentified. However, there are other possibilities, aren't there? Could the bodies be the bodies of Chinese prisoners? If so, could they have been political prisoners? The same July issue of the St. Petersburg Times reports of a similar exhibit operated by a German company with a lab in Dalian that does plastination. German media accused that company of using the bodies of Chinese prisoners who had been shot execution-style to feed an international black market. The German company denied using bodies of prisoners killed violently, and Premier Exhibitions denies any affiliation with the German company. Nonetheless, the U.S. company has not proven where these bodies came from beyond the fact that they were Chinese and the Chinese government said the bodies were unclaimed and unidentified.

Another question concerns the boundaries between education and exploitation. Does consent to having one's body used for medical-educational purposes necessarily mean that one consents to having one's body put out for public display as well? The August 29, 2005, issue of National Geographic News quotes Arthur Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, to say, "'There is a fine line between education and exploitation in these kinds of exhibits. And you only want people to be displayed if you have their consent, not the consent of a third party.'" However, Dr. Glover seems to invoke their consent by saying, "'These particular individuals are helping us to understand our bodies... I think they would be pleased.'" I guess that means they would be happy knowing that their bodies are being used as commodities by a U.S. company profiting from the preservation and display of their bodies despite their informed consent.

Final questions on this topic, at least for today, are: "Does the location of the exhibit legitimize what the company says is an educational and scientific display? The exhibit is at the Museum of Science and Industry. Would the exhibit be equally legitimate as an educational and scientific display if the bodies were on display at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center or a Las Vegas Casino?

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