OH NO! What if they are right?

Only in America. That is a phrase that is usually reserved for when an American does something really stupid or violent. But in the wake of Rep. Joe Wilson screaming, "You Lie," to President Obama on Wednesday evening, I had one of those "Aha!" moments.

Let me start by saying that I know evolution is a physical process. It involves tiny changes over millions of years that contribute to the survival and reproduction of organisms that carry certain desirable traits. But I also know that this lead to sociological changes; cooperation aids in survival just as much as certain physical traits, which lead to the development of communities, etc.

So what's my point? How WILL she synthesize these two seemingly unrelated ideas? Well, in the United States of America there are lots of people (I can't remember the actual statistic, but it is an embarrasingly high number) who don't believe that evolution occured. In fact, we even have a museum devoted to the alleged science of creationism. A friend of mine went there this summer. And now I am beginning to believe that these people may be right. In America at any rate.

I'll try another way to make my point. When discussing how seemingly uncivilized the people of the United States can sometimes be, I used to say that Americans are at least as civilized as our British counterparts were when their country was only 230 years old. If one is to look at British history, things were pretty rough then. Barbaric, one could say. But when I made that point in a conversation with some folks at work, one of my good friends countered that I was suggesting that civil advancement can take place in a vacuum, which it obviously can't. In other words, the British aren't the only ones who have come forward this number of years-the whole world has. All of us could be said to be advancing at the same rate.

Why, then, are Americans still so in love with their guns, their "let them get a job with insurance," the Truthers and Birthers, the OMG IT'S SOCIALISM! and making up big lies about politicians who simply look at solutions to the world's problems differently? Well-if it isn't just the that the United States is still such a young country. then perhaps evolution didn't really happen here. Obviusly the physical processes happened, but maybe the evolutionary steps that brought civilization to Europe and Asia were stopped here by something. Is it possible that the need to create a cohesive society just wasn't required here-perhaps because of the landscape. In the Appalachian and Smoky Mountains, for example, maybe the neighbors were so far apart that 'society" was not only not necessary, but not even possible. Perhaps agriculture, instead of bringing people together here, kept us apart...the cattle we raise just needed so much land that sharing with neighbors, whether those neighbors are wildlife or other people, wasn't going to happen. Anyone who rode up to a particular spread in West Texas was just as likely to be a threat as a friend. So as cities sprang up out of the prairies, we still held to the notion that other people, along with people who care about other people, were probably foe and not friend.

It has been fairly well established that there were Neanderthals present with modern man in Europe for thousands of years, until they were either absorbed or died off. Perhaps it was an opposite direction trip across the land bridge, and those threatened groups came to what is now the United States, created a closed society and reatined many of the behaviors, if not the appearance, of their Neanderthal forebears. Americans do tend to be shorter than European counterparts, chunkier in build.

So now I can feel less bad about how uncivilized the behavior of many of my fellow Americans is.

Or not.

Rambling

I haven't been here for awhile, so I've seen lots of things that give me questions. Like, how does anyone still take the whole morality of the right question seriously? I know, I know-I've heard all the shit about how they're forgiven, not perfect. I've been told to my face by a Christian that it does not matter what a believer does because the New Testament says 'once forgiven, always forgiven.' But the same book also says that if your faith doesn't change your behavior, it isn't real. Now we have the "Family" in D.C. telling legislators that having power is what makes a person godly. REALLY?! I guess it really isn't the 90s anymore, when it was having money. So they make it possible for all these family values types to screw around on their wives, and tell them it's ok, as long as they keep their power. No wonder Bill Maher gets so worked up about religion. What I see is a bunch of people who got together in Nice, back in the Dark Ages, and decided that this collection of fairy tales is true, and this collection is...well-fairy tales. The Greeks also literally believed in their myths too. So did the Phoenicians and Egyptians and all the other shamans before them. I do see a place for collective stories, but as sensitive as Americans are about being considered to be like anyone else in any other country, why did we choose a mythology that is so foreign to our soil? Why couldn't we at least take up the cause of the people who were already here when the whites got here? At least they respected the land enough to try and not take more than they needed, and to use every part of the animals they killed; not waste anything.

But I digress. Or do I? I guess I'll close today's session with that question. I'm sure there are more questions to come.

Peace.

No Title Required

When Al Gore knows there are lots of folks who deny global warming, why can't he provide a forum for asking and answering questions? I have so many questions, and no one of whom I can ask them.



Why don't we take a more practical, reasoned approach to the problem? Yes, humans are affecting climate change. No, we are not going to destroy the planet. Yes, there have been global climate shifts in the past. Yes, every time it happened, there were extinctions, some of history's mass extinctions have been tied to climate change. So what happens? Well, our ascendants won't look like us. They will have to adapt to very different living conditions. But they WILL exist. Remember, when our planet first evolved, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. Early life was anaerobic, but it gave off oxygen as a byproduct. As a result the atmosphere filled up with oxygen and aerobic life arose. Now that the atmosphere is refilling with c02, the opposite will occur.



Yes, we've discovered recently that life is possible in the nastiest of conditions (thermal, deep ocean vents.) So we shouldn't presume that life will not thrive when we are done poisoning the planet. It will. Everytime a species goes extinct, something else is able to fill that niche. Life goes on. Humans are the worst kind of invasive species. We had it good in North Africa, but we also had either a wanderlust, or we used up all the food in our own neighborhood and had to move to find more notwithstanding that we would have to displace something or someone else in order to do that. So we took off for Asia, then Europe and then the Americas-or maybe we did some of that radiating at the same time. Either way, once we get someplace we decide it's not good enough as it is, and we try to remake it in our image, and destroy its original integrity and balance. We will continue to do so, even as we drastically change the way we live, and the form of our lives.

I do, also, however, have a nihilist streak. I think the great "supervolcano" in which we live will render all of this moot at some point in the near future. I may or may not mean the word "near" by the standard of our hurried, harried time, or in geologic time, but before long, all the plants around us will become new carboniferus deposits, and all of us animals will become oil. How about that for irony?

Additional Inquiries

Why have so many public people adopted the annoying habit of saying, "The reality is is..." Why can't they just say, "The reality is that?" I hear it nearly every day on news interviews.

Next question-do I expect too much of people who are called upon to edify the masses?

More on the Former Star, Sarah Palin

I believe that Sarah Palin had two enemies who should make an explanation of why they left her high and dry. Listing them numerically should not be taken as an assignment of 'order;' it's just convenient.
1. Whoever dragged her on to the national stage last year. The McCain campaign was not populated with novices. They were experienced campaigners. It was quickly obvious that she was not able to handle it, and that the more opportunities she was given to speak, the less she could manage to control the message.
2. Herself, for craving the limelight to such a degree that she "said yes without blinking." Had she blinked, it might have occured to her that she would have both positive and negative stories told about her. She would have known that scrutiny would begin as soon as they were off the stage, and that her real life would not fit the story that she was packaged with for the benefit of the "base," for whom she was specifically chosen to mollify.

Both of these people owe her, and her family an apology.

Big Bang

The darkness that came that night
was not like the darkness at the end of day
it was as if there had never been day.

It was the darkness your dad says
does not exist when you are afraid

at night-

under the bed

in the closet

but you know it is there.

Will there ever be light again?

Will we adapt as the fish in the deep ocean

who no longer need light?

What will we eat?

Will we forget the sound that came before the light

went away?

Was there a noise like that when the big bang happened?

There was darkness,

then sound,

then light and energy.

Now I have hope.

More Questions

Is Sarah Palin really the best the republicans can do? Have they checked the stats on the shrinking numbers of people who fit the super-reiligious, socially backward demographic that she appeals to? To them I say then, go for it!

What is happening in Iran now? The news seems to have quieted this week, and I can't imagine that people who felt so strongly only two weeks ago would just give up and go away.

When will a politician caught in a sex scandal ever comment on their own quotes years before condemning other politicians from another party who did the same thing. A little humility would make all these stories so much easier to stomach. I would love to hear John Ensign or Mark Sanford, or any of them step before the press and include, "I realize that I've said things in the past that showed intolerance toward those who fall into these temptations. I now realize that no one is exempt from such human failings." How hard is that?