A common good: The gift of sharing.

I've been writing about patience & waiting in the days before December. I've also been listening to our national debate over health care. The debate is coming to an end w/the Senate floor action. During this discussion many ideas flop around, assertions made, facts determined, and opinions expressed.

The Headline: Sunday, November 29, 2009,
New York Times:

Food Stamp Use Soars Across US, Stigma Fades

The Maps:

1) Growth of Food Stamp use from June 2007- June 2009.

Front page map shows high growth in food stamp in FL, home of the head "Ditto-Head" and in ID, WY, UT, NV, & GA. (These six states have ten GOP Senators.)

2) Percentage people in each county who receive food stamps, June 2009.

Jump page map show use highest across the south from AZ thru NM, TX, OK, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL, KY, TN, NC, GA, SC WV, & FL. (These 16 states have twenty-two GOP Senators.)

I feel really good about sharing the wealth of our nation with anyone who needs. Using the Department of Agriculture Food Stamp Program should be stigma free and available to any citizen who is hungry. Even if they are Republican. I ask are these the same places where people are organizing against a right to affordable health care insurance under the label of the Tea Party Patriots? I didn't do a scientific study but looking at the lists of links by state at the Tea Party Patriots Web site and at the Wikipedia page it seems like a large number of these states are the same places. Citizens in good conscience rail against "socialist health care" yet while use the roads, libraries, fire departments, public gathering places and our shared wealth in the form of food stamps. Where are Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the like most popular? I looked around and it looks like they are popular all over. I guess the masters of misinformation drive the discussion on this point and they'll certainly ignore this story.

In many cases these are the same people who think nothing spending millions of dollars for three days of intensive care for a malformed premature infant whose prognosis at birth, or even before birth, is for three to six months of life. Life, they say, is sacred. Often the same folks who would force a pregnant woman to seek illegal care to control the outcome of her pregnancy, on the notion that God endows life and life begins when sperm meets egg & genes are intertwined. A poor definition of life in my book. Life is a line, not series of dots, lined up. People exist along the line we don't start & end, we participate. Each moment of consciousness is a decision to continue participating. Life began 3.X billion years ago on Earth and now it is in every crevice and nook.

We can disagree about policies and programs a government should promote. We can disagree about what unseen, or unknown things to believe in. We can teach our children what we choose even if it is a lie like the Easter Bunny exists or Santa comes down the chimney on Christmas morning to celebrate the birth on earth of God made man. But we need each other. We need all of humanity to continue our life on this planet. We even need people who believe such wild stories as are being told in the ultra-conservative, "taxes are only for poor" mainstream media like Fox. We need to share our world if we are to live on it long enough for our species to survive. Self-awareness should allow us to plan the next step in human culture but only if we can move as one.

Health is key to life so it should be a basic right. We need our neighbors to be healthy or we will get infected by them. Our children deserve to be taught how to be healthy. Our government is a great place to mediate & govern the vast and complex issues that make up the public, individual health care universe. A doctor is only a small part of the healthcare system. Patients have responsibility to monitor their own health, instead we've become a nation of fools paying more for less and believing we're getting the best. It's as if we have are the Emperor in the story of the Emperor Has No Clothes. I mourn for our democracy if the loud voices who led us with the failed policies of the past 3 decades can win this debate just by lying to their fans.

One final note on the health care debate: Our nation deserves to have healthy citizens, we need healthy citizens so we can once again lead the world in: innovation; creativity; social, cultural, economic, & artistic ideas; sports; technology; and medicine. We can afford to have the best if we stand up and demand reason prevail over faith, lies, and superstition. We can not afford to continue the byzantine system of healthcare delivery we have now, it bankrupts individuals, small & large businesses across the country. We need the Senate and the House to finish their work and deliver a bill to President Obama for signature.

Play: When games intrude on work.

Once evolution started to build on core brain parts such as; the medulla, cerebellum, pons, the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, etc. and creatures started to use the cortex for executive function, we learned to play. I speculate that play; exertion for sport, fun or enjoyment as opposed to work for food, shelter, or procreation, is one of the earliest human impulses. I believe play is central to our curiosity and wonder. Without play I don't think we would have begun the search for meaning or origins.

When we play instead of work we are postponing biological imperative to engage in frivolity! How can this be good for furthering our genes? How can playing enhance our survivability as a species? When we decide to play a game or engage in physical exertion for fun we are tuning our brains and our bodies.

The limbic system of the brain - aspects that mediate between strictly autonomic nervous reactiveness of the brain stem & the control functions of the cortex & are shared with most mammals, monotremes, & marsupials - provides us with amazing new capabilities. We can see that is us in a mirror. We can imagine what someone else might be feeling simply by observing their posture. We can envision the world thru the eyes of another. When I wrote about empathy as the first gift of human civilization I pointed out that people now are trying to portray humans in the context of the law, as unfeeling machines. I argued that this was a mistake.

I make this digression because I want to argue that play helps to increase the links between the cortex and the r-complex at the core of our brains. We build our skills in human emotion when we play! It gives us the chance to try out ideas, personalities & new styles without as much risk because it is a game. Football is better than war.

• Play more, fight, die, & stress less.

Waiting means we believe the future will come.

If you stop to think, when we wait for something it is implicit acknowledgement that we expect the future to happen. In other words, we have an expectation of a future event. This is an awesome advance for a species to make. To have a brain big enough to imagine a future is really different. Most creatures on earth live for the moment. (Ironically, an entire industry now exists to help people live in the moment.) People, most likely when we learned to throw, learned to predict the future. This brought us into the future in more ways than one.

• Waiting, the beginning of planning.

Nuance: It's not deception. Clarity: It's not truth

nu•ance (noo'äns, nyoo'-, noo äns', nyoo -) n. 1. A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning; a gradation. 2. Expression or appreciation of nuances: a performance full of nuance. [Fr <>nuer, to shade, cloud < nue, cloud <>nuba Lat. nubes.] – nu•anced' adj.

When I heard Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele proclaim loudly that he was not using nuance but rather was being very clear, I started to think about our understanding of subtlety. A while back, I wrote about the corpus callosum and the links between the hemispheres of our brains. It is easy to get into thought patterns that lead us to believe that ideas, policies and positions are very clearly this or that; black, or white; Right, or Left. In reality this is never the case. There is always degree of nuance.

Look at some of the great debates of the past several hundred years. Aquinas "proved" the existence of God with five proofs. The fifth, a teleological argument that since the universe appears designed to support people, god must have designed it. Like the existence of a watch proves the existence of the watch-maker. 400 years ago last month Galileo popularized the telescope and suggested that the Earth revolved around the sun, not - as the church said - the other way around. He was right. Folks believed the Earth was flat. It is in fact an oblate spheroid.

200 years ago, a boy was born who, in is 50th year would publish a theory so beautiful in its simplicity and insightfulness as to render all of botany, biology, geology, archeology, anthropology, and others in a completely new light! Charles Darwin was right.

150 years ago a couple of beer drinking young Europeans developed a political philosophy based on cooperation instead of cooperation. Recent research is showing that Marx and his benefactor Engles were right. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean "dog eat dog," it means the most able to cooperate will be the species that survives over the one who fights among itself all the time.

Time and time again, religious leaders tell us that something is true only to be proved wrong by the science. As a matter of fact, even facts are suspect. Humans are notoriously poor observers. The notion that there is an objective truth is false. We can't even be sure that anyone else is even conscious.

So back to Mr. Steele:

When he declared that he wasn't being nuanced - as if to say "no nuance here" he did so in a way that made it seem as if nuance was somehow a bad thing. He was being "Clear" as if simply stating his position was better than trying to explain the subtleties of it's implications. In this case he was talking about the health care debate and explaining that he and the GOP were against Government run health care. He went on in the next breath to say that Medicare should be expanded and secured for the future! The interviewer suggested there might be some nuance in the juxtaposition of these two positions. Steele jumped on the interviewer! No, there is no nuance in my position. I'm being very clear! Please, please remember that clarity is not truth or correctness. Nuance often conveys more than clarity. Here's to a complex understanding of our complex problems. Here's to an end of simple but, wrong political positions.

(Begun 9/3/09)

Sex: The ultimate gift of cooperation

I heard a piece recently pointing out that sex is a counter-intuitive way to procreate if an individual can reproduce asexually. If you can clone yourself endlessly why bother mating? Look at how expensive it is to have two genders. Evolutionary science wonders why sex came about. Why two genders to reproduce the genes?

Simple answer: Gene mixing. Sharing. We grow as a culture as we mix & share.

I suggest today that sex is proof that Marx was right. Humans succeed because we are so good at cooperating, not because we are so good at competing. Sure, we can battle with the best. Look at what we did to the Neanderthal. Those people were bigger brained, stronger, better adapted to inclement weather, and likely better attuned to the environment than we were and still we took them out in short order. Why? Cooperation! We based our social structure on communication, shared work, social norm enforcement, and gender equity.

The research into the advantage sex brings to gene diversity is conclusive. Sex allows strong traits of both genders to move across time together. Females can carry a crucial trait thousands of years with no consequence to the fitness of men. Then a change in environment or behavior could give that trait new value to the male of a species. In one or two generations that trait can become widespread in both genders. And, there's a case to be made for the interaction, communication, and empathy necessary to create a really good child rearing bond with another individual. Children raised by two well linked parents have tremendous advantages as they age to adults.

So sex is not an evil to be reviled, not some chore for baby making & no more, sex is nature's magic mixer. Good sex is our ticket to ongoing life. After 500 years of advances in our knowledge, I marvel at the record of science -vs- faith. Skeptics were right on the "flat earth," they were right on solar centric system, right on gravity, right on prayer, right on medicine, right on democracy, right on evolution, right on slavery, right on war, now we see they're right on socialism too! It's a sad day for the faithful, religious, and other as they realize how many of their dearly held beliefs fail.

Making & throwing stone weapons: The gift of handedness

Unlike crossing the Rubicon, crossing the corpus callosum is a two-way task. We can go back across the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. However, too often we are lazy, we don't push the thought process to use both sides of our thinking. When we're in conversation and the language centers are humming we often allow our sensing side to languish. When we're working out or moving in performance we often get into a state of languagelessness - a place where we might say we're "in the zone." These are a result of the dualistic nature of our brains. While the motor cortex works, behind the scene, neatly controlling the left side of you body from the right side of your brain and vice versa, our limbic system which surrounds the core "brain stem is exempt from hemispheric dichotomy and the cortex, where our "conscious thoughts originate, is usually under the glamour of this cross brain odyssey. ( what the heck does that sentence mean?)

Here's my idea. Our cerebral cortex –the outer folds of our brains; the place where language, tool use, conscious thought, creative juices, style, advanced planning and many other human traits originate– is hobbled to some degree in most people's brains because of the difficulty of processing ideas, thoughts and nerve impulses across the corpus callosum. Meanwhile, down low, in the core of our brain the limbic system, a knot of brain structures we share with mammals and probably marsupials & monotremes, the crossing is less an issue. And, when we get to the R-complex, that brain stem at the top of our spinal cord, it becomes entirely about reaction.

When we learned by mimicry to fashion and throw tools, weapons and play things we used the same hands for the same tasks as the individual we were learning from. As these skills were passed along from generation to generation handedness, in most cases right-handedness, became the norm. But, even this long, long evolutionary tree can be reversed. We can become ambidextrous or, less dependent on our dominant hand by practice. I assert that by working to be more ambidextrous we can increase our brain's connection to the other side.

Forgiveness: A gift requiring foresight

When we forgive we must be able to see into the future to a time when our anger or disappointment will subside and our friendship will again very important to us. When we forgive we must see into the mind of the other and understand the foibles, the weakness and the goodness that is in each creature of our planet. From fungi to fern, from tree to mammal, from bacteria to mole, from virus to gene, and from reptile to person: all creatures have goodness in them for life is good. 

Forgiveness: a gift when given, a gift when received. A measure of humanity.

What about talking? Gifts in story.

I talked in my St Pat's Day post about Language. Now I've been learning some things about communications that lead me to think the gift of story goes back further. 

Primates of many types understand and respond to language in amazing ways. Many mammals can learn to respond to aural stimuli but some chimps gather the meaning of numerous words and are able to understand them even when they're put together in unique, new ways! Watching a chimp carry a TV out of the enclosure to the prompt, "Can you bring the TV outside?" was instructional. We know that birds understand words and learn to create unique sequences. We know that recent experiments have placed the gene for language into mice. We know that most mammals experience emotions, some as complex as human emotions. So, when are we going to let them vote?

People turned this ability for language into an entirely new thing. I can relate a story or idea to you in a few words and if you grasp the concepts behind the story, you can repeat the story without remembering or even using any of my words. If you know more than one language you most likely can translate my story. This is how human culture has created a new life form on earth. Society. Human society exists as a living organism separate from the individuals that make it up. We've created a monster be allowing a new replicator -like genes- to participate in our culture. The meme builds languages to allow for easier replication of these conceptual life forms.

Wow, we've really got it good don't we?

Eccrine sweat glands: A new sensitivity & mobility.

Round about 2,000,000 years ago our ancestors were moving across the landscape, out of the forests, running long distances, collecting tool material, exploiting the midday period when quadripeds soaked too much heat to be active. This meant we needed to dissipate heat ourselves. What better way than a network of two to four million eccrine sweat cells spread across the surface of our skin? By that time most of our sweat glands were on our palms and soles. They originally provided moisture for better grip when fleeing or fighting and were emotionally activated. Since we started to stand upright, exploit the midday times when most quadripeds rested our species evolved any sweat glands that activate based on heat. Now most sweat glands are used solely to dissipate heat. 

I'm amazed by simple seeming innovations to our genotype that end up providing a real advantage to us as individuals. I'm also amazed at how memotypes sometimes work to overcome innovations as in the development of antiperspirants and deodorants. 

Drug Resistant Diseases: The gift of ignorance.

Not all gift we get are good things. 

This morning I heard the evolution of a drug resistant strain of malaria described as a gift from drug counterfeiters in South East Asia. These crooks create fake drugs that use a small amount of the real medicine to allow them to pass certain tests. When people use the weakened drug their malaria strain soon builds up resistance to that drug. In Cambodia today, a resistant strain of malaria is the newest gift from the underworld to our culture.

I say the gift of ignorance not just because people using the fakes are ignorant of their culpability in this but also because so many people misunderstand the various modes and methods of medicine that their confusion can lead to drug resistance as well. Learning the facts can really help you stay healthy.

Empathy: The first gift of human civilization

IT has to be said as the elected "nay sayers" in Congress start to sing their chorus against any Supreme Court Justice nominee who might have empathy: our ability to see the world thru the eyes of others was the beginning of our transition from cold blooded, killers and procreators to the civilized people we are today.  Yes, empathy, the gift of being able to put yourself into the shoes of others. 

Without being able to see the world thru others eyes we never learn to communicate. We never learn to care for our children, we never learn to govern, we never learn human emotion. Many mammals have an ability for empathy but, it our finely tuned skill at being able to understand what another creature, not just another human, is experiencing that unlocked most of what distinguishes us from reptiles. Empathy allows a mother to nurture her young. Empathy makes mentoring possible. Empathy is a necessary concept behind all economic transactions. 

Please, tell your Republican Senator  your opinion of empathy. It's the foundation of our legal system. From the Ten Commandments to the Koran, to the US Constitution, the primary purpose of these instruments is to codify empathy. Listen to a Senator try and create a dichotomy with Empathy & Legal decision making on opposite sides!

(Why are the the Republicans so opposed to anyone who might display empathy? My guess is John Kyl, the junior Republican Senator from Arizona didn't think before he came up with this amazing way to criticize any potential nominee that our President proposed. 

Of the President, Kyl said, "He believes in justices that have empathy," Kyl said if Obama goes with empathetic judges who do not base their decisions on the rule of law and legal precedents but instead the factors in each case, he would try to block those picks via filibuster.

Had Senator Kyl thought first I'm sure he would have realized the key place empathy holds in our culture, our community, our government, and our civilization.)

It really makes Santa wonder: What are these leaders thinking? Who are they trying to impress? I remember talk about mainstream values and ideas. We are really getting far out of the mainstream if we take empathy, a basic, core aspect of human existence off the table for any potential Supreme Court Nominee.

Counting time: Joining the magic of number & life's events

Back on Santa's Birthday I talked about the magic of number. How our ability to count beyond one, two, a few and many has allowed us amazing advances. Today, in honor of my beloved's birthday I want to expand on number to the counting of time. I think this might bring us to the origin of SANTA, that bearded gift giver who came at the winter solstice to predict the return of the sun from the south after it seemed to fall almost to the horizon in some northern reaches. Those first Santas brought seeds, and that prediction. They were able to predict the return on f the sun because they had learned to count time.

Counting time seems a simple, unimportant task now but this shared skill allowed some groups of people to thrive while their contemporaries who could not count time floundered. As with all deeply rooted memes, this gift pushes evolution without directly affecting the genome, or the phenotype. It means a slowing of change in physical characteristics and advance for those skilled at manipulating abstract concepts. My goodness! What a gift. Counting time!