Lucky Claudia.

Friends the BBC news headlines were full of a report of an amazing windpipe transplant in Spain, one that involved the use of stem cells from the recipient herself.

Reduced to its basics, a windpipe from a dead person was washed clear of any cells. Then stem cells from the Colombian patient Claudia (which had been grown previously) were introduced to the organ and, after a few days, it was transplanted into the patient replacing her windpipe which had been damaged by tuberculosis.

The result has been wonderful and after four months no rejection of the transplanted organ took place because the woman’s own cells were in the new organ. What this means is that the sky seems to be the limit for transplants and people could eventually get a new ‘anything’! Aren’t we humans clever? I’ll start to make a list…

Alas, the news headlines also carried another story. Al Qaeda via Zawahiri apparently had a go at Obama for being a ‘house negro’.

This is a slur from the infamous time that America was involved with slavery when special slaves of both sexes were taken from the cotton plantations and dressed up in nice white clothes and trained to be of ‘service’ to the plantation owners in the plantation mansion. Al Qaeda are vexed with Obama who had a Muslim connection early on but then chose Christianity hence became an infidel.

So poor Obama, who is not even in office yet, is already getting it from Muslim extremists but he is also getting it from American rednecks and racists in his own country who are taking it out on coloured people. Apparently assaults on coloured people (Obama surrogates) by whites are up significantly.

So there you have it: one story of amazing human accomplishment, one where a Colombian is given new life in Spain, set against another story which highlights just how racist, stupid and cruel some humans are.

Such contradictions are commonplace but it sure makes any meaningful evaluation of human beings difficult!

We’re a mixed bag, aren’t we?