A Gift of Trains: 30+ Santas Visit Bud's Playground.

Sometimes the words have to give way for the pictures! Thanks Bud.

Justice: A gift of divided governance.

Sonia Sotomayor will become the 111 Justice of the United States Supreme Court today. Chief Justice John Roberts will swear her in during a private ceremony at the Supreme Court.

I wrote about the importance of empathy in May (Empathy: The first gift of human civilization) when President Barrack Obama nominated Sotomayor. And in April I discussed the value of government (Government: A gift from the founders to US.) When the United States Senate confirmed Sotomayor on Thursday, the president said we had taken another step toward a more perfect union. As the the third woman and third non-white member of the Court Sotomayor will give us justice just like each of the previous Justices.

In my country there are people who would deny citizens justice. 31 US Senators voted "no" on justice when the President's nominee was presented to them. In essence they were saying she can't be fair or impartial because she is a woman and a latina. Many of these Senators stood to speak their mind on this topic. They sound to me as anti-government, anti-justice and anti-democracy as any member of the anarchist groups I've been involved with in the past. When the Republicans in office sound like anarchists attacking government with a vehemence once reserved only for the truly disturbed you must wonder if our system can ever work. Can we ever have a civil discussion of ideas?

These supposed freedom loving folk have now turned their attention to lying and bullying their way thru August helping insurance companies stay in control of the ever increasing costs and ever diminishing quality of outcomes in our health care system. If they are successful, our health care system will continue to limp along with the highest cost buying us the 37th, 54th, or 72nd best results. We can't let this happen. We have to do a few things:

1) Support government. Government is good. Our government provides many important functions one of which should be to lead on health care. Along with freedom of speech, public common spaces and thoroughfares, rights to bear arms and train for common defence, the right to be healthy is, and should be guaranteed.

2) Support a new approach to the healthcare system. We have to change the way we're doing it because paying so much for so little is stupid. It will bankrupt us.

3) Speak out, not just to your elected reps but to your friends and neighbors, especially if they disagree with your position. Talk with respect and dignity to your adversaries.

If we do these things across the country we can change the health care system for the better.

Bullying: The gift of broken discourse.

Well, I've just watched about a dozen public meetings where Members of Congress, Senators and other elected officials have been shouted down by bullies. These folks, apparently schooled by Dick Armey's lobby firm Freedom Works rise to ask questions or just start shouting in the middle of the event with misinformation and smears. They impugn government, the same government that they have worked so hard to destroy for the past 28 years. They shout, bluster and offer no ideas just an all out assault on public discourse. They seem to want to destroy anything that is left of the commons. Oh the humanity!

It's gone from bad - having these lying, greedy, bullies in office - to worse - having these lying, greedy, bullies trying to destroy from without what they couldn't destroy when they held power.

I'm sick to my stomach watching the evidence.

A ranking Senator on the Judiciary Committee has said he will not support Judge Sonia Sotomayor because he's afraid that she could not be objective and fair in the conduct of her job. This despite 17 years of written evidence to the contrary. I call on Jeff Sessions to use this same standard in his deliberations and in the performance of his job. Objectivity! Yes, government by science! Please, Jeff, say you will!

I want my country! I want people who support and defend the Constitution when it calls for a more perfect union, justice, domestic tranquility, common defence, general welfare and the blessing of liberty. I'm tired of greedy, lying bullies.

Shared life: When we began to change our social gifts

Our culture changed fundamentally when we started to mate for life. I haven't read any dating of this but, I'll guess mating for life started around the time of art, spirituality, language and larger groups (150-200 adult individuals or more) cooperating. I'll also guess that the true shared life is only possible when, to paraphrase Rilke, "we become the guardian of each other's solitude." 

To put this period in perspective, I'll guess it started to emerge from the large brained creature living between 200, 000 and 70,000  years ago. I think mimicry had had its effect on our brains. I think the corpus collosum was sufficiently developed and sexually dimorphous that our social needs met our phenotype needs to push us to mate-for-life scenarios. (it would be interesting to study brains of other mate-for-life creatures and compare them to us alongside our fidelity rates could make a really interesting graphic.) In short, I believe that we learned to live with another for life over an evolutionarily brief period starting about 200,000 years ago lasting to about 70,000 years ago.

I believe we learned our amazing ability to "see the world thru others eyes" during this critical period. Two solid ice ages put us in the mood to mate for life. And, why not? It's an easy way to make and care for offspring that you're "sure or pretty sure are yours." This is also the beginning of our top notch empathy skills (I wrote about empathy in May) Our shared life is our interconnected life. We become dependent and humans are no longer solely individuals. We cannot really be evaluated or judged without consideration for our place in society. 

Sharing life with others is truly a gift we must always give and give well!

Sports: Our bodies' are learning tools.

I've been thinking about writing on this for some time now. Some anthropologists suggest that one reason for the growth in the human brain over the past 3 million years is due in part to our physical expertise growing. As we became better stone throwers our diet could improve because we took down more creatures with our rocks. This made selection pressure to throw more accurately and, because throwing a rock at a moving target requires large amounts of brain capacity, judge the rate of speed and direction of the target, judge the force, direction, and timing of your throw, coordinate these judgements to ensure your rock intersects with the water buffalo temple or neck at a high rate of speed . . . . Our brains grew.

I've taken this idea to new extremes and argued with Mary that I need to go watch football or golf or soccer to research brain growth! While Mary doesn't buy this she is supportive of my daily workouts on rollerblades or skis, my crunches, twists, bends, and lunges. She can see not only changes in my body shape, but my mental capacity is clearly enhanced when I engage in varied activities and have a chance to increase my heart rate for an hour or more everyday.

Couple a better diet with the learning required to engage in new activities, like taking down a water buffalo, & over a few hundred generations we see clear brain growth. This same idea has scientific support on phenotypes as well. The more tuned your body, the better your posture, the stronger your muscles, the healthier your blood, the more active your mind. You can use your physical structure to build a new shape to your body (training) just as you can use your thoughts to rewire your habits. A few five minute "practice" sessions thinking about a new complicated task such as playing scales on a musical instrument will help you with that task the next time you do it physically. Just thinking about doing a thing builds the neurons in your motor cortex allowing your brain to work better the next time you do that thing!

Try it!