Potpourri

Now that potpourri is legal in Colorado, it's only a matter of time before it is in California.  Anticipating that, here's a potpourri of links from 2013 and early this year that I didn't get to in thematic posts.

For Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Pirates fans, here's a great story about Pirates manager Clint Hurdle.  I can go on about what's wrong with Pittsburgh, pro sports and the lamentable level of American profundity but this is a Pittsburgh story that says a lot about what is best about the place.  There are just enough stories like Clint Hurdle to justify realizing that there's a certain special character about this city.  Some other reports note various characteristics, such as healthful living  here (though I hate to link to Queen Ariana's slave quarters) and articles in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series retrospective on the past 30 years: the increase in green spaces, and the overall change from "hell with the lid off" to a perennial "livable city."

                                   
Some years ago I read and "reviewed" the books that came out of several years of the Mind and Life conferences convened by the Dalai Lama, bringing together scientists and Buddhist practitioners to see what could be learned by both that went beyond the limits of each.   Brain scientists in particular were interested in meditative states attained by trained and veteran Buddhist meditators.  I've followed some of the ongoing work in this area since.

Most of what scientists have "proven" with brain imaging etc. simply confirmed what meditators observed.  But this study caught my attention: that meditation could influence gene expression.  How genes are "expressed" and interact in given situations is the new frontier of gene research, now that the prior belief that the presence or absence of particular genes determines everything is no longer tenable.  Gene expression may turn out to be much more important, in the still mysterious complexity of our beings in the world.

Research on some bones of Neanderthals made news late in 2013.  One conclusion: "The ancient DNA reveals a long history of Neanderthals interbreeding among at least four different types of early humans living in Europe and Asia".  Another study of bones suggests that Neanderthals had the same vocal capacity for speech as modern humans.  These studies are among those that suggest a closer relationship among earlier human species.  As one of the researchers of the latter study said, "Many would argue that our capacity for speech and language is among the most fundamental of characteristics that make us human. If Neanderthals also had language then they were truly human, too."

This may remind us that we tend to err towards the extremes.  Either earlier human species (or other animals, or even other nationalities of humans) are entirely different, or they are entirely the same.  Our conception of our human ancestors seems to have been expressed and then set in cartoon stone with the Flintstones.  But there's much to learn about ourselves from a more accurate idea of real life, now and hundreds of thousands of years ago.  Paul Shepard in particular repeatedly made the point that the human history we know is a small fraction of human time--10 thousand out of hundreds of thousands of years.  That span of time is when we evolved, and yet we know little about how we responded to those early environments, and therefore in large measure what we actually are now.

Finally, a couple of stories in the political realm.  The first is an under-reported but significant story about the alleged complete lack of security for President Obama at the Nelson Mandela memorial.  Coming so close to the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, this was chilling.  And even more troublesome was the lack of attention it got.

The others are Cold War history revealed, sort of.   One story: For Nearly Two Decades the Nuclear Launch Code at all Minuteman Silos in the United States Was 00000000.  It's about how the military undermined the attempts by JFK and other "civilians" to install safeguards against accidental or premature launching of nuclear missiles, and ipso facto, apocalypse.  Though this particular revelation has since been disputed, it is of a piece with others, for example, in recent books on JFK and/or the Cuban Missile Crisis.  General Jack D. Ripper was not entirely fictional.

Another looks at the Soviet side, and a submarine commander who "should" have but did not start a nuclear exchange.  As we look back we ask, do we actually think we are less crazy now?  Look around.  What we are is more complacent.  Assassination, even nuclear war are still present possibilities, and we ignore them at our peril.  We should read these stories and reflect, because a huge element in our complacency is not understanding what these things would really mean.

Last but not lease---happy birthday, Kath!