Cortical Skipping or ," How The Hell Did You Think of That?"

Ok, so I made up the term to describe something that we all do all the time. Here is an example from this morning as I thought of things:

Old George – botany faculty- names-Joe Reidhart-mycologist-Couch-puffball-Calvatia-Calvarium?-

The question is how do you get to puffballs and skull from Old George, and the answer is above: cortical skipping.

I puzzled over the connection between the genus for the giant puffball and the name of the top of the skull, and what connection there might be. Bingo!!! Got it!!! Giant puffballs really look like bleached skulls when they are fresh, and thus were named after the Latin name for skull

Well, this is an example of what I call “cortical skipping”. The phenomenon where you can trace a current thought backwards to a seemingly impossible starting point, but the connections between jumps are logical. I am sure in the lingo of psychology or brain study this process has its own name, but what the hell? Thinking is a cortex function, and skipping from one thought to another is a basic human activity, so logically it should be called cortical skipping. See? You learned something new this morning. And, if you are really lucky, you will find a nice fresh puffball, slice same and sauté in butter. Yummmmy. 

Image: http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/22823/wm/pd2933311.jpg

Trans* What? Gender is Gender, and that is the end of it. Not.

“...one’s self identified gender is necessarily more legitimate than the one that is rather naively assigned to them by others.”

-Julia Serano, Whipping Girl, (2009)

And so starts a great resource for information on transgender/transsexual people. This is truly a must peruse website. Why you ask? Well, because someone you know or will soon know is a transgender person. About 1.5% of the population on average. So, out of every 100 people you know or meet, more than one will be transgender. Could be you for all I know.

I heard a part of a program this afternoon on NPR about trans people, and wondered all the way through it what was bothering me. Not my identity. Not my acceptance, because you will be hard pressed to find anyone more accepting of everyone than me. No, I finally figured out it was my ignorance about this community. So I set out to learn a bit, and found a few good places to look. The Trans Awareness Project, http://www.transawareness.org/index.html, is a good place to start.The site has frank and accessible discussions on almost everything you will think to ask. Keep in mind that trans people have a ridiculously high suicide rate. A bit over 40% of trans try suicide some time, and many succeed. Why? The pressure of a society that is gender bound to think of only “boy” or “girl” and to think that anyone else is sick. Not so.

I have maintained for years, based on my biological background, that gender and gender identity is a sliding scale, with the absolutes of boy and girl at the ends and everyone else somewhere in between. I still think this is true, and hope the rest of the world will catch up with me sooner rather than later. And don’t think “sexual orientation”  and gender identity are related. They are not.

If you are at all curious about the trans community, visit the TAP website linked above, and begin the process of becoming educated. You, (and me too) are never to old to learn, and never to old to put aside old prejudices and enter the human race. Try it. You may like it.

 Image: The Trans Awareness Project website

George, a Possum and a Sweet ‘tater

Sorry I didn't get to know you better, George.

The year would have been around 1962 or 3. I was a botany student at the University of Miami and spent my time between sleeps either in the botany department, old WWII barracks, in the Everglades or fishing. In those days, the department, long since collapsed into the Zoology Dept., had an arboretum, greenhouses, ponds for aquatic plants and a caretaker for all of that and the surrounding grounds. His name was George. Just George. Or some professors called him "Old George". If he had a last name I never knew it, but probably saw it on his paycheck once when he showed it to me. Thirty five dollars a week. That’s 85.5 cents a hour. I was making $160 a month, or nominally a buck an hour. I wasn’t worth that much, and George was worth more. He lived in Kendall with his wife and other family members, I don’t know how many or who. The family had a wood stove that cooked all the meals, summer and winter, and also was the only heat for those cold winter mornings.

George was always good for a conversation while he pruned trees or raked leaves or cut grass or did other maintenance, and considered the fruit the trees produced, prodigiously usually, his by right. He didn’t mind sharing when a good crop of lemons or mangosteens came in, or when the various mangos were dropping. I liked to talk to him about all kinds of things and was one of the few people there who knew him at all. One day I told him I had a possum living in the walls of my house and needed to trap it, and asked him for help. He dug out an old Hav-a-Heart trap from the storeroom, showed me how to set it up  and bait it with peanut butter and asked only that I give him the  possum when, not if, I trapped it.

Well, trap it I did, that very night, and in the cold Miami morning delivered it to George. He lit up like a kid on Christmas when he saw it, saying only “it’s a big’un”. And it was. I asked if he was going to eat it and he said yes, but would have to clean it out and fatten it up for 2 or 3 weeks first. Curious, I asked how he was going to do that. “Feed it chicken” was the answer. I didn’t find out the source of the chicken.

Sometime later, on another cold morning, I was walking in the citrus section of the arboretum, and heard George, his deep and gravelly voice instantly recognizable, call me. I walked over to where he was piling leaves around a trunk, and he asked me if I had anything to eat that morning. I didn’t. He reached in his pocket, not a particularly clean one, and pulled out a big sweet potato, charred on the outside. He broke off a chunk and handed it to me and said something like “I cooked it in the stove this morning. It’s sweet and just right.”  I took a tentative bite and it was just right. Sweet, not soggy and a little salty from the ashes. Even the charred skin was good. I said “thanks George” and finished it then and there. I didn’t realize until after noon when I saw him eating his piece that he had shared his whole day’s food with me. No reason given, none required.

When I left Miami, he was about to “retire” and shortly after that the department was annexed by the zoology crew. I never knew what happened to “Old George”, but here is one man who still remembers him. Based on time elapsed and his age, I reckon that he died some time back. A harder working man would be hard to find. Quiet, even taciturn, but wise in the ways of what he knew. I wish that I had thought to talk to him of race and where that was going, but never did. Of course the Brown decision was already history, and the Civil Rights Act wasn’t around yet. I think that he would have been philosophical about race relations, and counseled patience. That’s what I think.

Image: https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSwO5pIelUK7Yjz-Taagh0CDOb67MGcx2GXa_TU7IP2grZsVJV9ow

Wearable Technology and the Starving

You Think Poor Starving People Own These?

This morning during our walk I recollected several novels I read from earlier  days that all had to do with divided societies, the rich living in “cloud” cities, either orbiting or the tops of city buildings isolated from the poor masses below, or the rich living in special “domes” which exclude the masses or the rich living in separate walled off cities. Some moron’s idea of Utopia, if you are rich. Then I thought about a discussion from yesterday where some expert was explaining wearable technology. Sensors in shoes to measure all kinds of parameters. Clothing with built in technology to keep you “connected” at all times, and cameras built into buttons or fabric to record the daily events.

The thing that astonished me was the nonchalance the guy displayed when he said “in ten years we will all be wearing technology all the time.” Not me, but that is another essay.

No, the aspect that astonished me was the complete ignorance this guy seemingly had about the majority of the people of the world, and their plight. Does anybody really think that the Somalis, Sudanese, Bangladeshis, and the hundreds of millions of other deeply impoverished people will be wearing Bluetooth shoes in 10 years? They will be lucky to not starve to death in 6 months, never mind years.. I know. I know. The guy was really talking about the affluent rich of the world, not the masses, whose population keeps growing despite world conditions.

He was really talking about a Utopian future, and he honestly believes it is right around the corner. And it may be for him and a few million others. But I think anyone with a brain can see that for the struggling rest of the world, just plain shoes would be nice. And maybe some food once a day. And maybe some clean water once in a while. Wearable technology for everybody? Not bloody likely mate. Not bloody likely.

Just for fun, Google “wearable technology” and see how many images of poor people you see.

Image: http://www.zdnet.com/a-pulse-check-on-wearable-tech-think-beyond-the-wrist-already-7000027843/

Religious Objections to Hiring GLBTQ Rears it's Ugly Head

I was about to go to the garage and put the mower back together with some new parts. Then I read the news that religious organizations with birth control exemptions are now asking to be exempt from the Federal Contractors order not to discriminate against the GLBT community. In other words, they don’t want queers of any kind working for them. Why? Well isn't it obvious?  “God Hates Fags” of all stripes. Just ask the Westboro folks.

Not so long ago blacks, Asians, women, handicapped people of all kinds and others were routinely discriminated against. And of course outted (sp?) queers. But that all changed and now there is equality for all right? This is America right? Where “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;” is the rule, law and practice right?

No, WRONG. This has only ever been the land of the free for White Men from the get-go, and not even all of them. The rest of us have been “equalized” over the last 200 years or so by legislation to protect our rights. And now that we have them, a minority of, you got it, White Men, are working hard to take them away again.

THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT THAT IT DEFIES LOGIC AND COMPREHENSION

Where are the defenders of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and of the Law? Oh, that’s

right, the Supreme Court said it, I believe it and that is the end of it. NO IT IS NOT THE END OF IT.

Revolution is the end of it, and I hope we are moving in that direction. I propose that we “Take Back America” as the Conservative Religious Republicans are fond of saying. But what I propose is that we take it back from THEM. Before it is too late.

Images: Various Westboro Protest signs.

Another Old Friend Passes

While the world goes by at a frightening pace, things happen over the horizon that stay unknown. Then, suddenly, you know. Such is the news of the death of a very old friend. I knew she was very ill from family Facebook postings. But the whirl of life in our household blotted out much of the world of news. Today, I read postings that said  that she had died.

Younger by many years than me, I met her and knew her as the “smart-ass teenager”, and joined the competition for her attention. I lost out to another good friend, and together they made a life and had 4 wonderful children. I knew them all and more recently have come to know them again, some more, some less. The marriage didn’t last, as many do not, and both of my friends moved on to new things.

We lost touch, she and I, but

I met her a few years ago, now older, grayer and wiser, but still with the infectious smile and laugh of the teenager. We had a little time to spend reminiscing, and then she went home to the West. We stayed in touch gently, and never got to spend more time catching up on our various successes and, yes, failures. Remember, failures are an important part of becoming who you are, not to be forgotten, but to be celebrated as teaching moments.

She died and I didn’t know. And she leaves behind 4 daughters and many friends. She did the very best she could with life, and, in the end, I think, triumphed. My heart is sad, but my memories are good, yes, even the infamous Rainbow Farm saga. We had fun, all of us, and Sal and I cherish those times. I will tell some of those tales in the next few weeks, as a fitting reminder that those whom we love are not forgotten, but are loved still.

So to L, T, T and J I say celebrate the woman whom she was, because she was a special person. And know that I stand with you, missing her and remembering her.

Image: https://reflectionsfromafriend.wordpress.com/category/reflections/

Cynical or Realistic?

One active aspect of cynicism involves the desire to expose hypocrisy and to point out the gulf between society's ideals and its practices according to Mary Midgley.  George Bernard Shaw allegedly expressed this succinctly: "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who don't have it" (1).

I have been tossing around the ideas of cynicism, depression and realistic attitudes, and have some difficulty. On the one hand, cynics are sometimes thought of as melancholic or depressed, self-deluded, and on the other as realistic. When someone tells me I have a cynical attitude, I respond that I have a realistic attitude. Why? Well, in my education and experience, cynical people were somehow thought of as being defective. Maybe in personality. Maybe in intellect. Maybe in spirituality. And I don’t think of myself thusly.

In looking back over my several decades, I find that the world view I have always held includes the ideas that humans like to and strive to do good as individuals and some groups. Take churches for example: countless “missions” are undertaken every year to go somewhere to do good works. And not always (cynicism?) just to gain new converts. I ran into Baptist missionary projects in Nicaragua, a fiercely Catholic country, building sanitary outhouses for extremely rural and poor families. No illusions of converts. Just good works. At the exact same time, corporations, governments and individuals all over the world were exploiting people and resources for their own enrichment. Not for the good of the people. This is not a cynical observation, just a realistic one.

The cynicism as defined by Midgley and Shaw, though, definitely shines through. You see, I deeply believe that humans will per natura act in their own interests when able, and when powerful enough. Not all people, or even most people mind you. But enough to tip the scales. A few powerful leaders control world events. Wars are not started by the citizens of countries, they are started by the leaders. Revolutions may be good wars started by the citizenry, but most often are corrupted at the end. Industries operate for profit and often disregard the long term effects of their actions. Governments can and often are corrupted by corrosive effects of money, either through the political process or directly through graft.

I believe that the vast majority of individuals want to do good and actually do good. Observation of the world, not a cynical observation either, clearly shows a world descending into degradation and chaos. Unstoppable? Probably not. Will it be stopped? Probably not.

Cynical? No, just realistic.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary)

Image: http://crapusa.blogspot.com/2012_11_01_archive.html

Good News? Some, but Enough?

Think Corporations Care? THINK AGAIN

I was talking to a few friends on the 4^th about many things, and the idea of good news vs bad news came up. As anyone who has read my writings over the last few years will know, I don’t find much good news to comment on. Sure there are always the feel good stories about saved animals and kids, brave cops and firefighters and super citizens who put themselves in danger for others. In my experience it is human nature to aid others, animals, trees or other humans, in times of distress. I agree it is good news and good works.

My take on the world, however, is informed by my equally deeply felt experiences that humans can be greedy and self-serving when operating on a more macro level: corporations seeking profit; chambers of commerce courting businesses; wealthy people trying to get even richer; governments seeking more power and resources. The list goes on and on. The net result of the nasty side of human activity is poverty, environmental degradation, disease and war. I see this as a natural condition of human kind since throughout human history, as we can know it, these or similar activities have always been around. Sure, again, some good is usually to be found, but not enough to outweigh the bad.

America? The same. Founded in war, forged by war and strengthened by commerce. The results are clear: declining arable land, declining and polluted water supplies, poverty, timber resources exploited in favor of fast growing mono culture, environmental and biological disasters. Having seen the outcome of centuries of exploitation, one might think that saner heads would prevail and through elected officials bring some sanity to the country. But the election process itself has been corrupted by huge amounts of money, and the judicial system has been corrupted by the corrupted elected officials, or if not corrupted then at the very least polarized to the point of de facto corruption. Example? Easy. The Supreme Court decision to make corporations “people” for the purpose of political donations. Thus injecting unlimited amounts of “polarized” money into elections.

During this same evening, a friend pointed out, rightly, that the demographics of the country are changing, and in a few decades the governing of the country will probably be done by more liberal politicians who might reverse the awful trends of corporate and municipal greed. I agree. I also think that if this occurs (bear in mind that the conservative actors are rushing to re-calibrate their message to attract new and more liberal voters, cynically I believe) the damage already done will be akin to having an inept surgeon remove the wrong leg from a patient and then being fired for incompetence: the patient still is without a leg. In the case of the country, the ground water will still be hopelessly contaminated; lakes, rivers and streams will still be hopelessly polluted; fish stocks will still be hopelessly depleted; women will be decades behind in equality; poor and disadvantaged people will be hopelessly under educated; and the rich will be unbelievably richer.

From my perspective: too little too late. Because along with America, will go the world.

There is good news out there, mostly deeds done by individuals and probably some by corporations and governments. But gosh and golly, the bad surly seems to outweigh the good.

Image: http://economistjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2012/06/day-22-daily-mass-massacre-of-children.html

Imge: http://www.jimwhitefitexpert.com/images/logos/foxnewslatino.jpeg

Freedom to - - - - what?

Lets see. No posts in a while. Hmmm. Why I wonder? A couple of times in the last few days I have perched before the glowing screen and waited. No inspiration. Move on.
Today it occurred to me why that might be. There is just so much going on to rave about I don't know where or if to start. Is there anyone left on the planet, except some really conservative Republicans, who don't know about all the problems that are killing us and the planet? Is there anyone left in America who don't know that in the name of "Freedom" we are every day getting less free. Woman's right to chose? Not in many places. Right to "carry open" leads to many people afraid to go into stores. A corporation is first a person, and now has religion. What a crock of crap that is.
Is there anyone left in America, except the conservatives, who do not think we are having very bad things happen to weather patterns? Oh, that's right. They think they are just "Natural Cycles".

God, there are so many wrongs to right that I tremble at the probably outcomes. (And that is NOT a prayer BTW.) We are being screwed in so many different ways I can't even count them. And mostly for the profit of a few fat cats.

Look at one issue dear to me: Religious Freedom vs Freedom from Taxes. A bit of background: Organizations who claim to be religious organizations, with very little vetting, are exempt from paying taxes on property used for church business. No property taxes; no school taxes; no taxes to support fire fighters or other first responders. All other non-church property pays these taxes. You and me. The revenue generated is spent for what you think: local government, schools, fire and police etc. We, the non-church taxpayer pay for all the budget. The churches skate with no contribution. Therefore, when you subtract their tax value, based on their assets, our taxes necessarily go up. YOU SUBSIDIZE THE CHURCH, TEMPLE, MOSQUE, CATHEDRAL, TABERNACLE AND EVERY CORNER PREACHER. You pay their share of the tax burden.

You like that? You think it is fair? You like the idea of them NOT PAYING and you PAYING DOUBLE?
Simple solution: Require them all to pay taxes. After all, they expect the fire department to put our their burning churches, and the ambulances to come to their preachers heart attack and their kids to go to school for free (if they live in a church provided house) and the streets fixed, and you get the idea. If they expect the services, why shouldn't they pay their fair share?

There, now I am writing again. Next I may bitch about the mess in the middle east, that, BTW, Obama did not cause.
Image: http://dailyatheistquote.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/religious-tax-exemption.png

The Breast.and Double Standards

Ok for Africans but not New Yorkers. Double Standard?

Depending on your religion/cultural situation the subject can be exciting, disgusting, shameful or a completely non-issue.  And then there is the sexual difference in perception: it is Ok to see a male breast, including the nipple and Ok to see a female breast, but NOT the nipple. In some religions/cultures.

Confused? Of course you are. And the cause of this confusion is the, well, confusion. Let’s take a closer look: Before the Judeo-Christian-Moslem (people of the Book, the Old Testament) came along, breasts of both sexes were seen in equal measures. Men and women went topless when they wanted to, and covered up when they wanted to. Nobody ogled, grabbed or commented either way. People of the tropics, on every continent, went topless and some bottomless as well.

Then somebody decided to create the Bible, and included the idea that the female body, but not the male body, is somehow shameful. The idea that to see female body parts was sexually titillating (no pun intended) or shameful or disgusting was a construct of culture. This was taken to an extreme in many cultures, the most recent of which was the high-necked long hemmed clothing of women of the west, and the total coverage of some Moslem women today. In these contexts, in the western culture, a glimpse of an ankle was erotic in extremis and a glimpse of a burka-clad woman’s flesh, any flesh, might lead to her being killed on the spot.

What dynamics could lead to the demonizing of the female body? What god would create rules to make the female body, or parts of it, off limits to be seen? Who would perpetrate such nonsense? And why?

My answer is a loud “MEN”. And the why is simple: Control. In many primitive cultures, women are usually considered equal to men, and sometimes even superior. When the Book came along, suddenly women were relegated to a second class role, ordered to “submit” to men and cover up. And this is taken to the extreme in some Moslem cultures where men can beat, sometimes to death, any woman in public space who they find offensive for any reason. And of course, husbands can beat, sometimes to death, a wife for any reason at all.

I think we have had this second class citizenry for women for too long, and it is time for women to  claim their rightful place in the world, and that is one of equal status. And to do this? Bare the breast and take the wind out of the sails of women-hating men. Seriously Woody? Well, probably not right away, but that would go a long way to begin the process of turning the course of culture. Religion? That is a tougher nut to crack. That will take millions of people shouting “BULLSHIT” all at once. And that will never happen, will it?

So we are stuck with a set of ancient and arbitrary customs and values until the cows come home, bare breasted and proud of it.  

Image: http://nativenudity.tumblr.com/post/46537073426/zulu-reed-dancers