{"id":10245,"date":"2006-07-28T10:43:58","date_gmt":"2006-07-28T14:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2006\/07\/28\/10245.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:54:53","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:54:53","slug":"interview-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2006\/07\/28\/interview-part-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><i>What&#8217;s all this about? Start with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/journal\/show-entry.php?Entry_ID=10243\">Part V<\/a>, like I did.<\/i>\n<p><b>3. If you, thought-experiment-wise, had to convert to another biological phylum, what biological phylum would it be?<\/b>\n<p>Well, and echinoderms don&#8217;t have brains, but they do have the cool five-fold symmetry business. Cnidaria have radial symmetry, and a wide variety of means of reproduction. Is radial symmetry cooler than five-fold symmetry? Living in water is kind of a downside for me. On the other hand, coral! As for Priapulida, well, once you get past the dick jokes (and I&#8217;m not knocking the dick jokes), what have you got?\n<p>Really, there are only two phyla to seriously consider: mollusks and arthropods. Mollusks are tasty. Some of them, anyway. Clams, oysters, scallops (mmmm... scallops), snails, slugs, limpets. OK, never mind the last of those. All else being equal, wouldn&#8217;t you rather be tasty? I mean, yes, tastiness is in the taste bud of the taster, but come on&#8212;scallops! Plus, skeletons (mostly), brains, circulatory and respiratory systems. Mollusks ain&#8217;t bad.\n<p>On the other hand, eighty percent of animals can&#8217;t be wrong, can they? I mean, there you are, in the big registration hall, trying to make a last-minute decision, and you haven&#8217;t done much research because you were at the big not-yet-assigned-to-a-phylum dance until far too late last night, aren&#8217;t you going to get in the big long line? I mean, there&#8217;s that hot ... um ... being with all her\/his\/its friends, all talking excitedly about chitin exoskeletons, and you start thinking, you know, you could really fancy yourself with six legs, couldn&#8217;t you? Sexual reproduction (potentially), you know what I mean? Plus, lobsters, crabs and shrimp. Mmmm, shrimp. Not to mention mandibles, and I&#8217;ll add that the word <I>mandible<\/I> is an odd and lovely one. Say it aloud: <I>mandible<\/I>. People have jaws, but bugs have <I>mandibles<\/I>. I mean, yes, on the whole, I&#8217;d rather be human, but if I had to convert, it&#8217;s arthropod for me.\n<p><I>chazak, chazak, v&#8217;nitchazek<\/I>,<br>-Vardibidian. \n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s all this about? Start with Part V, like I did. 3. If you, thought-experiment-wise, had to convert to another biological phylum, what biological phylum would it be? Well, and echinoderms don\u2019t have brains, but they do have the cool&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17780,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10245\/revisions\/17780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}