A Very Cockroach Thanksgiving

A Very Cockroach Thanksgiving

Dear the human race, hello I have something to say,

I know I am just a cockroach,

 but soon is our dear Thanksgiving Day.

There are many thinks I am thankful for,

though you may or may not care.

Like this lovely home you have provided to me,

and my four hundred children to share.

We are thankful for so many things,

especially the phenomenal food you cook.

Your breads, your ham, and desserts galore,

 In fact all of the recipes of your book.

So enjoy your football with family and friends,

Try not to stay up too late.

For when you are tucked away in bed,

We will help you clean every plate.

Defying the Monopoly

I suppose to a certain extent, I am uncomfortable with the idea of DIYbio..."bio hacking", at least in the context of being in close proximity to where I eat and sleep.  We have already discussed this, however, and I would like to instead discuss an interesting and recurring theme in DIYbio that I do greatly appreciate.  This is the unyielding spirit of the need to "defy the monopoly" as I put it.  Throughout just about every chapter, if not every chapter of our book, the main concern of all hackers is being able to take what should be made available on a mass scale but is made to be too expensive, and reproduce it to be made available either for free, or for a minimal cost in comparison.  From the men trying to make cancer research more effective, to Aull, a 23 year old MIT graduate with a real genetic problem and wants to make her test she even had to use available for others without the expense.  This became especially apparent to me in the case of the farmers in India.  As if farmers in the country had not already had enough to deal with trying to keep up in a global economy, as is typical in business a lot of the time, the big company became the shark.  Although the herbicide company Monsanto had not yet been approved for use in the country, they were already on the move to crush the farmers in the country by forcing them to bend to their will.  Like what the "Men Who Built America" (Vanderbilt and the railroads, Rockefeller and oil, Carnegie and steel, etc.) did to succeed by not only being the first in their area of expertise, Monsanto was ready to charge whatever they could squeeze to make a profit.  Where else would these Indian farmers have to turn to?  That's where many of the hackers see the problem.  There is biological knowledge and practice that is being kept from the average person, when in the beginning we were all pretty much on a level playing field.  However, because now things have gotten so complicated, these monopolies enjoy reminding customers of that every time they pick up a prescription, or pay a doctor bill for a simple lab test they could have done at home.  Most of this stuff has to do with our genes, and our health, so why should it be kept at such an expensive rate?  The affects of Monsanto's financial wrath reaches into the lives of the farmers in India to the extent that there have been a surge in suicides in the country as a result.  Thousands of farmers left to ruins because they could not compete with genetically modified seeds saw no other way out.  How sad is this?  I find it incredibly so when businesses take nature, which was here long before we became a species, and turn it into such a business that they have to control and continue to make profit off of.  When does it end?  Where do we see the light that is the heart of someone who fights to bring knowledge, nature, and good ole' genetics to everyone...the stuff that we and nature are made of?  This is the positive side of bio hacking I appreciate the most, the spirit of freedom in being able to help each other, and even sometimes ourselves as usually it seems these hackers have a personal connection to their projects.  This I appreciate.