Last evening Juliet (the woman with whom Byron and I are visiting this weekend) invited two couples over for a party. What made this party fun was that all the couples that stayed for dinner had two-year old-ish boys. This scenario made it possible for a bit of actual adult dinner conversation. Once tiny portions of Juliet's delicious Baltimore sour beef, baked apples and sweet potato pie were eaten/nibbled/thrown by the boys, they descended upon the living room to romp and nearly destroy. Amidst the cacophony, I found out the Aaron, husband to Andrea and dad to Eamon, is a Bioethicist at Johns Hopkins. He is a full member of the scientific teams that are researching stem cells. Instead of focusing on the medical aspects though, his focus is on the ethics. Whew – speaking of hot topics!
Balitmorians seem to be moderately more concerned in general with ethics than other places I have visited. I was listening to a local radio program while driving around the other day. The topic was the killing of a burglar by a John’s Hopkins student with a samurai sword. Instead of just having the usual psychologist, politician, lawyer, they also had an ethicist. He eventually asked the question “Is there any kind of property so worth protecting that its protection justifies murder?” Not a conversation you could have every day without your handy dandy ethicist.
Alas the night ended too soon because of two-year-old bedtimes, so I didn’t get through my entire basket of tough ethics questions. Can’t remember what they were now, but it’s was so great to talk about something other than Blues Clues (BTW, how did they transition from the old guy to the new guy without traumatizing the kids, not to mention the poor blue dog – Juliet and I really want to know!)
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