Gaza Day 22

A Palestinian girl, who according to local medics was wounded during Israel's offensive, is carried in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip January 13, 2009 (emphasis added)

The insidious bias of the Western Press. One is left in doubt as to how the child was injured since it is the local medics who are doing the reporting and everyone knows that the Palestinians are capable of any kind of deceit, even to harming their own children for propaganda purposes.

Gaza Day 21

In 416 B.C.E., Athens was one of the strongest city-states in Greece. They frequently sought to usurp other small, independent city-states. One of these that caught their eye was the island of Melos which had, at one time, been a colony of Sparta, traditional enemies of the Athenians. However, at this time, Melos considered itself a neutral and did not lend aid to any other military power. This did not stop the Athenians from sending a convoy to the island to demand its surrender.

The Melians, on the other hand, were not amenable to this course of action as will be seen. When the Athenians arrived, the Melians requested and were granted a conference with them. The dialog of that conference is from Thucydides. (emphasis added)

First, the Athenians take the Melians to task for having a conference and not having the Athenians speak to all the people:

"Since we are not allowed to speak to the people, lest, forsooth, they should be deceived by seductive and unanswerable arguments which they would hear set forth in a single uninterrupted oration (for we are perfectly aware that this is what you mean in bringing us before a select few)....."

The Melians then observe: :

"The quiet interchange of explanations is a reasonable thing, and we do not object to that. But your warlike movements, which are present not only to our fears but to our eyes, seem to belie your words. We see that, although you may reason with us, you mean to be our judges; and that at the end of the discussion, if the Justice of our cause prevail and we therefore refuse to yield, we may expect war; if we are convinced by you, slavery."

Thus the Melians are confronted with either a war against overwhelming force, or slavery. The Athenians go on to make their argument:

"Well, then, we Athenians will use no flue words; we will not go out of our way to prove at length that we have a right to rule, because we overthrew the Persians; or that we attack you now because we are suffering any injury at your hands. We should not convince you if we did; nor must you expect to convince us by arguing that, although a colony of the Lacedaemonians (Sparta, ed), you have taken no part in their expeditions, or that you have never done us any wrong. But you and we should say what we really think, and aim only at what is possible, for we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must."

This is one of Thucydides most famous quotes, and it is important to see it in context. The Melians go on to say:

"But must we be your enemies? Will you not receive us as friends if we are neutral and remain at peace with you?"

The Athenians make another devastating point:

"...but they think that states like yours are left free because they are able to defend themselves, and that we do not attack them because we dare not. So that your subjection will give us an increase of security, as well as an extension of empire. For we are masters of the sea and you who are islanders, and insignificant islanders too, must not be allowed to escape us."

After much back and forth, the Melians state:

"But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes impartial, and not always on the side of numbers, If we yield now, all is over; but if we fight, there is yet a hope that we may stand upright."

There is much more with respect to the gods, the fates and hope. The Athenians wind up with this toothy observation:

As for the gods, we expect to have quite as much of their favour as you: for we are not doing or claiming anything which goes beyond common opinion about divine or men's desires about human things. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a law of their nature wherever they can rule they will, This law was not made by us, and we are not the first who have acted upon it; we did but inherit it, and shall bequeath it to all time, and we know that you and all mankind, if you were as strong as we are, would do as we do.

The Melians then told the Athenians to eff off and that, although they recognized the Athenians strength, they would fight. The Athenians built a wall about the town and essentially laid siege to it. The Melians did break out once to obtain supplies but then:

...the Melians took another part of the Athenian wall; for the fortifications were insufficiently guarded. Whereupon the Athenians sent fresh troops, under the command of Philocrates the son of Demeas. The place was now closely invested, and there was treachery among the citizens themselves. So the Melians were induced to surrender at discretion. The Athenians thereupon put to death all who were of military age, and made slaves of the women and children. They then colonised the island, sending thither 500 settlers of their own.

I, of course, do not mean to draw an exact analogy between Melos and Gaza. But it striking that almost 2500 years ago the same sort of human issues are in play. At least the Athenians recognize that they are operating out of raw power and that Justice really doesn't have anything to do with it.

There can be no justification for the slaughter of innocents in Gaza. None. The attempts by prominent pro Israel pundits (as documented by Glen Greenwald) to justify the Israeli Army are specious to be sure.
------------------------------
An Israeli riot police officer grabs a Palestinian man as he tries to stand up after he was knocked down during a demonstration against Israel's military operation in Gaza,

Gaza Day 20

This is a baby in an isolette;

This is a baby in an isolette, too.

.

Gaza Day 19

While in Tel Aviv



It just does not seem right.

Gaza Day 18

There does not seem to be a foreseeable end to the carnage. The question becomes, what will happen the the people of Gaza after Israel has destroyed so much?

Gaza Day 17

In this second picture, the boy has been blinded by an explosion, yet still waves.

I had thought my country had turned the corner. I had naively thought that we could change. You can't change a culture that is addicted to violence. You can't change a culture that looks at these pictures and says "its their fault."

Things have irrevocably changed and I am frightened about what the future holds in store for us.

The fact that Obama and Congress do not see what is going on, the fact that they do not realize that this could torpedo any hope for peace in the Middle East, and that we will be blamed (rightly) is even sadder.

Gaza Day 16

Collective punishment. Supported by my tax dollars.

Gaza Day 15

Israel Tells Gazans: Prepare For Escalation Of Military Offensive

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas predicted a "waterfall of blood"

Defying the international calls for a cease-fire, Israel threatened to launch a "new phase" in its offensive.

In the day's bloodiest incident, an Israeli tank shell killed nine people in a garden outside a home in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, said Adham el-Hakim, administrator of Kamal Adwan hospital.

Palestinian paramedics said the nine people killed in the garden were from the same clan and included two children and two women.

Bush call halted US voting for ceasefire
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, was forced to step back from voting in favour of the Gaza ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council after orders from Washington, diplomatic sources said yesterday.

With only 10 days to go George W. Bush can still cause incalculable evil.

Gaza Day 14

Red Cross Reports Grisly Find in Gaza
Israel Accused of Blocking Aid to Wounded

JERUSALEM, Jan. 8 -- The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children -- emaciated but alive -- in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site for four days.

------------------------------------

UN rights chief wants investigation of Gaza abuses

GENEVA – The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called Friday for an independent war crimes investigation in Gaza after reports that Israeli forces shelled a house full of Palestinian civilians, killing 30 people.
.....................
Pillay told the Geneva-based rights council that all parties to the conflict had a duty to care for the wounded and avoid targeting health workers, hospitals and ambulances.

Violations of international humanitarian law may amount to war crimes for which individuals should be held accountable, she said.

The 47-member council, which is dominated by Arab and African countries, is debating a resolution condemning Israel for its actions in Gaza. The motion could be delayed until Monday.(emphasis added)

So this invalidates the resolution, of course. Those pesky sand (and jungle) niggers.
------------------------------------



VS

Gaza Day 12

Israeli strikes in response to continued Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel have killed at least 688 Palestinians since Dec. 27, including around 350 civilians, among them 130 children, according to Palestinian officials.

Surgical strikes indeed.

Gaza Day 11

LONDON - Newborn babies in Gaza are at risk of hypothermia because of freezing temperatures and a cut in the power supply, the British aid charity Save the Children warned on Monday.
---------------
Israel hits UN-run Gaza schools
---------------
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard, said Israel had the GPS coordinates of all UN buildings in Gaza -- including its schools.

"Neither homes nor UN shelters are safe" for civilians, he said in a statement which reaffirmed UN ceasefire calls.

"These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must be held accountable." (emphasis added)

And just who will hold them accountable?

Gaza Day 10

If these children had been injured (killed?) in Boston, or Poughkeepsie, or Yellow Springs, the media of America would be ablaze for days. Instead, there is almost sheer silence except for some bloviators once more justifying the slaughter.

Just another ho-hum day on the Res.

Gaza Day 9

Israel has now invaded Gaza. An almost invincible military power has invaded an almost defenseless city. The only worry on Israel's side is that its soldiers will be harmed. Certainly there will be more retaliation if that happens. (Against civilians, including children, of course.) The United States has blocked the Security Council at the UN from issuing a call for a cease fire.

Glenn Greenwald says it all this AM. It is tribalism at its worst. According to Jered Diamond, in Guns, Germs and Steel, the World has supposedly moved beyond tribalism, in most societies. Sorry, Mr. Diamond, you read the cards wrong on this one.

As sad as it is for children, the instability that this will introduce into the MidEast and, ultimately, the World is incalcuable. Bush's desire for a peace treaty by the end of his presidency has been entirely shattered.

The irony, of course, is that Israel has been planning this for months and has used bombs and money from the United States to carry out the attack knowing that it would destroy any chance for peace. Did Rice and Bush know? If not, why not? Will Clinton know? She is so deep in the pocket of the pro Israel lobby in the U.S. that the next four years look grim.

Gaza Day 8

--------------------------------

One missile killed three Palestinian children aged between eight and 12 as they played on a street near the town of Khan Yunis. One was decapitated.

Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor at Gaza's Shifa hospital who could not save a boy who had both feet blown off said: "This is a murder. This is a child."

--------------------------------

Bush: Hamas attacks on Israel an `act of terror'

Gaza Day 7

To remain quiet is to be complicit.

New Year's Day, 2009

To all the children of the World, particularly in Gaza, Iraq and Israel, may you have a year of Peace.

Gaza Day 5

This picture, featured on Yahoo for the last 24 hours, sends a subliminal message. Everyone will view it differently, but at least some will react less sympathetically to the depiction of Palestinians as a group of hags, some toothless . I wonder, does Yahoo have an instant polling of its site to see what does or does not go down? Does Yahoo (like most of America's media) have a political agenda? Is it intent on conveying, especially subliminally, a pro Israeli message?

And Israel refused a cease fire. It will continue the collective punishment.

From here:

"A million and a half human beings, most of them downcast and desperate refugees, live in the conditions of a giant jail, fertile ground for another round of bloodletting. The fact that Hamas may have gone too far with its rockets is not the justification of the Israeli policy for the past few decades, for which it justly merits an Iraqi shoe to the face."

Gaza Day 4

There is no let up and Israel has refused a truce. While militants continue to fire rockets into Israel, the IDF continues to destroy buildings and people associated with Hamas, a political organization that was democratically elected. This has included government buildings and university buildings, neither of which should be considered legal targets if anyone still payed any attention to the rules.

And the massacre of civilians continues.

Briefly (foot)Noted

Being in a palinopsiatic mode this AM (not to be confused with a palinesque mode) I thought it important to comment (reply? dissertate?) on the pithy observations of the unreal. (1)

Again, back to the Growlery:

More important, though, is the rôle they (footnotes, ed.) fulfil in storytelling. Some of them are simple bibliographic attributions for (usually nonexistent) books such as "John Segundus

Ah Ha! The footnoting of nonexistent books. (Or, more cleverly, the footnoting of existent books that don't offer clarification, support or even commentary on the point that has been made. (Be careful using this ploy in a PhD thesis).)("(...)" doesn't count as a footnote. Ed.)

Two books come to mind: The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien (10). Prominent in the plot is the narrator's study and obsession with a fictitous character, De Selby:

De Selby is the name of a fictitious Irish philosopher and scientist, originally invented by Flann O'Brien for his novel The Third Policeman. De Selby does not actually appear in the plot of the novel, but only in references and frequent footnotes

One of the more interesting footnotes, if I can recall, concerns the legend that Irish faeries (not to be confused with English fairies a la (diacritical) Lewis Carrol and Tinkerbell). Irish Faeries are much more robust and obtain a color when they are born. The color is dependent on the direction of the wind. Silver blue for due East, e.g., etc. As the Faerie grows older, he (and it is always a he) begins to fade until, at a certain age he becomes invisible. (14)

A second book probably started this whole thing. I refer here to Giles Goat Boy by John Barth. (15). In this, in retrospect, tedious academic novel, Barth introduces the footnote in the footnote. Then, of course, the recursive footnote that refers back to the primary work (17). More accurately, apparently, it is a hypertext encyclopedia. I.e., Wikipedia. Truly, this is the quote in Wikipedia (18):

A hypertext encyclopedia also figures into the novel, quite presciently given the 1966 publication.

As for footnote vs endnote?

Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

And this is from: eNotes.com.
_____________________________________________________________

(1) Having just typed this I suspect that, rather than the shabby, post modern inclusion of links, I should have actually footnoted these references. (2)

(2) How does one manually footnote a link? Must one include the publisher (3) ? Date and time, like a journal? (5). On the other hand (7)! And this further reflection (8).

(3) I would assume Microsoft(trademark) (4) since they provided Internet Explorer (trademark)l

(4) Author's note: unable to access "trademark" stroke on keyboard.

(5) e.g. Growlery: Vol ?; Dec 23 pg 1; para 2; line five (not accepted EndNote format (6))

(6) EndLink® I had no recourse but to add a true link. Also, I found the registered trademark by copying it from the Growlery

(7) The actual link is http://sammysdot.blogspot.com/ which may or may not, in the future lead you to the Growlery

(8) Is the use of an exclamation point (9) a clever way of drawing attention to a foot note?

(9) !

(10) Flann O'Brien pen name for Brian O'Nolan (Irish: Brian Ó Nualláin) (5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966) but more famously known for his column in the Irish Times, Man Bites Dog (11) under the pseudonym Myles na gCopaleen. (12)

(11) The bite of a man is much more serious than the bite of a dog. It is probable that dogs with lethal bacteria were selected against in evolution by angry owners when, after a dog bite, their leg fell off.

(12) It is noted that this is a Galic name but absent diacritical marks. Since the Growlery knows how to find ®, I assume he could teach us diacritic marks (13)

(13) Live a critic diacritic.

(14) Sometimes, when in a conversation with those vociferous, I feel like I'm disappearing too. Strange

(15) Perhaps one of the most overrated authors in America. Especially his attempt at history of the Chesapeake Bay, The Sotweed Factor. (16)

(16) Personal opinion.

(17) http://www.doctorc.blogspot.com/

(18) Who said irony was dead?

Gaza Day 2

A Palestinian family reacts as they rush past a burning building after an Israeli missile strike in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008.

From Juan Cole:

Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime. (emphasis added)

A couple of points to be made. Attack by home made rockets on Israel by militants is criminal. However, these militants are not part of the armed forces of any nation. To destroy essentially police stations occupied by men who are in all likelihood not responsible for the rocket attacks is clearly a violation of the rules of War (as if anybody, including America, ever really abided by those rules.) Including civilians, especially children in the causalities is despicable. Attacking the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza was particularly cruel since the rockets could not have been launched from there and this was clearly an attack on the civilian infrastructure.

All of this because America unconditionally supports Israel. It unconditionally supports Israel for domestic political reasons; possibly votes, but more likely money.

This is how I feel, from here:

The only peaceful means of achieving a lasting peace is for Western leaders to pull the plug on Israel until the regime conforms to international law and the will of the United Nations (without whose misguided generosity there would never have been a state of Israel), pulls back behind the 1967 border and strictly observes the principles of universal human rights.

Gaza

Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as children were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.

This is so sad. Israel seems determined to sabotage any chance of Peace. What could be the response to this but an ignition of another round of disaster for the people of that region.

Missiles provided by the Pentagon.

Also, in case you were interested, International Law on the Bombing of Civilians

Christmas Eve, 2008

Merry Christmas to all. I would the World was at peace. In spite of the best efforts of countless people, we continue on devastating the planet and one another. I will admit that a month ago, after the Presidential election, many Americans were buoyed up and felt that there was real hope. That, in spite of signs to the contrary, we could right ourselves. Maybe now it is just the inevitable let down after that high which warps our soul. I sense a spirit of apathy, distress and angst in the community around me.

Last week I went to Walmart. For many reasons I dislike going there, but it is our community souk. Inevitably I run into 3-4 people that I know either personally or, more likely, professionally. If the kids are present this is a boost, because they all think I look like Santa Claus. But Walmart sometimes brings out the worst in people. It is our vulgar consumerism at its worst. If something is not a ready consumable (like a paper towel), it is usually so flimsy that it lasts but a short time (a toaster oven that is inefficient; a broom where the plug on the top annoyingly comes off). And, one knows that for each item one buys, it takes money from our community here and delivers it to either Wall Street or China. Not much to warm the heart.

On the other hand, I have the opportunity of observing many children every day. One child in his or her enthusiasm for life can get inside you and make you feel better than a hundred shots of Jack Daniels. Their novelty, as expressed here in their crab drawings, is amazing.

We must do something to salvage at least a livable world for these children. As America convolutes on itself and enters the throes of a depression, we still must try and right the many wrongs we have perpetrated, particularly over the past 8 years. Maybe we will be able to. I'll think I'll count on it.

Friday Crab Blogging (a little late)

This is a very interesting drawing. The mere concept of only showing one half the horse is remarkable. For obvious reasons it has been drawn by a child, not a professional artist. Even a primitive drawing (e.g. a cave painting) by an adult would probably include the whole animal. There is no evidence that this child didn't intend to draw it this way (i.e. making the back part of the horse small so that it was included on the page.) Just interesting.


Notice how children are frequently anthropomorphic, i.e. the crab has to have two legs and two arms.


I did not ask what was in the crab's claw, could be an iPod. It looks like the scenario is either Disneyworld (Magic Kingdom Castle in which my niece once managed the restaurant) or, more likely, an aquarium. If you are interested in aquarium animals, Google the Mantis Shrimp.) Please note the claws on the submarine.


If not two, then lets have lots of legs. That is why this crab is called "Crab Rockerfella"; especially appropriate during this season at a certain Center in New York (hint: dancers)

These fish look like they have "flat top" haircuts. This will only be significant to old geezers like myself. But they are right out of the 50's.

Friday Crab Blogging

Friday Crab Blogging

Children have been taught to put clouds in the sky. If you are under the sea, you put fish


Girls still do wear skirts, at least in Crabland. Giocometti eat your heart out


Note the length of the beak on this bird


In an effort to be realistic, this child has created see through clothes. Pretend you are Superman


Yes, that is a giraffe; and a very strange crab



and we finish with two crabs; these have the highest BMI in the Chesapeake Bay

Congratulations

.


Many of us are seeing hope for a better future for the first time in 8 years.

Are the nukes ready, Alderman?

One of the more ludicrous contentions of this vastly ludicrous election is the that Sarah Palin is qualified to be POTUS because she was the mayor of a very small village in Alaska. This is from the debate yesterday in Alaska between Senator Stevens (R-convicted) and Democrat challenger Mark Begich:

Tracy (moderator): Is Gov. Palin qualified, sir, as president?

Stevens: Yes she is. Yes she is. I think she is. She’s had experience as a mayor. She’s had experience, really, as a governor. And she is what I think the American women have sought for a long time, she’s another candidate for a presence of a woman in our national leadership. So I think she’s qualified and I think our people would like to see her become president… vice president.

I’d like to see her become president, as a matter of fact.(emphasis added)

Cut to the Mayor's office of Wasilla:

Alderman Jones: "Mr Mayor, the police force of Mayville is assembling a strike team to invade our town's dump. We can't allow this.

Mayor Palin: "You are certainly right, Alderman (wink, wink)"

Alderman Jones: "Would you like me to call in the deputies?"

Mayor Palin: "No, no, no. They are probably all A-rabs over there. I think we should nuke 'em. Prepare the Really Big One. (wink, wink)"

Alderman Jones: "But Mayor, the Really Big One destroys an area out to five miles and Mayville is only two miles away!"

Mayor Palin: "I said use the Really Big One. God will protect us. (Realy Big Wink)"

Boom!!! Cut to Heaven...

The Election

It should concern everyone that the American election is turning into a spectacle. For better or worse, when a butterfly dies in North Dakota, the stock market crashes in Tokyo. On the other hand, the bigotry and hate that has come welling up from Joe the Plumber and his six pack (one of my staff thought they were talking about abs) should also remind us that, in spite of protestations to the contrary, American society is not some "shining city on the hill" but just as prone to racism (tribalism) as the citizens of Iraq or Rawanda. If Barack Obama loses the election, it will because he is black.

The decline of America is startling in its magnitude and swiftness. As in any group of people, there will shortly be a gigantic orgy of blame assigning. And, as usual, all the people who deserve it, will be let off scot free. But, once again, those at the bottom of society, particularly our African American citizens, will receive both the brunt of the ensuing hardship and the brunt of the blame. I suppose that this is human nature, and maybe we should look at that closer (below). As an example of this, I have heard many times now, particularly from the man who manages my retirement, that the economic meltdown is due to "all those people getting mortages they couldn't pay for." Awesome in its ignorance of the real deceit of wealth.

Objectively, there is only one major difference between a black person and a white, and that is, of course, skin color. Indeed, skin color is the result of the presence of the pigment melanin. Melanin should, by all accounts, be viewed in a positive light:

The photochemical properties of melanin make it an excellent photoprotectant. It absorbs harmful UV-radiation and transforms the energy into harmless amounts of heat through a process called "ultrafast internal conversion". This property enables melanin to dissipate more than 99.9% of the absorbed UV radiation as heat[3] and it keeps the generation of free radicals at a minimum (see photoprotection). This prevents the indirect DNA damage which is responsible for the formation of malignant melanoma.

(As an aside, it sounds similar to the pigments in the retina we discussed on the information thread.)

Not to put too fine a point upon it, but many of my white neighbors probably could do with some melanin since the incidence of melanoma where I live is astonishingly high. (There must be other evolutionary drivers since melanoma is a disease of older people and melanin shouldn't have that much survival advantage, even in equatorial Africa. Maybe it is the other way around, and northern Europeans lost their ability to produce melanin because they needed to metabolize vitamin D.)

Of course whites have melanin too:

Although human beings generally possess a similar concentration of melanocytes in their skin, the melanocytes in some individuals and ethnic groups more frequently or less frequently express the melanin-producing genes, thereby conferring a greater or lesser concentration of skin melanin.

So, it actually a question of degree of gene expression rather than an absolute possession or absence of the pigment.

But this slight biological differences between whites and blacks (and there are others) is overwhelmed by what one might term "cultural" differences. When looked at objectively, though, these differences vanish. And they vanish entirely for Barack Obama.

He is an exceptional man. Coming from a humble background, he attended Harvard Law School. In spite of the cromagnon grunters who criticize this as elitism, he is exactly what we need in this terrifying world. But the most admirable thing about this man is that he has never lost his cool during two years of absolutely mind bending campaigning. Never

Back to the discussion. I would propose that racism, while felt to be morally reprehensible, may still be the exacerbation of an innate tendency towards genetic chauvinism. One might draw an analogy with the sex drive. Yes, indeed, all humans have this and, if you believe Freud, it is a much more powerful determinant than we are willing to admit. (I daresay that there is not a day that goes by that there isn't some thinking going on in each and every one of us about sex. Just look at the power of sex in advertising and, at least initially, in the McCain choice of Palin.) Consider what the situation might be in which there were no societal restrictions on sexual activity. Chimpanzees and apes give us a good idea.

In the same way, the fear of otherness is, in my way of thinking, one of the primal urges. Some would say that it is inseperable from aggression, which is really another way of saying self preservation. Looking at it that way, we have our entire genome arrayed against the genomes of others.

While society has done an awful job of sexuality (no thanks to the Church making it a Great Big Sin, when actually it was to protect the property of kings, can't have bastards running around), it has done an even worse job with race. You see, the problem is that we live in Alan Greenspan's America (for a great discussion of his connection to Ayn Rand see this Kos diary RIP John Galt. Also, we shouldn't forget Herbert Spencer.). Everything, and I mean everything, is subjected to "market forces." Lo and behold, these market forces are just the primal driving power of the genes in each and every one of us. And yes, evolution causes change. Society changes. Is this progress? Furthermore, in unfettered evolution there are a lot of casualties just like in a crashing stock market (my tanked 401(k) just said hello.)

In nowhere more than racial issues does the power of the genetic market forces dominate and obliterate even the smatterings of the alleged moral code. In spite of Obama's exceptional credentials, many a person has told me (of course not in public) that I'm not going to vote for "that" man (a term used to great effect by McCain in one of the debates.)These are people that go to Church on Sunday and wouldn't harm a flea, but have bought into the sterotype of the otherness of the black man or woman.

This really raises a quandry for people like myself who see no transcendence in the moral code. I am very practical about it. Morality is the thin glue of civilization. Without it, as much as I despise it, all would be chaos. But there are different slants on this strait jacket. The very ease with which people are able to, on one hand, brag about the greatness of the "American Way" (whatever that is), and our democracy, and on the other condemn a black man only for having a little extra pigment in his skin, is only explicable if this is outside the moral sphere.

It is only explicable if it is right there in the red of tooth and claw.

Friday Crab Blogging (a little late)

I only have one crab today but it is rather extraordinary.

Another "You can't make this stuff up"

Suit against God thrown out over lack of address
By NATE JENKINS – 3 days ago

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address. State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God.

He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

Comment: Actually, he has a point there...

Friday Crab Blogging

The rare and famous Chesapeake Bay smiley flea crab

Friday Crab Blogging

Children tend to anthrophomorphize. Check out the eye lashes. I am not sure what the other creature is. I guess it could be sort of a scorpion?? And, of course, a clam.

And they are always smiling!

Another "You can't make this stuff up"

.


Dick Cheney:

As all of you know very well, President Bush made wildlife conservation an early and a high priority of his administration. We’ve carried out that commitment in these eight years — and we’ve been proud to have people like you as partners in the enterprise.

The men and women in this room understand what conservation is all about. It means reverence toward creation, and a commitment to faithful stewardship. It means guarding our spectacular wildlife populations — not just for our own time, but for all time.

Friday Crab Blogging

Not many crabs today but what I have is quite a good one.


Most American children are normal. Many American adults are not. I am not sure when the transition occurs, or why.

I am very, very far behind on posts, particularly in response to the Growlery. I promise full reprisal.