In the midst of making a quite reasonable economic prediction regarding the extent to which China owns our national debt, Grumpypilgrim makes a linguistic prediction that may not be as well-founded: that parents should enroll their children in Mandarin classes because Mandarin will become the new language of commerce. In fact, Victor Mair points out in a recent post on Language Log, English may be emerging as the new language of convenience in multilingual China:

As Exhibit A in support of this proposition, Mair submits the following poster from the restrooms at Beijing Normal University:

Mair writes:

First of all, the handsome young man is enjoining everyone to speak Mandarin **in Beijing**. This must mean that a lot of people at this university and elsewhere in Beijing (much less outside of Beijing, which is supposedly the epicenter of Mandarin usage in China!) do not speak Mandarin to each other.

The campaign against multilingualism is underscored by the fact that the spokesman pictured here might be a translator, which would not be necessary if everyone in China spoke the same language, viz., Putonghua (Modern Standard Mandarin [MSM]), the designated national tongue. Even if he’s not a simultaneous translator with the headset of his profession, one wonders why an operator, an announcer, or whatever he’s supposed to be, is pictured making this particular gesture and wearing that type of headset.

A further irony is that the administration of the University felt it necessary to post this slogan both in English and in Mandarin, which raises the very real questions of HANZI literacy and the emerging role of English as a rising lingua franca of convenience (as it is in the world’s other most populous country, India).

(he then goes on to describe the pun on the Mandarin phrase translated as “convenience” - just like the English word, it can be used as a euphemism for “toilet,” which is interesting given where the authorities chose to post this particular public service message.)

Mind you, I’m not suggesting that Americans continue in their complacent monolingualism. Foreign language instruction should start in the elementary grades and continue through high school - high school grads should be required to learn at least one foreign language and have the opportunity to learn more than one. But Spanish or Arabic might be just as strategic a choice as Mandarin. Though marketability of a foreign language can be hard to predict. The demand for Russian translators certainly isn’t what it was.

Here’s another educational poster from Victor Mair which suggests that employees in Beijing’s shopping center have a different conception of the term “customer service” than most salespeople in this country:

If you want to find out why the last 3 forbidden words could not be translated, read about it here.

When you drop food on the floor, it’s generally OK to pick it up and eat it, according to this article from ScienceDaily. You knew this already, considering how you act when no one is watching!

Where do you turn if you really want to know what’s going on in Burma?

Harry Shearer compares the Al Jazeera English coverage to domestic news services and finds that Al Jazeera wins hands down.  CNN’s domestic feed is pathetic, while CNN has been working hard to make its international feed unavailable to those in the U.S.

How bad is domestic coverage of international news:

Once you watch BBC, CNNI, AJE–any of services we’ve been talking about today–and then venture back to the domestic swill, you realize the difference: the international channels are, despite their faults and differences, talking to grownups, the domestic channels are talking either to somewhat bright or somewhat dim children.

The comments fleshed out Shearer’s short post:

Whenever something significant happens in the world - I either go to CBC or to a lesser extent the BBC for a real news account. The American counterpart is 1% news and 99% hot gas telling us how we should feel about it.

Somewhere along the line - people like Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, and Sumner Rothstein decided that news was supposed to make money and pacify a nation of imbeciles - not inform the citizens of a self-governed nation. . . . And with names like those above - is it any wonder that the American public has been fed 35 years of anti-arab bias? I think back to my childhood watching cartoons - and even in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, the arab is always portrayed as an irate sword weilding psycho. (more…)

This week, President Bush has said he will veto the proposed funding bill for child healthcare, known as “S-CHIP” legislation.  He claims the bill, which could cost as much as $50 billion (above the current baseline) over the next five years, is too expensive.  Meanwhile, despite overwhelming public opposition, Bush is also calling for another $200 billion to fund his occupation in Iraq, nevermind the fact that his unnecessary invasion of that country has already wasted at least $25 billion of taxpayer dollars in fraud and mismanagement. 

So, add lost childhood healthcare improvements to the long list of lost opportunity costs associated with Bush’s idiotic decision to invade Iraq.  While you’re at it, add the stunning devaluation of U.S. currency over the past five years – a less visible, but very real, cost of runaway Republican spending:  for example, see here, here, here and here.

It’s the concept of greenroofing, and it’s explained in great detail at Greenroofs.com.

Basically, greenroofs are vegetated roof covers, with growing media and plants taking the place of bare membrane, gravel ballast, shingles or tiles. The number of layers and the layer placement vary from system to system and greenroof type, but at the very least all greenroofs include a single to multi-ply waterproofing layer, drainage, growing media and the plants, covering the entire roof deck surface.

What are the advantages of greenroofing?  There are ecological, economic, aesthetic & psychological advantages.
 
Here are some of the economic advantages:

Overall building energy costs can be reduced due to the greenroofs’ natural thermal insulation properties – structures are cooler in summer and warmer in winter.  The urban “heat island” effect can also be greatly reduced since vegetative roofs reduce ambient air temperatures.  Therefore, less electricity costs are expected from lower a/c and heat usage.

According to an article from the Environmental News Network, “a 3- to 7-degree temperature drop translates to a 10%  reduction in air conditioning requirements. For a one-story structure with a green rooftop, cooling costs can be cut by 20 to 30%.” The Weston Design Consultants recently conducted an energy study for the city of Chicago which estimated that it would be possible to save $100,000,000 in saved energy annually with the greening of all of the city’s rooftops.   The bottom line is that “Peak demand would be cut by 720 megawatts - the equivalent energy consumption of several coal-fired generating stations or one small nuclear power plant.”  

Here’s a 3-part series from Cognitive Daily updating the research. 

The bottom line?  It’s possible that there are some subtle cognitive differences between men and women, but it’s not clear, but its’s not clear that these really account for the differences.  There do appear to be missed opportunities for encouraging women to become scientists.

Last week, I saw a pest control company truck drive by.  The name of the company was “Bush Pest Control Company.” 

Now I don’t know anything about this company.  It might be very good at getting rid of pests.  But the name of the company caused me to imagine how that company would be run were George W. Bush were in charge.

A customer would call up complaining of mice.   The next day a squadron of fighter jets would roar overhead, dropping 500 pound bombs onto the house, leaving a huge charred crater-ridden hole where the house used to be.  The neighbor’s homes would be burned to the ground too. A tank would roll up and pump a few artillery shells into the smoldering remains for good measure.

A leaflet would then be left in what used to be the front yard, right next to a few half-melted remains of toys and a few scraps of clothing:  “We have taken care of the pests.  Glad to be of service. Couldn’t help the collateral damage. God be praised.” 

Why fear the Invisible Hand?  Because the invisible hand is evil.  As construed by those conservatives currently in power, it is the economic equivalent of the Devil. 

This conclusion is going to come as a shock to many conservatives, because they give homage to the invisible hand as though it were the Fourth Person of the Holy Quartet. 

Before going further, let’s consider the literary origin of “the invisible hand.”  The phrase was coined by Adam Smith, as recounted by Wikipedia:

In The Wealth of Nations and other writings, Smith claims that, in capitalism, an individual pursuing his own self-interest tends to also promote the good of his community as a whole through a principle that he called “the invisible hand”. In detail, a free competitive market ensures that those goods and services perceived as most beneficial, efficient, or of highest quality will naturally be those that are most profitable. Thus, self-interest striving for profit has the side-effect of benefiting everyone by increasing standards. Smith saw the mechanism for this as being the free price system.

Conservatives have grabbed this metaphor of the invisible hand as though it were both descriptive and prescriptive.  The current use of the phrase by conservatives is admittedly more expanded than Adam Smith’s original use.  The modern conservative claim is not only that the invisible hand controls the economy.  They also claim that the invisible hand should be in charge.  They believe that millions of private purchasing decisions are automatically and deftly coordinated by the omniscient and omnipotent Invisible Hand. We do the bidding of the Hand.  We benefit “the good of the community as a whole” when we buy our whiskey, our triple cheeseburgers, our stacks of gambling chips, our Barbie Dolls and our Hummers. 

Conservatives are convinced that the Hand orchestrates all of our private local urges into decisions that are also “best” for our communities and our world. When we race out to buy anything at all, then, the Invisible Hand allegedly smiles Its approval. To violate the Will of the Invisible Hand would be to contravene the will of God, for conservatives.  Lucky for us, however, even our most impulsive seemingly-irresponsible purchases cannot, by definition, violate the Will of the Invisible Hand.  Everything we buy is pre-approved by the Invisible Hand.  Foolishness is the equivalent of intelligence, by the grace of the Invisible Hand.

To be socially responsible (according to conservatives), we don’t need to give any thought to our purchase decisions.  Nor does government need to regulate any industry.  It’s all taken care of by the Hand.  “The Free Market will take care of it,” conservatives assure me, “no matter what it is.”  It is the Government that screws up the economy; the remedy is to stay out of the way of the healing powers of lassie faire, they say, i.e., kill government spending.  When we stay out of the way (by not interfering with the Majesty of the Hand), the Invisible Hand watches out for us, takes care of us and solves all problems in an utterly perfect way.   That’s what conservatives claim, even though they dramatically and irresponsibly increase government spending.

I disagree.  It’s time to judge the Invisible Hand by the damage It has wrought. It’s time to be irreverent, even blasphemous.  It’s time to mock the Hand and then kill it.

Under the Hand’s reign, we have seen our forests, soil and air contaminated.  The Hand has repeatedly given Its approval when we frivolously waste non-renewable resources like oil and fresh water.  The Hand has is conspicuosly silent now, however, in light of the total loss of commercial quality fish from most of the North Atlantic. The Hand approves that we are spending big money on foolishly while many of our schools are desperate for funds.  The Hand has allowed pesticides and toxins spread far and wide, despite the fact that we have almost no idea how these chemicals are affecting the health of humans. Our individual spending decisions are making us fat and sick and stupid, but that’s all OK by the Hand. 

All of this can only lead to one conclusion. The Invisible Hand is not benevolent.  Based on the waste, pollution and reckless spending allowed by the Hand, it is clear that the Hand is evil.  It’s time to publicly acknowledge the Hand’s evil and destructive intent so that we can make some big changes.  What’s the biggest change? 

We’re going to have to start thinking for ourselves when we make purchases. 

We can’t depend on the Invisible Hand to keep us “helping” our communities in blissful ignorance anymore.  No purchase should any longer simply be presumed to be beneficial–many purchases are damaging to the community and to our environment. There needs to be a counter-weight to private decisions to consume and confiscate.  No purchase should any longer be considered completely local–many products have wide-ranging damaging effects.  Nor should purchases any longer be presumed, in the absence of evidence, to be community-enhancing or amoral.  Many private purchases are destructive and immoral. We need to acknowledge that dollars are not fungible and that every purchase has moral consequences.

We need to start thinking more when we make purchases, or else we will continue to crap up our planet to such an incredible extent that the next generation will curse us every day for our failure to think.   

It’s time to kick the fiction of the Benevolent Invisible Hand out of our lexicon.  But first, it is time to expose the Hand for what it has become for too many people who currently hold political power: The Invisible Hand is an excuse for our collective refusal to think, our failure to care about others and our failure to care about even our own future. 

The current version of the Invisible Hand amounts to a total abdication of responsibility. It is a license to hurt others and destroy our own future. It’s time to kill the Hand before it kills us.

I just finished reading the October 2007 issue of National Geographic.  I’ve been subscribing to the National Geographic for more than ten years. As I read the October issue, it struck me what an incredibly informative magazine it is.  Truly, in a single issue of that one magazine there must have been 50 photo spreads or articles that were each highly worthy of careful consideration.

Photos by Lana Slezic were featured in the Photo Journal section.  She captured magical and sometimes sad images of Afghan women, including a haunting photo of a group of Afghan women, covered from head to toe, looking at modern dresses displayd in a store window (I couldn’t find that photo online at NG, but it is available at Slezic’s own site). Her photos were each presented in context.  For instance, two schoolgirls are photographed.  Under that photo is a caption advising that one million Afghan girls who should be in school are not going to school.  Further, the female illiteracy rate in Afghanistan is more than 80%.

On page 14, you can see a two-page spread of the blue walls of Jodhpur, India where langurs are perched on many rooftops.  The langurs are free to roam because they’re considered to be avatars of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman.

There is a short article about the efforts to preserve the ancient manuscripts found in Timbuktu.  Yes, there really is a place called Timbuktu.  It is a city in Mali, Africa.  As a matter of fact, my sister-in-law, a Norwegian woman working in coordination with the United Nations, spends considerable time in Timbuktu each year helping to scan and preserve these literary treasures.

There is also a short article about the world’s loss of languages, indicating that every two weeks another language dies “taking millennia of human knowledge and history with it.”

Or would you like to read about the anatomy of a woodpecker.  How is it that these birds can bang their heads against trees without suffering injuries?  Those questions are answered in a well-illustrated easily comprehend way.

Do you have a dog?  If you do, there are numerous foods that could be harmful to your dog.  These include alcohol, coffee, chocolate, garlic, onions, macadamia nuts and grapes.

What will climate change to to the world wine map?  Climate change is could change that map dramatically, based upon color overlays over a map of France.  Here’s another example: in the 21st century, no significant wine grape crop will be found in a “scorching Napa Valley.”  Instead, you’ll need to head north to Puget Sound and British Columbia, or east to Ontario.

If you want to see a spectacular photo, you can find it on a page called “Expeditions.”  There, you will see a picture of “smooth, luminous crystals, some 36 feet long” in a Mexican cave line 950 feet below the surface.  These are not Quartz crystals, but gypsum, and they have taken the form of “massive moon white beams.”

What else would like to know, honey?  How much this?  There are up to 60,000 bees in a beehive.  In order to produce 1 pound of clover honey, it takes 7000 bee hours.  You will also be updated on the incredibly disturbing phenomenon called “colony collapsed disorder.”  It’s disturbing because it huge proportion of our food crop (33%) depends upon the work of bees to do the pollination.

Are you tired of seeing global warming kicked around like a political football?  Check out “Confronting Carbon,” an extensive essay that explores what really needs to be done about global warming (beginning of page 33).  This article is a no bullshit plan of action that tells us what we need to do in order to avoid catastrophic changes to our planet and a horrifically decreased standard of living. Take this for starters: we need to improve automobile fuel economy from an average of 30 miles per gallon to 60 miles per gallon by 2057.  We also need to reduce the miles traveled annually in each of the world’s 2 billion cars from an average of 10,000 to 5000 miles.  And that’s only the beginning of what we need to do. This information bears no resemblence to what you see and hear from local news sources and even many national news sources.

If you want to know how to to grow fuel and to see why corn-based fuel is not a reasonable approach to reducing our dependence on gasoline, you can check out “Green Dreams,” starting on page 38.  You’ll see a claim by Cornell University’s David Pimentel, who states “Biofuels are a total waste and misleading us from getting at what we really need to do: conservation.”  On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for biofuels.  For instance, you’ll learn about the immense progress occurring in Brazil, where they are successfully turning sugarcane into alcohol-fuel, which powers a significant proportion of the Brazilian automobile fleet.  You’ll also learn of a facility outside of Phoenix where researchers are producing fuel from hanging bags of algae.  These researchers claim that, someday, they could soak up carbon dioxide “while cranking out 5000 gallons of bile diesel an acre each year.”

This little tour takes us only about halfway through the October edition of National Geographic. 

If every person in America read National Geographic, we wouldn’t have neocons. People who read these articles and view these photos from around the globe know that the United States is not the only country in the world. They know that our lifestyle is not the only lifestyle. They also learn to appreciate the common issues facing the peoples of the world.  They see other cultures in depth, not as a cartoon to scoff at laugh at.  I do think that parochialism and self-centeredness are the heart and soul of the neocon and that in-depth information of things beyond one’s self and one’s community is the best remedy.  Not only are the National Geographic’s article far-ranging.  They are also up-to-date with relevant and thoughtfully presented scientific issues, unvarnished by partisan politics. 

Here’s the kicker: you can subscribe to the National Geographic for only $15 for 12 issues (that’s an entire year’s worth).  The question for you is this: wouldn’t it be worth $1.25 per month to support such an incredible organization as National Geographic, including substantial amounts of cutting edge research and to have this high-quality reading material mailed to your home each month?

Where did dogs come from?  The answer is wolves (not foxes). 

Here’s a thought experiment.  Go back 20,000 years and check out the dogs. Yikes! There were no dogs only 20,000 years ago. This 1994 story from Discover is a good starting point to learn about the beginnings of dogs. Another good source is Wikipedia’s article on dogs.  These articles teaches us how incredibly fast morphology and behaviors evolve, mostly through neotony (or see here), evolutions ability to superimpose “young” and often gentler features of animals into an entire population.  Neotony is a way for natural selection to get lots of bang for the buck.

The rapid changes in morphology and behavior are well known to dog breeders, who practice “artificial selection.” Somehow, this artificial slection of intentional animal breeding just doesn’t offend Creationists.  Perhaps it’s because the changes are noticeable even over the course of a human lifetime. “Natural selection” sometimes takes longer, especially in longer-lived species like humans, so it gives anxious Creationists opportunities to let their imaginations run wild (”No! It’s not possible that animals can quickly evolve into other types of animals!”).  They need to think of dogs when they resist learning of natural selection.  The bodies of chihuahuas, collies and mastiffs don’t lie.  Natural selection is immensely powerful and dogs can lead the way for those of use who are afraid to believe. 

Here’s a bit of the Discover article:

We need only compare the number of chromosomes– DNA bundles–in members of the canine family to see that our dogs aren’t descended from foxes: silver foxes have just 36 chromosomes, whereas dogs have 78. Our dogs are derived from gray wolves, which not only also have 78 chromosomes but, more to the point, can still breed with dogs, making them members of the same species. Some 12,000 years ago, judging from archeological remains, these gray wolves loped into the lives of our hunter-gatherer forebears and then, over the millennia, gave rise to all the fantastic dog shapes and sizes that populate the planet today.

It’s way past time for this mass protest.  Let’s set the scene at a large prominent public space such as the Washington, DC Mall.  Let’s gather five million white-collar workers and professionals and invite them to throw their neckties into a huge bonfire to demonstrate that they’re not willing to take it anymore.  And why should they?  Who was it who decided that men should have to walk around wearing nooses around their necks?

I found a few articles about neckties here and here.  Actually, these articles establish that wearing neckties can be dangerous to your health.  Ties can increase the risk of entanglement of those working around machines.  They can increase the risk of vascular constriction–in fact, paramedics quickly remove neckties from people who are unconscious to make sure that the necktie is not the cause of the problem.  It has also been found that doctors and dentists who wear ties are more likely to spread germs among their patients.

When I was still in high school, I knew that I would never take a job that required me to wear a tie.  Then again,  I violated my own rule and I became a lawyer.   I often wear a tie.  It would be foolish to walk into most courtrooms not wear a tie.  The lack of a tie would be noticed by everyone in the courtroom and, I’m sure, many judges would disparage this “informal” attire, regardless of what you wore.  Failing to wear a tie is not something you want to do if you are trying to make a good impression on the judge in order to help your client. Back at my law office, ties are often disparaged my coworkers, but that is probably rare among big-city law firms. 

Would we all be better off not wearing neckties?  Without a doubt. That is the opinion of Cecil Adams, of The Straight Dope. “So far as I can determine, the only thing the tie does at present, apart from enforcing corporate discipline, is to hide your shirt buttons. Such a hassle. No doubt we’d all be better off if we could just get naked and frolic with the animals.”  It is important to note that the male white collar workers in many countries (e.g., Iran) do not wear neck ties.  Nor did anyone wear a tie more than a few hundred years ago.  Cesar did not wear a tie.  If you can believe the millions of paintings and stautes, Jesus didn’t wear a tie. Thailand is not a place where everyone has to wear a tie.

I once worked with an obese fellow who was a slob, but who always wore a tie.  Unfortunately, the tie was always stained and crumpled.  I went to lunch with him one day and saw how it all happened.  As he sat down to table, the first thing he did was to unbutton his shirt so that he could tuck in his tie.  That way, only the top inch of his tie was exposed (the one-inch immediately beneath and knot), the rest of it being safely tucked under his shirt.  This fellow had quite a knack, however. Because his belly was so large, his shirt was almost horizontal with the floor for the first few inches beneath his neck.  As I watched him eat that day, he dropped a glob of sauce on the tiny section of his tie that was exposed. Bull’s-eye!

Like most good ideas, giving up neckties is an obvious move.  Like most good ideas, however, the real problem is deciding who goes first, not deciding whether it’s the correct thing to do.  How do we get this movement started?  That is why we would need to have a mass demonstration to get rid of the world’s neckties, altogether, at one gigantic public showing. 

From that moment on, it would be okay to not wear a necktie.  Or maybe not, because, as we all know, too many people in positions of power in this country wear neckties themselves and they insist that their subordinates continue to wear neckties too.  Obviously, there are some exceptions to this rule. Trendy young corporations often dispense with the need for neckties. Good for them! Even stodgy businesses sometimes offer casual days on which employees need not wear a necktie.  But woe unto most people who are asked to show up at an important social function sponsored by the corporate powers-that-be without a necktie.

Why is the necktie so important in some circles?  Wikipedia suggests that a necktie is often a sign of membership of a group.  True enough. I am sure that this is many times the case.  The next obvious question to ask, however, is why some groups insist that their members wear ties.  I’ve thought about this at some length, and I think it’s the same reason that many women wear uncomfortable–and sometimes dangerous–clothes such as high heeled shoes. Like high heeled shoes, neckties are evolutionarily expensive.  Those who wear these uncomfortable and dangerous clothes would seem to decrease their chances of survival.   Dan Klarmann reminded me of this decrease in survival value here:

Men wear ties, a noose that any attacker can quickly and effectively use. The higher the rank of the man, the better the noose and more effective the knot.

On the other hand, wearing a necktie could enhance one’s connection with certain social groups, possibly offsetting that decreased likelihood of survival.  Another possibility is that an individual wearing a tie on his own (not with the aim of seeking membership in a social group) is making a powerful display to potential mates.  If his tie is both expensive and clean, he is calling out to potential mates that he has the means to purchase his tie and to keep it clean, as well as displaying that he has good enough health that restricting the blood flow to his brain is something he is willing and able to risk.  Therefore, neckties really do have much in common with high-heeled shoes.  They are not pragmatic.  In fact, they are anti-pragmatic.  They appear to be a stupid investment until one considers that neckties are quite often keys that open social locks.

In conclusion, I’m afraid that the title to this post was tongue-in-cheek.  As long as the well-entrenched tie-wearing people who hold the most power in society are issuing the paychecks to the rest of us, all too many of us will continue to dress like them.  Which is why I probably sensed, even back in high school, that I didn’t want to wear a necktie.  I didn’t completely make it into No Tie Land, at least not yet. In the meantime, let me know if anyone actually arranges a Tie Burning Day . . .

The new media are increasingly learning the lessons of the corporate media. According to this post on the Harper’s site, the bloggers who get personal access to the President are those who write about the President sympathetically.

Here’s an example of the sort of bloggers the President seeks:

Matthew Burden, who blogs under the name Blackfive (who subsequently wrote that Bush called him “brutha,” [who] described Bush as “intelligent, razor sharp, warm, focused, emotional (especially about his dad), and genuine. Even more so than this cynical Chicago Boy expected. I was overwhelmed by the sincerity–it wasn’t staged.”)

In case Bush is considering inviting me, I hereby suggest that Bush is faster than a speeding bullet; more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound . . .

According to National Geographic’s Genographic Project, we are all African.  The DNA tests taken in many isolated native populations conclusively demonstrate that we are all no more than 2000 generations removed from Africa.  If you’d like, sign up and learn the path of your own migration out of Africa for only $100.  I do mean “only $100,” because it is a modern miracle that scientists in a laboratory can unravel that tiny history book buried in your DNA.  The story of DNA is really the study of miracle upon miracle.  What else can you say about a package so small that it can fit inside of an invisible cell yet, when unfolded, that same single cell’s worth of DNA stretches six feet?

It is a marvelous thing that we are all African.  Further, DNA studies have determined that we are all descended from an African Adam and Eve (though Adam never actually met Eve).  That we all share common ancestors means that we are all cousins.  You are my cousin.  Randomly pick the next person walking down the sidewalk.  That’s your cousin.  Go visit a great art gallery.  Your cousins painted all of the paintings.  Next time you see the cops slapping cuffs on a car thief, try to feel a little more empathy for the guy in cuffs, because he’s your cousin.  That we are all so closely related is a special treat for those of us who have adopted children from around the world.  In my case, it means that I am biologically related to my (adopted) Chinese children—such wonderful joyous irony!

That we are all one family is a huge triumph of science, a finding that might someday counteract the bigoted tendencies of many political organizations and religions.  Many of us, of all skin hues, had ancestors who migrated out of Africa together.  Our DNA is 99% identical to the DNA of any other person on Earth.  With this information provided by dedicated scientists, we now know that we are all related to every group of “chosen people.”  There’s no need to allocate magic real estate to particular “special” people.  Whoever those chosen people are, we’re their cousins. Therefore each of us is “chosen” and “special” too.  Let’s not kill each other over magic real estate any more.

These high-tech modern biological achievements should make us think twice whenever we hear others talking about “them.”   Any sort of “them,” any outgroup.  That we are all African should make us extremely wary of using the term “race.”  We’re all one race, though with different features and shades of brown.

Now that it is clearer than ever that we are all African, it is clearer that those who ask about race are racists.  Those who aren’t racists don’t think about “race” because they have no use for its gross over-generalizations.

I agree with the following distinction between geographic and “racial” distinctions: 

There is nothing wrong with using geographic labels to designate people.  Major continental terms are just fine, and sub-regional refinements such as Western European, Eastern African, Southeast Asian, and so forth carry no unintentional baggage. In contrast, terms such as “Negroid,” “Caucasoid,” and “Mongoloid” create more problems than they solve. Those very terms reflect a mix of narrow regional, specific ethnic, and descriptive physical components with an assumption that such separate dimensions have some kind of common tie. Biologically, such terms are worse than useless. Their continued use, then, is in social situations where people think they have some meaning.

On a lighter note, I can now fully justify the way in which I’ve been handling demographic forms for the past ten years or so.   For “race,” I’ve been checking the box next to “African” (though I’ve never done this to obtain any sort of benefit).  I’ve chosen “African” because that is where the evidence is increasingly pointing—that we are, indeed, African.  All of us.  Learn to love this thought–it is something you hold in common with every person you’ve ever admired.

So let’s remind our jingoist leaders of these new findings of biology whenever they get carried away talking about an ominous group of “them.”  Let’s remind those who divide that whoever “they” are, “they” are part of our big biological family and we should always be putting more energy into getting along with them than into dividing our family or to getting ready to start what would inevitably be another internecine war.   Let’s remind the dividers of the world that the use of “race” is always, at bottom a coarse exercise of power.  In fact it is the “power of an illusion.”

So do consider spending that $100 with the Genographic Project or, at least, thinking about doing it.   If for no other reason, do it for a clearer worldview.  Do it for your cousins. 

Salon.com has published an article (”The light’s on, but is anybody home?”) on a new study that claims that scientists are able to determine (based on fMRI studies) that a woman who has been diagnosed to be in a vegetative state for two years appears to be conscious.

In a recent article in the Archives of Neurology, a team of British and Belgian neuroscientists describe a clinically unconscious accident victim who can, on command, imagine herself playing tennis and walking around her house. By showing that her functional brain imaging studies (fMRI) are indistinguishable from those of healthy volunteers performing the same mental tasks, the researchers claim that the young woman’s fMRI “confirmed beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of herself and her surroundings, and was willfully following instructions given to her, despite her diagnosis of a vegetative state.”

Their extraordinary conclusions are beyond provocative; they raise profound questions about the very notion of consciousness. What’s more, they could throw thousands of families and doctors into utter turmoil.

The experiment is both clever and provocative.  The experimenters asked the (apparently vegetative) patient to imagine engaging in activities such as playing tennis, relaxing or walking.  The three results lit up parts of her brain associated with those three activities.  Does that mean that she’s conscious, horribly trapped in her own body?  Alternatively, do these results constitute artifacts, suggesting something less than true consciousness?

The interpretation could have immense consequences for the care that should be given to at least some vegetative state patients.

Good quotes are explosive. There’s a novel hiding in every good quote. Well, here’s a good collection of subversive quotes from Vagabox.  It includes many of my favorites and many that I hadn’t read before.   Here’s a tiny sampling from a large collection:

The police are not here to create disorder. They’re here to preserve disorder.
~ Ex-Chicago Mayor Daley during the 1968 riots

We need a common enemy to unite us.
~ Condoleezza Rice, March 2000

I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
~ President George Bush, August 27, 1988

Peace is over rated. Any slave can have peace. Just pick the cotton.
~ TheSong

Pain is certain, suffering is optional.
~ Buddha

When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.
~ Jack Gurney - “The Ruling Class”

Could a being create the fifty billion galaxies, each with two hundred billion stars, then rejoice in the smell of burning goat flesh?
~ Ron Patterson

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.
~ George Washington Administration Treaty

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.
~ Stanley Kubrick

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
~ Albert Einstein

Probably no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and education.
~ Braham Flexner

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.
~ General Douglas MacArthur

What can you do to avoid stress?  I stumbled across this thoughtful list tonight. I use quite a few of these.  I wanted to keep it handy, so I’m posting it.  

It’s good to have lists like these in writing, because when you’re stressed it’s hard to remember and hard to think laterally. 

I don’t think anyone has yet invented a specific word for this phenomenon, but too many Americans are suffering from an intense craving for simple one-step answers to life’s most important questions.  Though people have always taken explanatory leaps, the mainstream media seems to tolerate them like never before. In the political realm, for example, the media should be ridiculing simpleton answers, but often doesn’t As case in point is Bush’s preposterous claim that “It’s better to fight them there than here.”  As though doing the former protects us from the latter.  Perhaps encouraged by the simple-mindedness of President Bush, the news media has taken a hands-off approach incredible amounts of simplistic nonsense. 

Many simplistic explanations, but not all, are religious claims. Before you crank out those e-mails arguing that I’m painting with too broad a brush, I will readily admit that many people who sincerely follow religions are incredibly deep and skeptical thinkers (though they have a hands-off approach to skeptically examining their own religious beliefs). Therefore, I am not arguing that all of those people who consider themselves religious are shallow-minded ignoramuses.  Nor am I claiming that those who are nonbelievers are necessarily disciplined and knowledgeable skeptical thinkers.  There are plenty of simplistic folks of all stripes running around.

In my own mind, I conceive of our over-willingness to accept simplistic views as a “treasure hunt” mentality.  All too many people seek ready-made explanations, where finding an minimally acceptable ”answer” gives them a license shut down their sense of curiosity for the rest for their lifetime.  How do you know when you’ve discovered the an answer? You just know, according to those who believe.  It’s time for examples.

Religious believers commonly support their beliefs by asserting that the “Bible tells me so.”  They do this without any willingness to consider the numerous contradictions in the Bible and they do this without any curiosity as to when the Bible was written and by whom.  In other words, they are quite content to argue that the Bible simply tells them so, which invites them to cite the Bible as authority without any assurance that the Bible is an authority.  If you try to encourage them to question their treasure hunt ready-made answer, most religious people get aggravated [for example, look what happened in the comments to this post on Bart Ehrman]. (more…)

The king of bad food, “the only specific food that clinical research has directly linked to weight gain,” is soda pop (though see here for an opposing viewpoint).   Nutritionally, there is almost nothing good to say about soda.  That is the focus of an article entitled “Nutritionists: Soda making Americans drink themselves fat.” 

The rise in soft drink consumption mirrors the national march toward obesity. At the midpoint of the 20th century, Americans drank four times as much milk as soda pop. Today, the ratio is almost completely reversed, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, in the past 30 years the national obesity rate has more than doubled, and among teenagers, more than tripled, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Soda pop is a quintessential junk food,” said Michael Jacobson, who heads the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which lobbies for government restrictions on foods it considers unhealthy. “It’s just pure calories, and no nutrients. It’s like a bomb in our diet.”

Not only is soda loaded with empty calories. Some scientists point to the high fructose corn syrup found in soda as the real problem.  Drinking it also sets up a vicious cycle of eating and hunger that lasts all day long:

The sugar in soda pop not only provides a massive dose of calories, but triggers a vicious appetite cycle, said [Dr. David] Ludwig, [a Harvard endicrinologist]. . . “It’s rapidly absorbed, which raises blood sugar and in effect causes the body to panic.” The body releases insulin to break down the sugar, “but the body overcompensates, and blood sugar drops below the fasting level,” lower than it was in the first place.

Recognizing low blood sugar, the body releases ghrelin and other hormones, inducing hunger, inducing us to eat even more, Ludwig said.

Here’s a doctor’s description of what all that sugar does to your body when you gulp down that soda.

Sam Bee of Comedy Central takes a not-so-serious look at this commonly heard question.

That’s the proposal from a candidate running to be head of Germany’s Roman Catholic dominated CSU party, as reported by Salon.com’s Broadstreet.

I have a seven year old daughter. It would be fun to watch her play the drums as well as this seven year old guy, but that will never happen. Not that I’m at all disappointed!

This is a truly extraordinary exhibition. This video left both of us shaking our heads. It is a performance originally aired on the Johnny Carson Show many years ago. I don’t know the specifics, and I can’t quite make out the name of the drummer. I’m wondering whether he ended up making a living as a professional drummer . . .

This issue of eating meat is gaining more momentum, as people start realizing the toll that meat-eating is putting on the environment.  Raising farm animals contributes more greenhouse gases to the environment than all transportation (cars, trains, airplanes and anything else) combined.

This excerpt is from an article on Common Dreams, entitled “Nuggets and Hummers and Fish Sticks, Oh My! Why Vegetarianism Is the Best Way to Help the Environment”:

The vast majority of the calories consumed by a chicken, a pig, a cow, or another animal goes into keeping that animal alive, and once you add to that the calories required to create the parts of the animal that we don’t eat (e.g., bones, feathers, and blood), you find that it takes more than 10 times as many calories of feed given to an animal to get one calorie back in the form of edible fat or muscle. In other words, it’s exponentially more efficient to eat grains, soy, or oats directly rather than feed them to farmed animals so that humans can eat those animals. It’s like tossing more than 10 plates of spaghetti into the trash for every one plate you eat.

And that’s just the pure “calories in, calories out” equation. When you factor in everything else, the situation gets much worse. Think about the extra stages of production that are required to get dead chickens, pigs, or other animals from the farm to the table:

1. Grow more than 10 times as much corn, grain, and soy (with all the required tilling, irrigation, crop dusters, and so on), as would be required if we ate the plants directly.
2. Transport — in gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing 18-wheelers — all that grain and soy to feed manufacturers.
3. Operate the feed mill (again, using massive amounts of resources).
4. Truck the feed to the factory farms.
5. Operate the factory farms.
6. Truck the animals many miles to slaughterhouses.
7. Operate the slaughterhouses.
8. Truck the meat to processing plants.
9. Operate the meat processing plants.
10. Truck the meat to grocery stores (in refrigerated trucks).
11. Keep the meat in refrigerators or freezers at the stores.

With every stage comes massive amounts of extra energy usage — and with that comes heavy pollution and massive amounts of greenhouse gases, of course. Obviously, vegan foods require some of these stages, too, but vegan foods cut out the factory farms, the slaughterhouses, and multiple stages of heavily polluting tractor-trailer trucks, as well as all the resources (and pollution) involved in each of those stages. And as was already noted, vegan foods require less than one-tenth as many calories from crops, since they are turned directly into food rather than funneled through animals first.

A friend of mine impressed me long ago with his claim that morality begins with what we are willing to put into our mouths.   When we are willing put meat into our mouths we are affecting far more than our own bodies–we are affecting large swaths of the rest of the world.  I’m not only referring to land animals. This article makes it clear that eating fish comes with a similar set of environmental concerns.  

I still eat meat, though I’ve minimized my meat-eating over the years.  Articles like make me wonder whether even eating a little bit of meat is too much.

Every time we sit down to eat, we can choose to eat a product that is, according to U.N. scientists, “one of the … most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global,” or we can choose vegan — and preferably organic — foods. It’s bad for the environment to eat animals.

One more thing - - the health benefits of giving up meat are spectacular.  In short, if you’re not motivated to give up meat for “the environment,” there’s good reason to give it up for your own health and safety.

Bob Cesca usually takes a take-no-prisoners approach to writing.  This recent piece from Huffpo is no exception and I agree with him.  Here’s an excerpt:

Prior to this embarrassing week of events on the Hill, the Democratic majority has acquiesced on war funding and have fallen over themselves backpedaling as fast as their trembling legs could carry them in the face of everything President Loser and the Republicans have farted in their general direction.

It’s clear that the Democrats could learn a lot from Senator Craig’s comparatively mighty balls.

Just ask the Republican Mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders. I applaud him for his willingness to keep an open heart and mind.

This video and attached article is so incredibly depressing, to think that this man is the leader of our country. Did I say depressing. Maybe I meant embarrassing or horrifying.   Especially horrifying in light of the economic shipwreck that is going to happen under the not-very-learned command of George W. Bush.  So much of this was totally unnecessary. The next generation will be often wondering why we betrayed them.