I read an article in the Times which was, I think, overly long but is available in their achieves at the tinyurl below:
New York Times March 20, 2007
Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://tinyurl.com/27hbvx
My problem with the article has been one of my pet peeves for many years. It seems to me that humans in their fanatic desire (insecurity) to prove that they're superior to all beasties on this planet aren't willing to give the critters any credit for having thinking brains or even emotions similar to those we experience. This, of course, allows us to hunt and joyously kill them as we wish without remorse....
The article presents a clash between academic philosophers aided and abetted by some bookworm psychologists against academic biologists who work with non-human primates and have been surprisingly surprised that they exhibit some ‘human' qualities. Wow! Where is the Pulitzer committee?
Obviously the difference between philosophers and biologists is the fact that biologists have an infinitely better knowledge of animals while philosophers love to sit in their recliners by a cosy fire, late at night with a glass of wine and... ruminate about "the meaning of life"! Been there and done that but although very pleasant, not very productive.
Academics do provide some sense of organization to the study of man and to a limited extent, the rest of the animal kingdom such as in the article: "These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality."
I think anyone who actually ‘knows' animals rather than knows about them and has had many as personal ‘friends' is well aware that even cats and horses (pretty much the boundary of my own personal experience) posses at least simplistically, those four kinds of behavior. I'd even add a fifth behavior which is more subtle, complex, and not universal - but obvious when found, - a sense of humor, which often is not found even in many humans. But humor is often observable in cats and horses and maybe even Meercats! Perhaps, as with wives, one has to own one to love and understand them.
I agree with Dr. de Waal's (the biologist) assessment of religion being an exclusive human invention. He implied rather than stated (but I state) that religion is a means of social control (power) of individuals by the group to the group's advantage - pure and simple. Of course the philosophical community considers religion to be one of humanity's highest evolutionary attributes - especially since apes are apparently atheists!
Sometimes the best proof of something is through observations made when that something is missing. This is painfully true in the case of empathy. I understand that about one percent of the human population is incapable of such feelings. It has also been established that the lack of empathy is a physiological (brain) disorder and not resulting from societal training as in the military or the lack of proper parental indoctrination in childhood.
It appears that an absence of empathy is evident by the noted absence of remorse by psychopathic serial killers. These people are incapable of translating how others might feel to their own feelings. They know the difference between right and wrong intellectually, but not emotionally. They enjoy pulling the legs off bugs or murdering people - it doesn't make any difference to them.
All too often while play fighting with my kitties, they get excited and scratch me causing me to suddenly pull back and voice my pain. When they realize that they hurt me, they immediately change their behavior to being solicitous and often try to lap the wound or otherwise indicate that it was not their intent to cause me injury.
Granted, the intellectual abilities of animals other than humans is quite limited, but I submit that animals are as emotional as humans - not through facial expression but certainly in body language. Emotions are, of course, the most primitive function of a ‘thinking' brain and have been necessary in all animals to be able to make decisions concerning fight and flight, pecking orders and love.
After all, philosophers and mathematicians don't need to be human - they have their intellects and a box of wine to keep them warm!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Barack Obama
There are some people who actually consider Obama to be a black man! Yet, on CSPAN I watched a black caucus wherein the blacks were concerned whether Obama was "black enough"!
Of course there are bigots - even pundits on the LA Times who can't see anything beyond the color of a man's skin and who assume that all white's have some sort of guilt complex and are looking for a black messiah to follow to assuage their guilt.
I suppose it goes with the territory and Hillary will have the same problem with the women vote - is she "female enough"? And I'm certain there are some men who are insecure enough to resist giving any homage to a female president.
But these are very narrow people who can't see beyond their own indoctrinated (virtual religious) beliefs that the physiological differences between people define them more than the mental differences. That is why we can elect a stupid white man to the presidency and denigrate a very intelligent black man - or (even) woman! And, of course, it isn't just in the South.
I read a statement which rings with a certain appropriate truth - "If you see something wrong, try to change it with your hands. If you can't, then try to change it with your words. If you can't, remember in your mind that it is still wrong so you will never think it is right." [the prophet Mohammed] I was going to post the article on Footprints, but didn't want to clutter the site with other stuff while you post the New Orleans photos, Dee – it can wait.
Obama was on Larry King tonight for the full hour. He fielded King's questions to my satisfaction about current events, both domestic and foreign - despite the fact that he is a skinny semi-black Harvard man with a normal friendly voice and large white teeth - certainly not presidential in the George Washington sense (George didn't go to Harvard)! I'd be even more impressed if Barack had the deep melodic voice and robust black physiology of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River"! But then, Barack's wife is pretty! And, I assume that Paul Robeson is dead by now....?
Of course there are bigots - even pundits on the LA Times who can't see anything beyond the color of a man's skin and who assume that all white's have some sort of guilt complex and are looking for a black messiah to follow to assuage their guilt.
I suppose it goes with the territory and Hillary will have the same problem with the women vote - is she "female enough"? And I'm certain there are some men who are insecure enough to resist giving any homage to a female president.
But these are very narrow people who can't see beyond their own indoctrinated (virtual religious) beliefs that the physiological differences between people define them more than the mental differences. That is why we can elect a stupid white man to the presidency and denigrate a very intelligent black man - or (even) woman! And, of course, it isn't just in the South.
I read a statement which rings with a certain appropriate truth - "If you see something wrong, try to change it with your hands. If you can't, then try to change it with your words. If you can't, remember in your mind that it is still wrong so you will never think it is right." [the prophet Mohammed] I was going to post the article on Footprints, but didn't want to clutter the site with other stuff while you post the New Orleans photos, Dee – it can wait.
Obama was on Larry King tonight for the full hour. He fielded King's questions to my satisfaction about current events, both domestic and foreign - despite the fact that he is a skinny semi-black Harvard man with a normal friendly voice and large white teeth - certainly not presidential in the George Washington sense (George didn't go to Harvard)! I'd be even more impressed if Barack had the deep melodic voice and robust black physiology of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River"! But then, Barack's wife is pretty! And, I assume that Paul Robeson is dead by now....?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Rambling on about genealogy & DNA
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Monday, March 05, 2007
An alternative government....
Being a little bit snide, Viagra is for Republicans, Levitra is for Democrats and Cealis is for Libertarians. And since Ann Coulter thinks women should be armed but should not be allowed to vote, we can solve all of our national problems through four still awake senior citizens and disband Congress - especially since the Presidency was disbanded six years ago.
At least it shows that Howard Baker is not dismayed that the last commission he was in was totally ignored by his friend, Bush. I guess when you spend a career in politics you get used to bumping your head against stone walls to the point that it hurts when you stop.
BTW, since Cheney has pflebitis or.... whatever, perhaps they should send him to Walter Reed even though he doesn't qualify for such great treatment!
WASHINGTON - Four former Senate majority leaders are heading a new group aimed at putting aside partisan politics and offering solutions to the nation's biggest issues.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
"We've all been leaders and you know how difficult it is," said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. "We're all partisan in a way," Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that "compromise is not a bad word."
Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, "If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect."
Congress, evenly divided and sharply partisan, in recent years has turned to outside commissions for advice on politically sensitive topics. Two of those nonpartisan groups, the Sept. 11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, have had considerable influence on policy.
The former senators believe the new group "can help create common sense solutions to key national challenges and can help foster a return to more civil political debate," Baker, the Senate leader from 1981 to 1985, said in a statement.
The center has a staff of 20 and a budget of $7 million for 2007, funded by several philanthropic groups. At first, it plans to concentrate on projects dealing with agriculture, energy and national security policy.
Daschle and Dole currently head a study into 21st century agriculture and the opportunities for farmers in energy production, conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Dole said he hoped to have that report finished in the next 30 days.
The former senators also will advise a commission on energy policy and a national security initiative led by NATO's former supreme allied commander, retired Gen. James L. Jones.
Mitchell said he was interested in health care issues and hoped to contribute to the debate over port security. Dole said he would like to work on penal system reform and disability issues involving veterans.
On the Net: Bipartisan Policy Center: http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/
At least it shows that Howard Baker is not dismayed that the last commission he was in was totally ignored by his friend, Bush. I guess when you spend a career in politics you get used to bumping your head against stone walls to the point that it hurts when you stop.
BTW, since Cheney has pflebitis or.... whatever, perhaps they should send him to Walter Reed even though he doesn't qualify for such great treatment!
Ex-Senate leaders join bipartisan effort
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Four former Senate majority leaders are heading a new group aimed at putting aside partisan politics and offering solutions to the nation's biggest issues.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
"We've all been leaders and you know how difficult it is," said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. "We're all partisan in a way," Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that "compromise is not a bad word."
Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, "If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect."
Congress, evenly divided and sharply partisan, in recent years has turned to outside commissions for advice on politically sensitive topics. Two of those nonpartisan groups, the Sept. 11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, have had considerable influence on policy.
The former senators believe the new group "can help create common sense solutions to key national challenges and can help foster a return to more civil political debate," Baker, the Senate leader from 1981 to 1985, said in a statement.
The center has a staff of 20 and a budget of $7 million for 2007, funded by several philanthropic groups. At first, it plans to concentrate on projects dealing with agriculture, energy and national security policy.
Daschle and Dole currently head a study into 21st century agriculture and the opportunities for farmers in energy production, conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Dole said he hoped to have that report finished in the next 30 days.
The former senators also will advise a commission on energy policy and a national security initiative led by NATO's former supreme allied commander, retired Gen. James L. Jones.
Mitchell said he was interested in health care issues and hoped to contribute to the debate over port security. Dole said he would like to work on penal system reform and disability issues involving veterans.
On the Net: Bipartisan Policy Center: http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Dick Cavett - commentary
I know that this is copywrited and I really have nothing to say about Dick Cavett's opinion other than that I, too agree with what he has written and hope that everyone gets to read and understand what he says below - especially his story below the **********'s when he tells about Uncle Bill and war:
New York Times
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Opinion
Dick Cavett
February 28, 2007, 6:03 pm
Tell me, are you too getting just a little bit fed up with our leader's war? Isn't everybody? Do you actually know anyone who thinks it's all going to turn out fine? Except that chubby optimist Dick Cheney, of course, who thinks the Titanic is still afloat.
And am I alone in finding our leader's behavior at press conferences irritating? I mean that smirky, frat-boy joking manner he goes into while, far away, people he dispatched to the desert are having their buttocks shot away. It's worst when he does that thing of his that the French call making a "moue"; when he pooches his lips out and thrusts his face forward in a way that seems to say, "Aren't I right? And don't you adore me?"
As in his case, I was never a soldier, but God knows I wanted to be. Not in later years when my draft number came up for real, but back in my Nebraska grade-school days when Jimmy McConnell and Dickie Cavett watched John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima" at least five times, one of us sneaking the other in free through the alley exit. Then we went home, got our weapons (high-caliber cap pistols) and took turns being John Wayne. The alley was Iwo Jima.
Years later I met Big John. It couldn't have been better. He was in full cowboy drag on an old Western (studio) street and mounted on his great horse Dollar. He looked exactly as he did in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and it took my breath away. I didn't just like him, I loved him. I sorta wished I hadn't liked him quite as much, so I could have asked him, "Duke, how come not you nor any of your four strapping sons ever spent one day in the armed services?" ("I'm merely asking," I might have added to lighten the tone. Or delay the concussion.)
I didn't dodge the draft, and unlike our V.P. I didn't have "a different agenda." I didn't have to. I had mononucleosis (imagine how the "nuke-you-lur" president would injure that word in pronunciation) and, my draft board said, they had way too many guys and nothing was happening, war-wise. Sound preposterous? And yet there was such a time.
**********
I have a statement: Anybody who gives his life in war is an idiot.
I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect. They aren't mine, but I'm related to them. They're my Uncle Bill's words, and his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.
He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how rare Bill's survival was. He was gifted of speech: "I'd say survivors of what your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have room for most of Kate Smith." (We'll pause while youngsters Google.) "My guess is that your uncle is unique."
Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last, the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge's front door so the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be killed instantly.
The phrase Bill hated most was "gave his life." That phrase is a favorite of our windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say "Eye-rack."
"Your life isn't given," I remember him saying, "it's brutally ripped away from you. You're no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in you don't give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise."
Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought he would go mad: "Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone." (Bill had great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.
By sheer chance I was out on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house (we lived next door) when he arrived home from the war. I wasn't even sure it was Bill at first, he looked so much older.
I blurted, "Hey, Bill, welcome home." He was two feet from me but neither saw nor heard me. I knew the phrase current then. Bill was "shellshocked." Not the current "post-traumatic stress disorder" or whatever the P.C.-sounding phrase is today. For the first six months he was home, he slept in the yard.
You will think less of me for this, but my friend Jim and I, noticing how poor Bill jumped at sudden sounds, thought a firecracker might be in order. Bill's training kicked in by reflex. He hit the ground so fast it looked like film with frames removed. And, lacking the standard-issue shovel, he started digging with his hands. He never knew who did it. As for Jim and me, I trust that this will be deducted from our shares in paradise.
Isn't it the excellent combat chronicler Paul Fussell who gets credit for the phrase "the thousand-mile stare"? It described the look of the haggard soldiers coming back from their first battle as the eager, fresh-faced kids — which they had been a few days earlier — filed past them on their way "in." By definition, both groups were the same age, but there were no young faces in the returning group. They looked more like fathers than sons.
It amazes me that this bungled war can still be considered controversial. Who are the 28 percent anyway, who think that George W., the author of this mess, has "done a heckuva job"?
The other word Bill hated was "sacrifice." Sacrifice is something you give up in order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.
What service is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, "Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?"
I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to the people of plucky little Iraq. You'd think we all grew up ending our "Now I lay me down to sleep…" with "… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq." They detest us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don't give a damn what happens to Iraq, and don't think it's worth a single American life. Or any other kind. Haven't philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a possible good? I guess not.
For weeks the word "cause" has rolled around in my head, attached to an elusive quote. I found it. It's from Shakespeare's "Henry V" (as distinct, I suppose, from Paris Hilton's "Henry V") and it's the part where the king, in disguise and unrecognized, sits at a fire listening to some of his men discuss the next day's battle and what it means to be fighting in a good cause. One says, "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, ‘We died at such a place,' … their wives left poor behind … their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle. … Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it."
New York Times
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Opinion
Dick Cavett
February 28, 2007, 6:03 pm
What My Uncle Knew About War
Tell me, are you too getting just a little bit fed up with our leader's war? Isn't everybody? Do you actually know anyone who thinks it's all going to turn out fine? Except that chubby optimist Dick Cheney, of course, who thinks the Titanic is still afloat.
And am I alone in finding our leader's behavior at press conferences irritating? I mean that smirky, frat-boy joking manner he goes into while, far away, people he dispatched to the desert are having their buttocks shot away. It's worst when he does that thing of his that the French call making a "moue"; when he pooches his lips out and thrusts his face forward in a way that seems to say, "Aren't I right? And don't you adore me?"
As in his case, I was never a soldier, but God knows I wanted to be. Not in later years when my draft number came up for real, but back in my Nebraska grade-school days when Jimmy McConnell and Dickie Cavett watched John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima" at least five times, one of us sneaking the other in free through the alley exit. Then we went home, got our weapons (high-caliber cap pistols) and took turns being John Wayne. The alley was Iwo Jima.
Years later I met Big John. It couldn't have been better. He was in full cowboy drag on an old Western (studio) street and mounted on his great horse Dollar. He looked exactly as he did in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and it took my breath away. I didn't just like him, I loved him. I sorta wished I hadn't liked him quite as much, so I could have asked him, "Duke, how come not you nor any of your four strapping sons ever spent one day in the armed services?" ("I'm merely asking," I might have added to lighten the tone. Or delay the concussion.)
I didn't dodge the draft, and unlike our V.P. I didn't have "a different agenda." I didn't have to. I had mononucleosis (imagine how the "nuke-you-lur" president would injure that word in pronunciation) and, my draft board said, they had way too many guys and nothing was happening, war-wise. Sound preposterous? And yet there was such a time.
**********
I have a statement: Anybody who gives his life in war is an idiot.
I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect. They aren't mine, but I'm related to them. They're my Uncle Bill's words, and his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.
He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how rare Bill's survival was. He was gifted of speech: "I'd say survivors of what your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have room for most of Kate Smith." (We'll pause while youngsters Google.) "My guess is that your uncle is unique."
Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last, the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge's front door so the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be killed instantly.
The phrase Bill hated most was "gave his life." That phrase is a favorite of our windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say "Eye-rack."
"Your life isn't given," I remember him saying, "it's brutally ripped away from you. You're no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in you don't give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise."
Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought he would go mad: "Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone." (Bill had great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.
By sheer chance I was out on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house (we lived next door) when he arrived home from the war. I wasn't even sure it was Bill at first, he looked so much older.
I blurted, "Hey, Bill, welcome home." He was two feet from me but neither saw nor heard me. I knew the phrase current then. Bill was "shellshocked." Not the current "post-traumatic stress disorder" or whatever the P.C.-sounding phrase is today. For the first six months he was home, he slept in the yard.
You will think less of me for this, but my friend Jim and I, noticing how poor Bill jumped at sudden sounds, thought a firecracker might be in order. Bill's training kicked in by reflex. He hit the ground so fast it looked like film with frames removed. And, lacking the standard-issue shovel, he started digging with his hands. He never knew who did it. As for Jim and me, I trust that this will be deducted from our shares in paradise.
Isn't it the excellent combat chronicler Paul Fussell who gets credit for the phrase "the thousand-mile stare"? It described the look of the haggard soldiers coming back from their first battle as the eager, fresh-faced kids — which they had been a few days earlier — filed past them on their way "in." By definition, both groups were the same age, but there were no young faces in the returning group. They looked more like fathers than sons.
It amazes me that this bungled war can still be considered controversial. Who are the 28 percent anyway, who think that George W., the author of this mess, has "done a heckuva job"?
The other word Bill hated was "sacrifice." Sacrifice is something you give up in order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.
What service is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, "Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?"
I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to the people of plucky little Iraq. You'd think we all grew up ending our "Now I lay me down to sleep…" with "… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq." They detest us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don't give a damn what happens to Iraq, and don't think it's worth a single American life. Or any other kind. Haven't philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a possible good? I guess not.
For weeks the word "cause" has rolled around in my head, attached to an elusive quote. I found it. It's from Shakespeare's "Henry V" (as distinct, I suppose, from Paris Hilton's "Henry V") and it's the part where the king, in disguise and unrecognized, sits at a fire listening to some of his men discuss the next day's battle and what it means to be fighting in a good cause. One says, "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, ‘We died at such a place,' … their wives left poor behind … their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle. … Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it."
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