Identity

H/T To Duke over at Migra Matters.

Are you gung-ho Marine Corps dog-face for Memorial Day, or just hangdog, as in depressed and demoralized? Favorite Daughter has been thinking about this in her drought-parched Hammock of Death:

"Of (Puppy) Dogs and Marines" by Favorite Daughter

There's a little girl who lives next door to me, about 5, and fully capable of walking and talking and waving to me on occasion, which is always mind-blowing because I remember her family moving in prior to her existence.

The family is, I guess, a good one, at least in the traditional American sense. They have a yard with nice grass and a back deck, an easy southern drawl on the rare occasions I hear them speak. They play country music on the radio on the weekend, host some sort of church get-together on Wednesday nights. They possess a comfortable façade of Americana, which I'm sure I could peel back quite easily, revealing a healthy amount of sordidness, but I won't.

They also have the meanest dog I've ever met.

He's a Boston Terrier, a breed second only to the pug in its tenacious ugliness. He despises me even more than he despises the rest of the world; whenever we're outside together, he runs to the edge of his yard and threatens me in every way he can. He once chased a garbage man up a brick mailbox.

Image found at Wikipedia

I have always been baffled by the inclusiveness and diversity of the Bush administration. I could have never fathomed a black woman Secretary of State under any Democratic presidency, yet thanks to George Bush, Condoleeza Rice is not just that, but she's also one of the most powerful women in the world.

The same goes with the concept of a latino working as U. S. Attorney General, but here I am watching Alberto Gonzales trying to weasel his way out of the Judiciary Commitee hearing on the recent firing of eight U.S. Attorneys.

Gonzales ...

Rice ...

It's amazing what people will do for power.

It's kind of taboo for a minority to denounce another one. We're not supposed to that. We're supposed to present a united front against oppression. You know, because we're all supposed to be one consciousness and not act out of free agency and will.

Yahhh. Riiiiight.

It makes a difference who you are -- and whoever gets to create your character.

Favorite Daughter defines herself as her own reflection, says she has a "Disney Princess Complex."

But I don't think this fake news videoclip of "Frog Princess" is quite what she had in mind, guess homeschool princesses better be careful what we wish for and who gets to grant it.

(Sorry, can't get fancy video screen to appear but the link above will take you to it at Comedy Central site)
Anybody for popcorn? --

[UPDATE: There is an update to this diary here]

I had not intended to post so much Jewish-oriented material recently and don't want to start being a one-issue diarist. But this item is pretty important. Seems the Lithuanian government is slating the ancient Jewish cemetary in Vilnius for destruction.

Choral synagogue in Vilnius

There once was a thriving and highly respected Jewish population in Lithuania. Vilnius was called the "Jerusalem of Europe" by Napoleon, so great was the fame of its Jewish scholars. One of the greatest Orthodox Jewish sages, Elijah ben Solomon (called the Vilna Gaon) came from Vilnus and had a profound effect on yeshiva teaching. During the period of Lithuanian independence (1918-1940) Jews served loyally and bravely in the Lithuanian army.

An old photo of the Jewish quarter.

Now there are only about 4000 Jews left in Lithuania. And the cemetary where generations of Jews of Vilnius are buried is now threatened.

The cemetary.

From Guysen Israël News:

The ancient Jewish cemetery of Vilna is threatened with destruction. The Lithuanian authorities have undertaken to destroy the old Jewish cemetery in the capital to build a commercial center on the site, to the great consternation of the Jewish community. The orthodox MK Avraham Ravitz warned the Knesset and has mobilized the dispatch of an Israeli delegation to the site to stop the desecration. (Guysen.Israël.News)

So I was blogging for Thinking Parents today at Snook, about individualism versus institutionalism:

I pretty much hate "versus" applied to any two things. I choose the -ism suffix to mean anything (not just religion) that becomes dominant dogma, elevating some system of belief or aspect of being to an all-purpose imperative, too much of one good thing to the exclusion of others. The one tool that makes every problem look like it needs a good hammering.

In this sense, individual-ism and institutional-ism are indeed opposing mindsets pitted against each other. Ugh!
. . . So today I'm remembering Mortimer Adler's oxymoronic definition of education as the freeing discipline of wonder, and wondering myself where learning without schooling can catch the most light without throwing off too much heat, across the full spectrum of individual and institution?

Two books came to mind in this context --
"The Hedgehog, The Fox, and the Magister's Pox" by Stephen Jay Gould is about reconciling science with the humanities, or how to understand them as an integrated whole, and "The Ant and the Peacock" is about reconciling this seeming paradox in nature: are individuals or collectives favored?

This is unbelievable. Captain's Quarters has published a response to BlogActive's outing of Senator Larry Craig by saying, and I quote "the left hates gays".

Uneffingbelievable.

Once again, the Left shows its obsession with sexuality, but it's really more than that. The Left obsesses over identity politics in all forms, and that obsession comes out in pathological terms. Rogers reveals this in his blog post, demanding that gay staffers on the Hill identify their orientation publicly, or else he will do it for them. Sexual identity is everything to him, and the concept of sexual privacy has no value to him at all. He wants to humiliate gays who prefer to keep their sexual activity private, forcing them to wear the virtual pink triangle against their will to experience obloquy and castigation.

I love this. Captain Ed is basically acknowledging the senator is gay but saying that because he is being outed, Rogers gay activism is wrong and proof the left hates gays.

Cognitive disassociation, anyone?

Which political party has been hijacked by extremist theocrats and pushed legislation against gay marriage?

Which political party has been hijacked by extremist theocrats and has run this country on vilifying gays and feminists as the moral opposites of the "family values" people?

I'm no genetic scientist or any kind of scientist at all, so don't ask me how to define or explain any of this as genetics! But without vouching for the truth of the science or even the truth of this story and its reporters and commenters, I'm fully qualified to see this as part of a shift in understanding reality that is culturally significant, and to imagine (hope? Work to insure?) that we will digest it properly in time, like the one-big-extended-family meal it seems likely to be. . .

Can you tell if you're black or white?

Category: Genetics
September 27, 2006

Last winter a story surfaced about "black" and "white" twins.

As you can see by the picture the main difference is in skin color, though genetically full sisters (fraternal twins), one twin has the complexion typical of a northern European, while the other is darker skinned.

Contrary to the news reports the darker skinned twin does not seem to exhibit the modal complexion of sub-Saharan Africans, rather, she is several shades lighter. In fact, the photo suggests that she is about the same color as her parents, who are both genetically 1/2 European and 1/2 black. . .