SmokeSound

theguardian.com I have been delighting in the results of my DNA analysis, which shows that I am the descendent of old, old migrations out of Africa, up to 100,000 years ago. All of us, absolutely all of us, belong to that family.  If ever the Siren call of what we call "race" once tempted us to think that having blue eyes, or pale skin was a sign of superiority to people who have brown eyes or deeper toned skin, then it is long since past time to admit that "race" is a fiction. Siren call?  The Sirens, of Greek mythology, were dangerous creatures who lured sailors to come their way, and their way was to a shipwreck.  Their voices were sweet, and musical.  Something like thinking that being White makes one superior.  Going that way is to listen to a Siren song. Jared Diamond wrote, "Guns, Germs, and Steel", to show how finding ourselves pitched on valuable resources, or devastated by rampaging disease can make or break societies.  For instance, m...

scitechdaily.com Something there is about matter and energy that soon produces life. Life on earth is not quite as old as earth itself, but it scrambled to its feet early after. Well, feet is not exactly what it first scrambled to, but scrambling to a puddle does not conjure up glory. I sat myself down, that is to say, took a load off my puddle, and asked Google when human life first began on earth.  That, of course, is not when life first began, but when our kind of life began.  Google suggested that Wikopedia answer.  In addition to getting right to the point--the stuff about dates and mitochondria and Y-chromosomes:  the important things--it said something very comforting.  It said our early ancestors were wearing clothes by that time.      "200,000 years ago: first appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa. 200,000– 180,000 years ago: time of                 mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosom...

I suppose you wonder what I have been up to for the last 140,000 years, so I shall tell you.  The National Geographic has been studying where all of us have been.  All of us began walking in Africa; some stayed, some went back, some went just about everywhere it is possible to go.  In my case, both my mother and my father's ancestors ended up in Northern Europe, but some members of the family wandered off in other directions; everywhere possible.  The map, at right, is not from National Geographic, but it shows some of the pathways our ancestors took.  Just keep walking across Russia to Alaska, and down to Tierra del Fuego, and to Australia.  Our genes carry large and small patches of who our long-since and recent relatives were, and this is what I have learned about myself.  From my mother's side, I know that people migrating from East Africa, about 67,000 years ago, went across the Sinai and to the north, into what is now Azerbaijan, a...

National Geographic Image I have just discovered where most of my ancestors came from, and I am pleased to announce that I am 1.5% Neanderthal. I have long suspected that because I have been keeping a distant eye on my family, trying to assess what it is that has made us the distinguished gathering of--I was going to say, "f------ morons", but that title has already been awarded--so I shall say "contentious stone-throwers" that we are. Mari and I, both, have spit into bottles for the sake of science, and had our ancestries explored.  We chose different companies to do the analysis just to see what the different analyses do.  Mari, for instance, learned that about 7.5% of her genes are shared with people in Ireland, which came almost as a surprise to a woman who has been leaning comfortably against her Norwegian ancestry. She admitted she should have known.  When first we married, we visited her father in Lake Mills, Iowa who, upon learning that I knew mor...

"O ye'll tak' the high road,  and I'll tak' the low road, And I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye. . . ." Well, Donald took the low road and he got to be President a'fore we knew. He told us that he'd "tak' the low road"-- boasting about groping women because he could, such a star he was, so irresistible he is-- and he gutter-sniped his way to the nomination, promising us big, beautiful greatness while insulting and humiliating other candidates. And here he is:  in the White House a'fore them. David Brooks says that human beings can be rallied around three things:  religion, tribe, or ideals.  America--this United States part of the Americas--was founded on ideals; not religion or tribe.  We hold these truths to to be self-evident:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Our founders, from all kinds of religions and tribes, wrote a constitution based on ideals.  It was not their intention to describe a holy Am...

"So I said to myself, 'Self. . . .'" And then the President of the United States said that he had talked with the President of the Virgin Islands. He talked to hisself.  The President of the United States is  the President of the United States Virgin Islands because the United States Virgin Islands belong to the United States.  The people of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands are citizens of the United States, as are people in three other global territories: American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. There are British Virgin Islands, too, and Spanish Virgin Islands, and Mr. Trump is not the President of them.  They have that advantage. It would not be fair to say that Donald Trump is treating Puerto Ricans and Virgin Islanders as second-class citizens.  He does not seem to know that they are  citizens, at all.  It is just that they are citizens without voting representation in Congress.  Alaska and Hawaii were...

ronfccc.wordpress.com It feels like I have been holding my breath ever since Donald Trump was elected. Now I can breathe out!  Michele "My Belle" Bachmann says that President Trump is "a man of faith".  Oh, there are some things about Donald Trump I suppose she might be disgusted at, things that have to do with groping, and boasting about groping, and being sued about groping, maybe even a doubt or two about his serial marriages but, as you know, Ms. Bachmann is a woman of great faith in God and disgust at gay things, and she says The Donald has asked The God for help and guidance.  How does Ms. Bachmann know these secret things about the President?  She says that Vice President Mike Pence told her so, and since everyone knows that Mr. Pence is a vocal, committed believer himself, and Mr. Pence said, "I want all of you to know that the president is a committed believer.  He is a man of faith".  There!  Straight from the straight horse's mo...

From The Thirst, by Jo Nesbø: "Narcissists love being loved," Harry said.  "Or hated.  Other people's fear confirms and inflates their self-image.  What they find insulting is to be ignored or belittled." The Greek mythological story of Narcissus is of the guy who caught sight of himself reflected from a pool, and fell in love with himself. He loved only himself. He died at the edge of the pool, very deeply in love with himself. And there is the power of myths!  All myths.  Like Joseph wrestling with his better self all night at the river Jabbok, or Aesop's Hare and Tortoise, like the ring of power in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the story of Narcissus, who loved himself to death, captures something we know to be true about ourselves, or life.  Jo Nesbø was describing a character in his book.  For the narcissist, he suggests, being hated is just as effective as being loved:  it still is a focus on nothing but the narcissist....

K Holbø, it reads on the cup. As I recall--never a reliable source-- her name is Karen Holbø, and she had an art exhibition in Lillehammer, Norway, the year we lived there in '92-'93, just before the Winter Olympiad. I bought a cup to remember the occasion. Let me tell you why else I love that cup: I love coffee, but not too much of it, and the cup is just the right size. The inside of the cup is white, providing a satisfying contrast to life-giving coffee. And it has indelible evidence for what I do almost every morning of my life: the handle is stained with printers ink from the newspapers that open each day, almost without fail.  Wherever we have lived for the last sixty years or so, I have trudged out to the driveway for the newspapers and brought them into the house for Matins.  For much of that time-- since it became available in one form or another on the West Coast-- the New York Times has been one of those papers, together with one or t...

"I pledge allegiance to the flag. . . ." I suppose I learned to say that, and what follows, almost eighty years ago, in school, although when I learned it, the phrase, "under god", had not yet been added.  That came about the time I finished college, during the Eisenhower administration after World War II, just to warn those damned communists that they ought not to be meddling in our elections.  Something like that.  It was during the era when communists were hiding under every bed. The flag, as you know, is a powerful symbol of national pride.  We are a little short of pride at the moment, so patriotism has turned things around, and made the nation a powerful symbol of the flag.  It is the flag we love and protect! "Did the President show up without a flag on his lapel?"  "Are there enough flags draped all over the convention hall?"  "Where are the flags for the victory lap around the stadium?" Doesn't anyone else believe...

With insincere apologies the 1975 Boston Red Sox and Doug Hornig's book by almost the same name Dan Price and John Mathews Roger Beebe Tim Boyd Bob Daliege Dave Byers Mike Steele Dennis Crowley, on his birthday Phil Gordon Dan Lundwall David Byers and Bob Daliege John Mathews Dave Byers Lloyd Barzell Doc Thompson Dave Byers and Tim Boyd John Mathews

The Vice President, acting on instructions from the Man Himself (President Trump), left the Indianapolis Colts football game today when some of the players knelt during the National Anthem. "I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem." Mr. Pence was right! We have go to put a stop to this disrespectful kneeling business! It is bad enough that racism still exists here and there.  It is probably time that we looked into that a bit closer--all in good time--but when good god-fearing soldiers of the football faith drop to their knees to show how deeply and sincerely they believe something, when they ought to be standing on their own feet, that is disrespectful to every concussion we ever had trying to think through this free, white, and twenty-one business.  Or maybe, if kneeling is OK in church, then maybe standing during prayers ought to be outlawed.  Good citizens of ...

Where New Madrid is:  from Google Maps The largest earthquake ever in the continental US happened in 1811-12, near New Madrid, along the Mississippi River. People had not anticipated a quake in the middle of the plate on which we sit.  Most quakes happen along the edges:  the Rim of Fire that circles the Pacific Ocean, and our own west coast, for instance.  Deep pressures jammed the plate until it buckled, rising in relation to its broken half by almost thirty feet.  The result was that the Mississippi River suddenly had a dam across it, causing the water to pile up and run backwards along the river bed until the irrepressible power of the water buildup broke through the new dam.  The river will have its way. We have managed to do something similar:  we have created a river of money that runs uphill.  I will not try to cite the astonishing statistics showing how much of American wealth runs uphill to the very rich.  I am ...

As usual, Donald Blowfish Trump said it best:  Puerto Rico is an island, surrounded by water.   I do not know why I had not thought of that:  an island, surrounded by water! I looked it up.  It is true. uncyclopedia.com That particular island is not Puerto Rico, of course.  Puerto Rico is bigger and farther away, but what is true of both of them is that they are islands, surrounded by water. You can only imagine how difficult it would be to respond to an emergency in a place like that:  boats, probably, would be needed, and food and medicine and things.  Nobody knew how difficult it is to help people on an island surrounded by water.   Now, an island not surrounded by water:  we all know how difficult that is.  Take the White House, for instance.  Everybody knows how difficult it is to get through to the residents of a place like that, bringing medication and food; restoring communications, just gett...

I am applying to our County administration for a permit to build a gun range in our back yard.  I know a lot of you think that is crazy, that a lot of neighbors are going to have to hunker down a little, but I have a tried and true plan to take care of that. I am going to build a wall of thoughts and prayers. Oh, I know that you might wonder if I have finally lost it, but I haven't:  I have learned.   Every time some idiot with an arsenal attacks a school or a parade, our elected officials, and let's admit it, some of our neighbors, too, offer their thoughts and prayers for the people who got shot. People believe that thoughts and prayers will do the job!  They just get around to it too late; after the fact.  What good is a wall of thoughts and prayers after  the gunfire has ended? The wall has to come first, and I am going to do that. There is no shortage of thoughts and prayers.  They are everywhere.  They are cheap.  People ar...

"A salsa fest!", Mari said.  "There is a salsa fest in Safford!" Safford is just a couple of hundred miles east of Tucson.  "Perfect," Mari said.  "Just the kind of thing we had in mind, getting the Casita!" The fact is that just about everything is what we had in mind when we got the Casita.  "Is it on a road?"  Then it is what we had in mind. We two--you may know that there are three of us now, but Michael offered at the last minute to take care of Cooper; our Min-Pin/Chihuahua, and he is no great fan of salsa, anyway--so the two of us drove to Safford. Maybe we should have brought Cooper.  He'd have enjoyed the campground.  We had scarcely arrived before our neighbors on the adjacent site took their three dogs for a walk of sorts.  The Newfoundlander was no fan of warm-weather-walks, and Tank, the English bulldog, did not believe in walking, at all.  He believed he would just stay wherever he was, however it was he ...