This week the District of Columbia's City Council made medical marijuana legal. As I read the article, I was stuck by the sad irony of my congresswoman going to DC, to "serve" Tennesseans, with employees who are under the influence of marijuana, attending social functions with people who use medical marijuana, eating dinner with them, and possibly even being with them in the same room, while they blaze up their medicine... meanwhile, back home, their constituents are being arrested, imprisoned, beat, shot, killed, economically ruined and raped, and marked for a life of substandard employment, for smoking marijuana.
The deepness, and injustice of this irony is just beyond sad.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Modifications to my Family Tree
So, I'm sitting here reading the latest on Physorg.com (nerd news without much bias). They're decoding the Neanderthal genome from ancient bone samples, and it appears there may have been some succesful inter-species hanky-panky goin on... various populations in the near east and europe seem to have from 1 to 4% of their DNA in common with what were once thought to be a distant relative that could never be related to us...
But, if we think about it for a moment. Humans being what we are, and doing what we do. What would have happened if we ran into a culture that was less advanced than ours? History is pretty clear really. We'd "trade" with them and give them stuff that is worthless in our culture, but rare beyond wonder in theirs. We'd take their land and resources, enslave them, and as some livestock to this very moment could testify if they could talk, ancient humans would have used neanderthals as sex slaves. I mean, we all know what ppl do with their critters even today! Let's be serious for a moment. No matter how unattractive they may have been, the DNA materials would have encountered one another, and if they were capable of combining, they would.
Uglier, prettier, stronger, weaker? Smarter?
Perhaps the offspring were sterile?
Perhaps they rarely survived birth?
Perhaps they were revered and treated like nobility?
Killed on sight elsewhere?
Who knows, but the possibilities are endless and it makes one look at certain portions of Genesis from a different light, if you look at the book metaphorically instead of as seeing it as a historical document. Suddenly Lot's fear of being killed by whoever found him, when there were supposed to only be 4 people so far, and he killed one, leaving just his mom and dad.... and then he "met his wife and knew her"....
I don't know, but I do know this. I'm real curious to see what happens when they actually begin to understand mankind's actual DNA-printed family tree. I can't help but wonder if maybe the different races of mankind, are the differences left when colony of humans met a "lesser species", and absorbed it into their own genetic pool?
But, if we think about it for a moment. Humans being what we are, and doing what we do. What would have happened if we ran into a culture that was less advanced than ours? History is pretty clear really. We'd "trade" with them and give them stuff that is worthless in our culture, but rare beyond wonder in theirs. We'd take their land and resources, enslave them, and as some livestock to this very moment could testify if they could talk, ancient humans would have used neanderthals as sex slaves. I mean, we all know what ppl do with their critters even today! Let's be serious for a moment. No matter how unattractive they may have been, the DNA materials would have encountered one another, and if they were capable of combining, they would.
Uglier, prettier, stronger, weaker? Smarter?
Perhaps the offspring were sterile?
Perhaps they rarely survived birth?
Perhaps they were revered and treated like nobility?
Killed on sight elsewhere?
Who knows, but the possibilities are endless and it makes one look at certain portions of Genesis from a different light, if you look at the book metaphorically instead of as seeing it as a historical document. Suddenly Lot's fear of being killed by whoever found him, when there were supposed to only be 4 people so far, and he killed one, leaving just his mom and dad.... and then he "met his wife and knew her"....
I don't know, but I do know this. I'm real curious to see what happens when they actually begin to understand mankind's actual DNA-printed family tree. I can't help but wonder if maybe the different races of mankind, are the differences left when colony of humans met a "lesser species", and absorbed it into their own genetic pool?
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