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Your Genome Scanned While You Wait
dotc writes "A Wired reporter has his DNA scanned for disease predispositions. While we all knew this was coming soon, it's still a little strange to read the first-person account."
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When will we have to make sure we leave no testable samples of DNA when going in for an interview? :)
More importantly when we go on dates?
...is just a few years away. On the upside, GE should render those "add three inches..." spams pretty much obsolete for my grandchildren.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
You mean I've been collecting Jude Law's blood and urine samples all these years for nothing?!
And of course, the next news article will be that HMO's have begun rejecting medical procedures based on the predisposition for certain diseases of certain genomes.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
1) People will take predispositions too seriously. People with 'bad' genes will think they're doomed and live like it. People without any 'bad' genes will think they're bulletproof and live like it.
2) This won't just be used for diseases. You may remember in the movie Gattica there was one of these devices being used for personality analisis. How long before (even if made illegal) employers feed this information in about employees? People run their date's information through a computer to try and predict compatibility?
...was that this was coming. The question now are, when and will people accept this as a moral practice, or reject it as something unethical.
... we all earned from Bart in episode 2F20 (The conclusion to "Maggie Shot Mr. Burns") that no court would ever accept DNA evidence!
Sure, you can find a few statistical correlations between a few very dangerous diseases and genetic markers, but as the story points out, they still don't know enough to say for certain that a person will get breast cancer at age 47 1/2, or have a heart attack at 53 while climbing 3 flights of stairs.
We don't know enough about the genetic code yet (whether we should even try to learn it is another debate, you need only look at how Western Society has been damaged by the results of invetigating the poor fertility of yam-eating Mexican Indians) to do more than rough guesses that are about as accurate as asking about your families medical history.
If you want to live longer, eat right, exercise and don't smoke. I'm sure our Pope will soon ban this useless exercise, anyhow.
A. Rightmann
I read that J. Craig Venter (owner of Celera, who beat the HUGO project to sequence the human genome) sells the opportunity to have your own genome sequenced for 500,000$
How far into the future is the Genescope from Michael Cordy's books, a device that, among other things, can show a real life image of someone constructed from his/her DNA?
-- Cheers!
... on school playgrounds everywhere:
"My genome is better than your genome!"
My jeans get scaned everytime I walk down the street and the ladys check out my ass.
Did anyone other than me just get *TOTALLY* creeped-out by that article? Not the Gattica references, although the social implications are staggering (i.e. the Philip-Morris quote), but more of the feeling that knowing all the things about my body that *could* go wrong, and trying to treat them in advance is just something that we don't understand the ramifications of entirely?
is *NOT* the same as actually being diseased/sick. Just because you carry a ressive trait for diabetes or heart disease does not mean that you will suffer from either. I already know I am "predisposed to heartdisease and diabetes", my grandfather had it. I do not need a DNA scan to tell me.
You tell some people they are predispositioned for heart disease and they are going to think it is a death warrant. Even though it is only a chance, people will throw money at it in attempt to do something about it. More importantly this will spawn a whole new branch of medicine where you sell drugs/therapy to healthy people. We are already starting to see that practice today, look at the logic behind pepcid/ac, the heartburn medication you take over the counter *before* you have heartburn.
Just my two cents.
"For instance, you might have a CG that makes you susceptible to diabetes, and I might have a CC, which makes it far less likely I will get this disease."
CC is not an allowed base pairing. It could be GC, AT or TA instead, but CC would be recognized as a defect and repaired.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
All this talk about DNA had me thinking not only about mapping the human genome, but the very processes through which other organisms replicated and pass-on this DNA "code" to their very existance.
Every hour, each E. coli bacterium multiplies by producing a copy of its DNA and then splitting into two daughter bacteria. Each is identical to its parent.
But, when protein diffusion is combined with the binding and release of proteins from the cell membrane, oscillating patterns in E. Coli occur.
Well, "Who cares?" you think to yourself.
However, it's actually fascinating because this is almost identical to the Turing model reaction-diffusion equations that you read about in your biology class(es); behind every set of zebra stripes or leopard spots lies this Turing model.
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
All the article on one nice page.
DNA scanning will fan the flames of the fetus rights debate, as parents desire to alter the DNA of unborn children.
If you had bothered to test them you would've seen he was mecha.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
We check a map of Britain on his wall, and sure enough, the Sykes family's homeland of Yorkshire is less than 200 miles south of Perth.
Err...Britain's not really that all that big. 200 miles is considered a fair distance here. I'm from Yorkshire originally, and there's no way I would have considered Perth to be close.
I've sinced moved further south. It's 160 miles between where I came from (Sheffield in Yorkshire) and where I moved to (Marlow in Buckinghamshire). That too is considered a fair hop, although travelling that distance is something I'm completely used to now. But some of my friends in Yorkshire thing it's a long way to go.
All a difference of scale, really.
Cheers,
Ian
I wonder how long before we hear: Only those with something to hide would refuse to be screened. Using encryption (for example) just pisses off government, but there's nobody with deep pockets brib^H^H^H^H lobbying them to ban it. But insuring sickly people costs insurers big money. How much would it cost them to buy laws to make screening mandatory, or at least to allow them (all of them) to insist on it if you want a policy? At the least, I expect to see policy rises for those who refuse a screening, on the basis that only those with something to hide...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
DNA is the book of life. It's also the book of death.
Hard science journalism at it's best. Sheesh.
This, I'm told, is the first time a healthy human has ever been screened for the full gamut of genetic-disease markers.
Yeah, RIGHT. Imagine that lab meeting: Guys, I have a plan, we've never done this before, so lets invite in a journalist and see if we can humiliate ourselves.
Braun, 46, is both jovial and German.
Yes, Homer, Germany is the land of chocolate.
These disease-causing SNPs are fueling a biotech bonanza; the hope is that after finding them, the discoverers can design wonder drugs.
The hope of many of these bottom feeders is that they can identify an SNP and exert some intellectual property over it to horn in on whomever actually can find a treatment. Anyone want me to deliver another manifesto on the evil of this approach?
Alright - let's talk genetic diversity.
As Braun explains it, somewhere in the past, an isolated human community lived in an area where the food was poor in iron. Those who developed a mutation that stores high levels of iron survived, and those who didn't became anemic and died, failing to reproduce.
Good point! This is reason number one NOT to reduce the genetic diversity of the human race. All of these alleles floating around the population - which may become increasingly rare as there is selective pressure against them, and may even cause considerable suffering or death to some of those who carry them - should not be removed from our collective gene pool, at least not without considerable discussion. Why? Because WE MAY NEED THEM. A monoculture (were all organisms have the same genes) is not sustainable in a biological sense.
This is also one of the great tragedies of our times - sub-saharan africa contains only a fraction of the human population, but it contains over a third (depending on how you measure it) of human genetic diversity. The region of the world being devastated by AIDS may contain any number of alleles which our decsendents may need in the population in order to face the challenges of the future, whatever they may be.
"Ja, that's my favorite," says Braun, himself a smoker. "I wonder what Philip Morris would pay for that."
Note that this gene doesn't make it safe to smoke - smoking still causes heart disease and so forth in these people. Still, a treatment to clone this gene into your lungs could make billions, no (clone as in move DNA around)?
These genetic modification treatments may not be such a good idea, either. You all remember in 1999 when a research subject at Penn died from a liver treatment (search for "liver")? The upshot is - anything that delivers genes into a person can, and sooner or later will, go out of control and do things you don't expect. Killing the subject is the most likely, but frankly least frightening, of these possibilities. The real threat - and my colleagues in biotech like to play this down but I am not at all convinced by their arguments - is that vectors for DNA delivery into humans could go wild and become contagious.
Of course, I'm opposed to animal organ transplantation for fear of introducing new human pathogens, so maybe I'm just a naysayer.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Wired reporter first to be refused any form of medical or life insurance due to his stupidity in paying to find out that he's too risky to insure.
I found this particularly interresting and disturbing.
The fact that Sykes and I are members of the same extended family is just a bizarre coincidence, but it points to applications beyond simple genealogy. "I've been approached by the police to use my surnames data to match up with DNA from an unknown suspect found at a crime scene," says Sykes. Distinctive genetic markers can be found at the roots of many family trees. "This is possible, to narrow down a pool of suspects to a few likely surnames. But it's not nearly ready yet."
It had never occured to me that Y chromosome passes along from father to son would be almost identical, following surnames as they are passed on as well. It seems obvious, thinking about it however.
Im not sure I like the idea of possibly being hauled in for questioning because some messed-up branch of my lineage decided to go rob a liquor store to pay off his bookie. Of course, my family blood is too good to worry about such things!
Scott.
So if your particulat genome sequence reveals a tendency to contract a particular disease I guess the main thing your going to be worried about is if it curable in the event that you DO actually get it, right (or of any long-tern after effects)? This could be inteesting for some reasons: 1) If you know you have a high chance of catching an uncurable disease perhaps we will end up with hugh scores of people all devoting their lives to curing that disease. Medical teams of potentially diseased doctors looking for the cure to a disease they don't yet have...weird. 2) By sequencing more and more genes a huge amount of data can be gathered revealing those diseases which are becoming more common and greater research put into those areas. Just a few thoughts :-)
Rake Free + Mac Poker: CardCrusade
.. The last time I was at my physician he wanted a blood sample, a semen sample, a urine sample and a stool sample.
So I gave him my underwear.
[rimshot]
Trolling is a art,
I can see it now, insurance companies will have manditory blood tests and then map out your DNA. IF you have a high chance of anything then there will be a premium hike. The world of Gattica becomes a reality, now people like the KKK can use this to further their cause! I see a great rift in society where couples planning to be married will try to get DNA info on their spouse to make sure they're not inferior. I see a new form of elitism coming about where the new aristocracy will be of a genetic elite and those who are inferior will be weeded out through poverty, disease, and depression. They will develop gene therapy that can "Clean" your DNA and make you an elite but it will cost millions, a legacy to leave your children. Then while working yout 80 hours a week popping soma you will go visit quaint villages of non-elites and marvel at their simple ways....
Behold the Fordian Society of Huxley's "Brave New World" written in the 30s he warned of this day. Now it's finally here...
It's the end of the world as we know it, but I don't feel fine... not at all...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I am always surprised at the distance distortion that occurs in areas of high population density. I live in the middle of the United States (< 60 miles from the population centroid) and don't think twice about driving 500 miles to my vacation cabin. (Too d*mn hot where I live in the summer. Got to go north.)
I have had friends who live in Manhattan that consider 15 miles to be "far" and 200 miles to be an extraordinary distance to travel.
I wonder if people's definition of far is better correlated to "number of people passed" than "distance"?
Any slashdot readers from the Australian outback want to tell us what they think "far" is?
While screening is an ominous first step, prenatal screening and gene therapy are where this gets really frightening. For starters, as with any cutting edge medical technology, this will be expensive. Therefore, those who would "improve" the dna of their offspring will be the elites. As they branch out from diseases to other areas...intelligence, looks, etc., the line between the rich and the poor will only grow wider. And here in the U.S., minorities represent a greater percentage of the poor than their overall numbers, meaning any growing divide between rich and poor will also widen the racial divide. Unless society comes up with some good answers, the spells big time social problems for the future.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
I did a google search on the author's name and found his page. This guy's got quite an impressive list of books and articles. http://literati.net/Duncan/
.. back in my granddad's day when you could just discriminate based on skin colour. Now you have to be a damn scientist to hate people.
Yes, I'm joking!
Trolling is a art,
Yet I will be able to glimpse some of the internal programming bequeathed to me by evolution, and that I, in turn, have bequeathed to my children ...
or not. These types of genetic checks have interesting side-effects, such as finding out that your father is not who you think he was! I read somewhere that this was the case in about 25% of cases. The future will bring us lots of fun!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I wont worry too much about it... no CEO wud like to admit that all the employees working under him are smarter than him :-) :-)
Anyway, there are many companies even now who don't recruit the brightest people. The reason, the brighter they are, the more likely they are to switch jobs. I kid you not but many companies have this policy, or used to do in dotcom era.
Besides, if you have too many smart people working at the same place, I think that wud create mayhem...just think of the arguments these guys can have...
So I will say guys, rest assured...we are safe
What's under yellowstone?
I am TERRIBLY sorry. I'm a moderator and I intended ot moderate this up (Funny), but it appears that my mouse let me down and I actually selected the next option down, which is "Overrated", so I moderated the guy down.
I did NOT mean to. My apologies for not being more careful.
RP
With the risk of getting a flamebait mod, perhaps it is worth pointing out that the technology is not all bad.
So it is creepy to get a genetic test, but also it can be quite useful. If you have predisposition for an illness then you are much better off knowing it in advance so that you can test frequently and adapt your behavior (e.g., diet).
And of course, if you still don't like it, you don't have to.
Now somebody will predict that insurance companies will force everyone to do the test, I'll save you the trouble and reply right away. The scenario is unlikely, because there are quite a few legal limitations on what these companies can and cannot ask for - and the majority of registered voters are very sceptical.
But even if it did happen, would it necessarily be so bad? Widespread testing would make the total, and therefore the average, cost of insurance lower. This is because it is easier and cheaper to treat illnesses at an early stage. Certainly those with certain predispositions would get a higher premium, but would not even that be preferable over paying a standard premium and then getting an illness that could have been averted by frequent tests and say the right diet? One could also think of taxes and subsidies supporting those that got higher premiums. Since the total medical costs would go down, it is at least theoretically possible to come up with a system where everyone is better off.
Tor
What?!? The article was sited, quoted and unaltered? Why is this illegal?
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
From the article:
The SNPs keep rolling past, revealing more mutations, including a type-2 diabetes susceptibility, which tells me I may want to steer clear of junk food. More bad news: I don't have a SNP called CCR5 that prevents me from acquiring HIV, nor one that seems to shield smokers from lung cancer. "Ja, that's my favorite," says Braun, himself a smoker. "I wonder what Philip Morris would pay for that."
Hearing about CCR5 was the only thing in this article that blew my socks off. Genetic immunity to HIV? Wow.
Google hits a lot of things when doing a search for CCR5. The most approachable is here.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
If they can trace most people back to 7 or 8 specific females that lived 20,000 or 45,000 years ago, is it possible to do the same with males? I got the impression from reading the article (4th page) that there is basically NO difference in the Y chromasome between a father and son (except for the given mutation or two that always may occur).
Karma: NaN
Doesn't posting on the same article that you've recently moderated 'throw away' your moderation? You can't moderate and post on the same article (tends to allow bias).
The moderation you made may have been removed simply by posting. The moderator guidelines don't specifically mention that action, but I thought I experienced it in the past.
Braun, 46, is both jovial and German
OMG, I didn't think that was possible! What will genetics bring us next?!?
To read makes our speaking English good. - X. Harris
It all depends on the type of corporations we have.
Gov't isn't the big threat. It is a threat mostly when it is being a hired bully for the corps.
If a "Gattaca" future becomes a reality, it will be the corporations, not the gov't, pushing for it and implementing it.
It doesn't matter if the gov't doesn't oppress you but no one will hire you, you'll starve anyway.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
my fave quote from the article.
"One gene seems to shield smokers from lung cancer. 'That's my favorite,' says the doctor, a smoker. 'I wonder what Philip Morris would pay for that.'"
Ah yes.. now I can blisfully tell myself that yes I must have this gene and therfore my smoking is A.O.K
Huzzah!
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
It's illegal because it's a violation of copyright law. "Fair use" describes the conditions when you're able to reproduce a work without the permission of the author. Mr. Coward was right when he says that the posting doesn't fall under fair use... a section of the article would probably be fair use, but the whole thing is a no-no.
I am talking about suppressing evolution. The human race going extinct would be evolution. I am talking about making sure that the resources (genetic resources) are available to make sure that the human race can undergo another sort of evolution if our survival depends on it. The population of the Andean Condor fell to, what, a dozen individuals IIRC? Even if the alleles among the rest of the species really made them less fit for the present circumstance (which I doubt,) the genetic homogeneity among the survivors makes the long term survival of the species very doubtful. This is a genetic bottleneck. Having it happen to our species is very, very bad.
Someone else raised the possibility that I want to keep suffering people around as a genetic bank for the human race - that was not my intent. What I mean is that we should eliminate an allele from the population only after serious thought, and only if therapeutics fail, since we simply do not know (and cannot predict) which genes may be helpful to our descendents.
When those who are vulnerable to AIDS have died, there will be many alleles - which have nothing to do with AIDS - lost to the human race as a whole. Those alleles might have saved the human race - or some population of humans on some distant planet we colonised - from dying out under some other circumstance, or might have been linked to some other trait, important for some reason of which we have no inkling.
It is true that in order for the alleles in africa to be helpful to my descendents, I would need shared offspring, somewhere along the line, with a present day African. Since I am talking about a rather long timescale - millennia, at least - I view that as entirely likely. This reveals my multicultural social bias, I am sure; I am mixed Ashkinasi (Jew) and Cherokhee (American Indian.) If you asked my ancestors 1,000 years ago in the Baltics and the present-day SE US if they thought they'd share a great^40 grandchild, I think it would have looked pretty unlikely.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
In short, it's both nature and nurture. Try to be good to yourself...
Oh yeah, eat your goddam veggies, too, ya little bastards.
That is all.
just something that we don't understand the ramifications of entirely?
Hell, do you understand the ramifications of posting to Slashdot entirely, particularly with a link to your homepage? The Wayback Machine and Google (and soon other places) are archiving what you're writing...you may well be building up an indelible record that future employers will *always* look at before considering you.
Uncertainty is part of life. If it wasn't...well, we'd have a much less interesting time.
May we never see th
Not only have I heard of retroviruses, I have studied them. A retrovirus to be used as a vector for cloning into humans would have to be engineered to avoid tripping any immune system alarms. That's playing with fire.
HIV is generally agreed to have hopped from a monkey as a result of a bite. An animal organ - particularly when placed in an individual taking immunosuppressent drugs - might pose the same threat.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
This sort of thing happens all the time in academia... it's perfectly legal and in accordance with fair use. Just beacuse slashdot doesn't happen to be an educational institution doesn't mean that the article's duplication doesn't further education.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There are four criteria determining whether something is fair use. First is the purpose -- commercial or non-profit educational. (There *are* differences between Slashdot and a university.) Second is the nature of the work. Third is the amount of quoted material (copying the whole article is less likely to be fair use than quoting a section.) Fourth is the competition for the market of the original publisher -- and Slashdot has a great overlap with Wired's audience, and fewer people will visit Wired's website because of this posting on Slashdot. Fair use can be pretty fuzzy sometimes, but not in this case.
I think that this might benefit people in that knowing what they are predisposed to might encourage them to live a healthier life, it is a "might be" kind of test. Its like saying that "sometime in the next 55 years, your going to get into a serious car accident" You'll sweat it for a bit, then start driving normaly again. It might happen, it might not, but you'll still drive your huge ass soccer mom SUV to work everyday...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
It's written by Wired's author; Wired paid for the rights to publish. It's either their intellectual property or the author's, depending on the agreement between them. So this is a proprietary work, not public domain.
Everytime I read about genetic testing and the possible repercussions from it (job discrimination, social discrimination, insurance discrimination, law discrimination), the idea resonates of obtaining resources and greed. Even though we humans tend to think of ourselves as civilized beings, we are just as savage as the animals we watch on National Geographic Television and the Discovery Channel. Our society is built upon genetic and social connectedness, i.e., birds of a feather flock together. The little camps or groups of people arise from genetic similarities which are expressed as behavior or abilities. People with certain genes will have some abilities, whether they are exceptional use of language, abstract thinking, exceptional physical endurance and motor control (athletes), deviant thinking and behavior (criminals tend to congregate in prisons) will tend to socialize with one another. It's up to the individuals with these genes to utilize what evolution and natural selection provided them to obtain resources necessary to ensure survivability of their genes. Just as the law makers, insurance industry, private industry, and educational system (Ivy League, public, and private schools) would like to have access to this information, it's almost like watching the Lions and Hyienas fighting over the injured gazelle. Law makers want to protect the people or industry to get re-elected. The insurance industry wants to limit insurance to diseased people to increase profits (they're cheating at the game of CHANCE and RISK). Private industry wants more efficient people (education/abilities) to increase profits. Schools only want the best, most successful students to increase their stature and graduation rate. Everyone wants to flex their intellectual and economic muscles with this issue to GAIN RESOURCES that help their organization or cause: GREED!
Let's face it folks, this is a central fact of biology and chemistry: Molecules are competing for energy to sustain the transition state for metabolism and reproduction to continue. It doesn't matter that the needs are currently met, "more" is always sought "just in case" (random events) the energy isn't available in the future. "More" is always sought to prevent foreign genes from being over expressed which might lead lead to native gene extinction.
I never thought much about the significance of an electron being promoted to an excited state in an antibonding orbital until I read this article.
Gosh, it's fun being a chemist.
I can see the prenatal testing now.
"Well Mrs. Smith, according to the genetic screening, your daughter will grow up to have an enormous rack."
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Your body is basically grown as a biological fractal... That's why something like 98% of all base pairs are the same in humans. That 98% probably describes the things that make us all similiar (placement and purpose of organs, the humanoid form, general cell structure and function).
If our DNA had to contain explicit instructions about the placement of every molecule in our body, it'd take the same amount of matter to encode that information =)
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Cells swabbed from inside your cheek are not always such a good idea.
Live never to be embarassed about anything said about you
Probably a bit mangled, but it's from Richard Bach's
- Illusions
. He has all this little quotes attributed to "The Messia's Handbook" that was given to him in the story. The way I take that is that you however you choose to present yourself in the world, don't worry too much about how others take it. Your always going to be misinterpreted, sometimes maliciously, but if you worry about it too much, you won't be very authentic. OTOH, if your being deliberately stupid, maybe you'd better hide your identity.I kind of wish I could go back and re-read some of my very old participation in netnews groups. Ok, so maybe it proves I wasted more time than I should have posting at work, but I have enough slack to cover a bit of that ;-). Some of this is probably archived on dusty tapes, but I don't think the on-line archives go back that far (I'm most interested in '83+ timeframe).
You can take it a lot of other ways too, like don't let that boyfriend have any naked pictures of you unless you won't be embarassed when they show up all over the internet.
Ok, so this is off-topic, but someone else started it. The idea of mapping your genome defects is only bad if the information is badly used. I don't think our social systems are really ready for this yet, particularly since the interpretation of the information isn't very advanced. The article is pretty clear about the limitations, but there are a lot of stupid people who will be frightened by the knowledge (of themselves, like the author of the article), or worse will use it to discriminate even though it is provably imperfect.
What was even more funny to me than the original joke was that someone moderated this "Informative"
I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
I think there is a modern conceit that we are wiser than people in the past. We look at their strange beliefs, and they are obviously strange. We still believe in "progress".
Look at the strange beliefs of the past. Experts thought blood-letting would purge your body of bad humours. Experts thought flagellation would purge your soul of sin. Experts though you could measure a person's talents and character traits by fondling the bumps on your head. Experts thought masturbation would drive you insane.
Set the time machine forward a couple of generations, my prediction is that our generation will be seen as possessing just as many goofy foibles as past generations.
I know it is just a movie, but look at films like " Back to the Future ", and look at how they portray the modern visitor as innately wiser and more insightful than they guys from the past.
According to this link the ship was the USS Truxton. Here is a link to a radio show about Lanier Phillips.
The radio story you linked to is the same one as was replayed on This American Life. Chris Brookes writes for both NPR and the CBC.
The most touching part of the story was his experience in Jacksonville, FL years later. He was trying to get to the Naval Air Station and stopped in an army base (in full uniform) to grab something to eat. He walked into the cafeteria and saw tables and tables of German and Italian prisoners of war. All he wanted to know was where a black guy could get some food (they usually had a separate window for 'em back then), but as soon as he opened the door he was slammed to the floor by a Jacksonville cop, who put his foot on Lanier's throat and pulled his gun. He yelled at Lanier for walking into the room of white people. White...Nazi...P.O.W.s got better treatment than a black US Soldier, more than ready to die for his country.
Sometimes...sometimes this country sickens and revolts me.
Triv