Human Beings

Kurt Vonnegut, the gentle humanist who challenged Americans to be true to themselves and mistrust technology, wealth and the arrogance of power, died last week, possibly with a bemused appreciation of the fact that all of the ugliest aspects of popular culture he challenged for more than half a century appeared to be thriving. The author of 19 novels and an array of plays and short stories, he struggled to make a living as a writer of science fiction until the success in 1969 of Slaughterhouse-Five, a fictional treatment of his survival as a prisoner of war during the tragic and senseless Allied bombing of Dresden late in World War II. An estimated 135,000 people died in the Dresden firestorm.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Trying to tread a fine line between encouraging scientific progress and preventing horrendous abuses of a new technology, a presidential advisory committee agreed yesterday that there should be a moratorium on the cloning of human beings by public or private institutions.The group said efforts to clone a person would not be safe now because they would be too likely to result in malformed fetuses.The 18-member group was charged by President Clinton with making a recommendation on human cloning by the end of the month.

NEW YORK -- "My journal is that of me which would else spill over and run to waste." This sentence, written by Henry David Thoreau in a marbled, word-swollen, sun-bleached notebook during the winter of 1841, goes a good way toward encapsulating one of the most rooted and mysterious of human impulses: the need to stop the spillage and make a record of the behavior of the self.While all human beings are endowed with an individual voice, an inner eye, or "I," that engages in an ever-unfurling dialogue with experience, not all human beings are equally compelled to preserve that dialogue on the Page.

LOS ANGELES -- On Tuesday, the first working day of 1996, the New York Stock Exchange was off to quite a start, with the Dow-Jones average jumping 60 points. At the same time, AT&T, the chipperest of the the blue-chippers, announced it was laying off 40,000 more employees.The company line, articulated by a spokesman, was: ''This will be a test of our compassion. . . . We're pledging to find people jobs outside the company.''I'm sure they mean well at the old phone company, once famous for its paternalism and employer-employee loyalty.

KENSINGTON -- Among the things that differentiate tigers from other creatures on this planet is the combination of big teeth, big claws and a striped body.Among the things that differentiate human beings from other creatures is the use of fire.Evidence of the earliest use of fire dates to half a million years ago in eastern Asia and parts of Europe, and to more than a million years ago in Africa.Our ancestors were not good-looking people by today's standards -- if your aesthetic judgment is based on the dioramas at the natural-history museums or the reconstructed faces shown in encyclopedias.

LONDON -- Do the living outnumber the dead? From time to time people assert that we do -- mostly population experts trying to scare us into reproducing less enthusiastically -- but is it true?It's certainly a striking image. The final day dawns, the Last Trump sounds, and all the dead of our long past rise from their forgotten graves -- only to find that they are a minority at the last judgment. While we, with ads for various consumer products printed on our T-shirts, are the majority.It's an even trickier problem for Hindus and others who believe in reincarnation, for there cannot be enough deserving souls to go around.

He was bigger than life. But he was only human.Mickey Mantle should be remembered as the blond-haired, thickly muscled Oklahoman who became one of baseball's all-time greats.He also should be remembered as the gaunt, frail figure whose alcoholism was at least partly responsible for the liver cancer that left him dead at the age of 63.One image cannot endure without the other.To savor Mantle simply as a sports hero is to ignore his life of excess.But to dwell on his shortcomings is to ignore his mythic place in American sports history.

PHILADELPHIA -- If Americans do little else during the coming presidential campaign season, they ought to listen at least once to Republican Alan Keyes, notwithstanding the fact that there is little chance he will be elected to anything, ever.A Keyes speech on the moral erosion of America is one of those transcendent experiences where you just have to be there. It's hard to explain how he touches the soul of an audience, and saying that he's ''silver-tongued'' (as everyone does) only tarnishes the picture by inadequacy.

The boundary line between human beings and animals has never been altogether clear. Now -- as we read about laboratory mice with human genes and contemplate a future of pig-to-people organ transplants -- the ancient fantasy of a chimera, a being part human and part animal, is fast becoming a scientific reality.The news from the laboratories is spectacular and more than a little science-fictionish. Among the new creatures that have been created is the ''oncomouse,'' which develops human cancers, and other mice that model other human ailments such as Alzheimer's and diabetes.

Paris -- A leader of the New Year's Day rebellion in southern Mexico, who calls himself ''Major Mario,'' gave the following answer to questions about links to the ''Shining Path'' movement in Peru:''I have read Mao Tse-tung, but I am not a Maoist, and our organization is not socialist. We want democracy, elections without frauds, land for the peasants, decent houses, medical care, schools. We want to be treated like human beings -- to eat meat like everyone else. It's as simple as that.''It is difficult to think of a European or Asian revolutionary in the 20th century who would have spoken quite those words.

Committing yourself for 12 hours to any TV production is a big deal. But before you decide you don't have the time for Ken Burns' new multipart documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," consider just giving it a 30-minute tryout. Watch the first half-hour tonight on PBS, and I bet you will become hooked on one of the best and most rewarding viewing experiences of the TV year. This is a film with both beauty and brains - it is gorgeous to look at, it will make you think and possibly even stir your soul.

MUMBAI, India - With a bit of pluck, even if was not always heartfelt, a touch of defiance and a dose of the city's famous resilience, Mumbai dusted itself off yesterday from last week's terrorist attack and headed back to work. The trains were reasonably packed, traffic was beginning to resemble its normally chaotic self and shoppers eased back into the stores, even if many still were not buying much. "Sure I'm scared," said Roshan Tengra, a housewife, as she headed into a Bank of India branch a few blocks from the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel where the most protracted militant attack occurred.

For the young women who dance in bars and clubs on The Block, Baltimore's adult entertainment district, life is a few days or weeks of cheap thrills, then years of drug addiction, abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, emotional torment and early death. Few newcomers realize the future that awaits them. As The Sun's Jonathan Bor reported last week in an article about the health risks faced by prostitutes, their odds of escaping it are vanishingly small. Mr. Bor's story focused on city public health workers' efforts to help dancers on The Block avoid HIV infection by giving them free condoms and clean needles.

"My dear, let us hope that it isn't true!" the wife of the bishop of Worcester is reputed to have exclaimed 150 years ago, on hearing that human beings might be descended from apes. "But if it is true, let us hope that it doesn't become widely known!" When it comes to sociobiology - better known these days as "evolutionary psychology" - the bishop's wife has modern counterparts: The religious right and the secular and supposedly scientific left are remarkably on the same page, both sides inclined to dispute or misrepresent the relevance of evolution to human beings.

RANCHO SANTE FE, Calif. -- Religion has faced formidable foes in its history. But atheism hasn't generally been one of them - until today. A recent string of best-selling books has put believers of all stripes on the defensive. Religion, say authors such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, is an unreasonable form of blind faith, often leading to fanaticism and violence. Reason and science, they contend, are the only proper foundations for forming opinions and understanding the universe.

Kurt Vonnegut, the gentle humanist who challenged Americans to be true to themselves and mistrust technology, wealth and the arrogance of power, died last week, possibly with a bemused appreciation of the fact that all of the ugliest aspects of popular culture he challenged for more than half a century appeared to be thriving. The author of 19 novels and an array of plays and short stories, he struggled to make a living as a writer of science fiction until the success in 1969 of Slaughterhouse-Five, a fictional treatment of his survival as a prisoner of war during the tragic and senseless Allied bombing of Dresden late in World War II. An estimated 135,000 people died in the Dresden firestorm.

I BOUGHT A CAR RECENTLY -- A 2004 Mini Cooper -- and I'm besotted with it. It is yellow with a white roof, and each night, when I get home from work, I obsessively wash away all the debris that has accumulated during the day. Then I park it in the garage and pat it on its hood before saying goodnight. Not only is this behavior ridiculous, it is completely out of character. I've always thought of cars essentially as transportation, demonstrated by my previous ride, a beat-up, rusting 1990 Toyota Camry with 167,000 miles.

Only one animal has chosen to be our ally and our friend. When that dog decides to bond to us, that's eternal. It's never going to change. ... Human beings have failed dogs constantly. I've never heard of a dog failing a human being." - ROBERT LIVAS, Will County, Ill., circuit judge, as he sentenced a man to 15 months in prison for killing a puppy

HE WASN'T a fiery orator, litigator or politician, but Kenneth B. Clark, the psychologist, educator and longtime student of race relations, played a key role in America's civil rights fight. And almost until his death this week at the age of 90, he was a fierce force for racial integration in education and, by extension, American life and society. He enjoyed a distinguished career in New York academic circles, as a professor at City College and as the first black member of the New York State Board of Regents, trying to set high academic standards and remove achievement gaps among students long before the national trend.

On January 7, 2004, GREGORY ALLEN ELIZONDO.Friends and fami ly will gather on Sunday, February 8, 6 P.M. at the Peabody Court Hotel to remember this most wonderful of human beings in a Celebration of Life. Inquiries please call (410) 962-7074.