Don't Rally 'round the Bogus Flag, Boys

During a recent altercation among teens in Sarasota, Fl. a young white boy who was displaying an alleged Confederate flag was shot and wounded by a black youth who took offense at this. The use of the word alleged is accurate because the flag at issue is a creation of the 20th century and was not a product of the Confederacy despite its current widespread useage.

This "Confederate Flag" is a 20th Century invention combining the actual Battle Flag's colors with a Confederate Navy Jack.

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

This flag with the Stars and Bars was flown over the first Capitol of the Confederacy on March 4, 1861.

Why is a 20th century artifice being used to invoke a 19th century historical event? If the intent is to honor the memory of the sacrifices endured back then, why is the symbol chosen a bogus Battle Flag and not an actual Confederate banner? Many consider such usage inflammatory and since several genuine alternatives exist perhaps another choice should be considered.

Symbolism often is a substitute for reality or to mask actual intention. But symbols are powerful shortcuts in conveying emotions and values. Compare the effect on a ship at sea during the 18th century viewing an approaching ship flying this banner

1707 Royal Navy White Ensign

or this one. The Jolly Roger!

Both flags were flown separately, or at times, simultaneously by the notorious pirate known as Edward England. Having lured his victims in close by the waving of the bogus Royal Navy flag; the running up of the skull and crossbones then signaled his true intent. Born Edward Seegar, in Ireland, England was marooned with two others when his crew mutinied and he died in Madagascar in 1720.

The symbol of the Jolly Roger is alive and well, however. On a bottle of poison or the prow of a vessel prowling the seas around Somalia looking for prey, the symbol lives on, its power intact.

These symbols, many of them quite ancient, have been reduced to obscurity and redundancy

by this one!

Sam, Sam, Wake up Sam!

Promptly at 4 PM on April 9 ,1865 at Appomattox Courthouse the bucolic American Giant, known fondly as Sam, went for a short nap that lasted for 136 years. After four long years preserving the Union, Sam needed a rest. He stretched out across the countryside with his head among the old original colonies; his rump placed conveniently at the headwaters of the Mississippi (for the drainage you see, clever Giant), and his legs sprawled westward ho! across the prairies with his heels planted in L.A. and toes dangling almost to the Mexico line.

Sam, like Gulliver before him, is plagued with Lilliputians but these cheeky, diminutive pests are known here as the 'Minions. While Sam nods off, these Minions wreak havoc in his name. They are always careful to do their mischief abroad so as not to awaken the Giant. And mischief it is. Greedy little buggers, these Minions, can't seem to get enough little island getaways around the globe. Been collecting them since the War with Spain. And power hungry!; those nettlesome gits have been showing the flag around the world for two hundred years. What started in Tripoli on tiny warships has metastasized to hundreds upon hundreds of flagposts everywhere on Earth.

All things end and so did the export of mischief abroad. Abruptly. Our sleeping beauty was jarred out of almost a century and a half of slumber by a frightful racket under his left year. Sam had been using Central Park as a pillow for ages but on September 11, 2001 he was rudely awakened by the noise and smoke. The trusty Minions rushed to assure him all was well.
"Go back to sleep, Sam", the Minions cooed. "We can handle it. We have ways". Sam should have stayed awake but old habits, and all that. No sooner had the old guy dozed off again; the bombing and invasions began in earnest.

It's starting the tenth year now. Sam's still out cold. The Minions are running amok.
The place is a mess. Everybody hates the Minions and the country is broke from their excesses. What will it take to rouse him from his slumber and begin to take charge again? Sam, Sam, Wake up Sam!

What Ails China...?

Or...take off those funny hats, the party's over.

China anticipates having a surplus of millions of single men unable to find women because of the imbalance caused by gender preference. Fifty years of a one child per family policy has produced a bumper crop of...testosterone.
Good luck with that.

It's a fifties rerun in the Middle Kingdom and the cruisin' has begun. Picture this scene out of "Chinese Graffiti" where forty million single dudes in spanking new SUVs cruise endlessly trying to pick-up, get this, NO chicks! Now that they produce more cars than the US the bumper stickers could shout, "What's Good for Great Wall Motors is Good for China!".

The menu may soon include, after a too many Saturday nights of striking-out, a midnight road trip to Macao or maybe Hanoi, wherever joy, or at least, relief, may be freely purchased. "Donkey Show" to follow! Sensing the regime's Confucian bent, and allergy to civil unrest, it may soon send observers to Nevada to see first hand how "Bunny Ranches" can be made to flourish in the Gobi Desert.

All in all, the old guys who run things in Beijing should look around the world, especially here, to see where all this 'progress' might lead. Instead of benefiting from seeing where we stumbled they seem determined to end up the same way, broke and confused. Nobody ever learns, it's our charm as a species and may bury us yet.

Our Future, if there is one, is Female

Much of the developed world seems to be echoing the words of the irrepressible Kelly McGillis, "I'm done with the man thing." All over the place women, young women, are girding their loins, so to speak, and not beating about the bush. The wonders revealed by Gillette Atra(R) and Brazilian Body Waxing are out front and in your face. They say, " We're bold and we're beautiful, boys and girls. Take a good look, people, this is it; the mystery is over. Everything else may be a mess but not us. We listened to you, and where did it get us? Eros is our avatar now." It all started after the last ice age. The hunters hunted and the gatherers gathered. Then the gatherers became diggers and, eureka!, agriculture. This was the real deal: civilization. Not the hobby-shop, toy and gadget world the now underemployed hunter bunch dreamed up. No this was what made it all happen. Full bellies and some leisure time courtesy of the femmes. But the gals let their lead slip away and the hobby-shop became the world.

Not this time. Oh, no. With the coming ice age the ladies will not let it happen again.
Ice age? Are you nuts? It's G.W., remember? Everybody went to Scandinavia and froze their butts to argue about Global Warming. Right. But that's the warm up bout, the preliminary, the main event is to follow: Ice Age. Bundle up, folks.

What's all this got to do with Kelly McGillis and girding of loins, anyhow? Just that the boys (and men) are stuck in a time warp, and the girls know it. And they won't stay in their shadows any longer. When was the last time you saw any young women wearing the scare-crow, clown costumed, little-boy-lost look, the guys are sporting these days? The last time the girls dressed to look like the guys was during the 60's. Remember? Patched jeans, hairy legs, no war paint, kinda scruffy and slightly venereal. Big mistake. Not gonna happen today. Not with these gals. Let the guys look weird, that's their trip.

So what kind of a future will they make for us, these modern gals? What it won't be is the hobby-shop, gadget and garage-band world, the guy's world, it has been for generations. It will, early on, revert to the most basic of basics, growing stuff to eat, big time. And recycling the gadgets and gee-gaws; eternally recycling for employment. The ladies just trying their best to keep the babies warm and healthy. All the while finding and setting priorities, including the amatory arrangements. If it doesn't appear to make sense unto the seventh generation it don't git done! And that's not negotiable, pal.

Your Kid is a Deviant

Yep, it's true. The little muckers have grown up to be with few exceptions, deviants; they may even classify as criminals! "What's this", you exclaim indignantly. "Not my kid."

Well, let's check it out. Deviant behavior: departing from some accepted standard of what is normal. Whoa! That's not fair. Fair or not, that's the definition of deviant. Shall we look at some examples?

School: Cheating; and financing it too, no less!. We're not talking about grade school or even high school where attendance is mandatory and subject to the weight of law and therefore cheating conceivably could be seen as an act of defiance of authority. No, cheating at college level. Very common, very strange. To willingly pay for something, maybe even for years afterward(student loans),and then to corrupt the purchase, elective education, by cribbing and not really learning. FAIL! And a process done without (usually, hopefully) parental or societal guidance or approbation. Verdict: Deviant.

Music: Gangsta rap! Enjoyed while costumed to resemble an inmate of State Prison and employing graffiti as hieroglyphics. Celebration through hip-hop of every known antisocial action and many that are only imagined as yet. Most of the content of the lyrics fly well under the radar of the squares and are unknown and invisible to the larger society.But at least break dancing is not disco, yeah! Verdict: Deviant.

With me so far? Okay, on to a biggie.

Sex: Where to start? Certainly not with the 60's toddler steps known as The Sexual Revolution. That 'Revolution' is as much 'today' as is the Roaring Twenties. FAIL! No, these kids are writing a new text on sex. Almost universal participation. Not a cult phenomenon like the last one, limited to hip participants who consciously strove for
shucking of middle class values. No, these are the middle class kids next door and upstairs. They are totally pixelated. In the way some primitives think cameras steal souls, pixelated kiddies think cameras steal reality. Not one in a hundred teens or young adults seems aware or concerned that posting intimate peeks at private stuff can become a personal liability later on in life. That others, not like minded, or being entrusted with enforcing morality or legality, can make life miserable.

The youth culture is so co-opted by viewing and being viewed by peers that only more and bolder counts. Since little is left unexplored in the eros zone the competition for novelty is strong. A passing observer (sic) is advised to wear a wet suit and stay upwind of the action. How Jane or Jill can ever be convinced that it is really okay to say no, even once in a while, is problematic. What inducement can be offered to any modern youngster to someday enter a monogamous long time situation is also problematic. But despite the fact that celebrity trumps all today, kids must learn that notoriety is still not celebrity and smutty pix are still smut and not art. Verdict: Deviant.

Young people are more often than not convinced of personal immortality. This is cool. It keeps military barracks and prison cells maxed out and hospital ER's busy late at night. It requires high schools to have baby sitters available. It's difficult to see how society expects to reconcile deviant behaviors that don't meet its approval but are widespread and pervasive with the norms expected and required.

We know what the 60's behavior led to (no, not Disco); societal backlash. Heaven knows what the next tsunami of repression will resemble. The local Taliban may be gathering scourges and goads for future use and gleefully awaiting their employment.

Launch It or Lump It

YOU are to decide the fate of mankind. Or at least predict which of the world's players would set off Armageddon if threatened with annihilation. The Premise:

The antagonists are equally armed with atomic weapons and delivery systems. An adversary has launched a deadly missile salvo ensuring total destruction. The dilemma:

If you retaliate the aggressor will be destroyed but his allies will all participate and the planet is toast. If you don't retaliate the aggressor survives, you are toast but life goes on.

YOUR TASK is to predict from the following which nations would forego retaliation to save the rest of mankind. Based on past performance one prediction has been made.
You do the rest.

The List:

Russia launches...US receives...Retaliation ?... Yes.X.. No...

US launches ... Russia receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

Iran launches...Israel receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

Israel launches...Iran receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

China launches...Tibet receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

Tibet launches...China receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

Japan launches...China receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

China launches...Japan receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

India launches...Pakistan receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

Pakistan launches...India receives...Retaliation?... Yes... No...

Okay. You have the scorecard. These are the players. All of humanity awaits your
decisions. Go!

Europe: DNA Cul-de-sac?

Or: What's with all these white people?

In tracing the route of humans leaving the ancestral home in Africa scientists have decided that aboriginal Australia was the south easternmost terminus for migration.
It was simply impossible to go much further. That indigenous population has provided a strong genetic marker showing unbroken links back to the home population in southern Africa. In a sense this renders Australia a genetic cul-de sac.

Is this not true of Europe as well? Human populations, with an Eastward valance, occupied and settled all of Asia and, much later, North and South America. Others of this identical population drifted westward to occupy Europe. Over the course of thousands of years these folks in the wild,wild west beyond the Ural mountains just stayed put and somehow... got whiter.

Nowhere else did this profound pigmental erasure occur, so what's up with that? How come that group got white while the rest of mankind kept its dusky hues? I suggest there was a specific and lengthy selection process set in motion tens of thousands of years ago. But why, you ask? Why would a people deliberately set out, and largely succeed, in becoming white? Albino envy perhaps? Albino reverence maybe? Albino congress, could be. Wikipedia: Albinism is hereditary;... Most forms of albinism are the result of the biological inheritance of genetically recessive genes passed from both parents of an individual, though some rare forms are inherited from only one parent. There are other genetic mutations which are proven to be associated with albinism

Albinism, which historically has evoked alarm, fear or loathing may at one time in the deep past have caused awe and envy sufficient to launch a cult of admirers. History is rife with equally dumb things having been done. If so, this could explain a unique population of blue-eyed, or at least light-eyed, flaxen-haired gits with a conspicuous all-over pallor.

If we go to the texts we will be treated to a variety of solemn declarations for how some people got to be white and others didn't. Wikipedia: Lighter skin colors may have been advantageous at higher latitudes since they allow greater penetration of the sun's UV radiation, a requirement for vitamin D synthesis. This may have led to selection for lightly pigmented skin...human eye is quite large and thus produces enough pigment to lend opacity to the eye, often colouring the iris pale blue

So why didn't far eastern populations living even further north, above the Arctic Circle in fact, for as about as long as Europeans, turn white,too? None of the popular assumptions regarding pigmentation appear to tell the story. So we'll go with the favoring and selection of albinism until convinced otherwise. Visualize the folks holed up in their sheltering caves with those of the albino persuasion: troglodyte true believers patiently breeding away their dark hued heritage one night at a time.

Whiteness, as such, remained a regional quirk until one day it was unleashed upon the rest of the world. Under the Ostrogoths,Crusaders, Explorers and Conquistadors brown people felt the sword; as happens to this day whenever darker skin is encountered. All in all, that white skin was perfect for stripping naked, painting your self blue and going on the warpath. Still is.

(Authors Note) Recent DNA findings by paleogeneticists has presented new evidence regarding the ancestry of our species. See "Neanderthal: the First Caucasian?"
http://noabominoidshere.blogspot.com/2010/05/neanderthal-first-caucasian.html
for an update. Robert Magill, Sarasota, FL