“Who Am I?”
As DNA testing becomes more and more common, surprises are popping up everywhere. This article from BBC is about two Englishwomen who discover they have Native American blood when they send their DNA in for testing.
It’s fascinating to think that migration and trade has left it’s traces generations later. I love the work that is being done with bloodlines these days.
Native American DNA found in UK
DNA testing has uncovered British descendents of Native Americans brought to the UK centuries ago as slaves, translators or tribal representatives.
Genetic analysis turned up two white British women with a DNA signature characteristic of American Indians.
An Oxford scientist said it was extremely unusual to find these DNA lineages in Britons with no previous knowledge of Native American ancestry.
Indigenous Americans were brought over to the UK as early as the 1500s.
It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?
Doreen Isherwood
Many were brought over as curiosities; but others travelled here in delegations during the 18th Century to petition the British imperial government over trade or protection from other tribes.
Experts say it is probable that some stayed in Britain and married into local communities.
Doreen Isherwood, 64, from Putney, and Anne Hall, 53, of Huddersfield, only found out about their New World heritage after paying for commercial DNA ancestry tests.
Mrs Isherwood told BBC News: “I was expecting the results to say I belonged to one of the common European tribes, but when I got them back, my first thought was that they were a mistake.
“It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?”
You can read the rest of the article at BBC Science/Nature News, here.
Dark, Disturbing Road
Do you remember the happy books you read? Those that are light and breezy? Those with happy-ever-after endings? Most of the time, my bet would be you don’t. You read them, and they’re gone.
Not this book, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I found myself hesitating to even review this book, it is so disturbing to me. The prose is simple, even stark. The atmosphere is relentlessly bleak. The main character, whose name we never know, spends most of the book foraging and scavenging to feed himself and his starving son. The cover says it takes place in America, but it could be anywhere.
It is post-apocalyptic literature at it’s bleakest. All we know is that there were huge balls of light and then everything burned, and kept burning. It is still burning, in some places, during the time span of this novel. It rains or snows most of the time, and the rain is grey and the snow is grey. It is bone-chilling cold, and gathering wood for a fire to keep warm is a constant task.There is never a clear sunny day, only lighter or darker shades of grey. The nights are dark, no moon, no stars, just blackness.
It’s another one of those books I grabbed on the way to the airport without looking too carefully. I saw this was an Oprah Book Club choice and didn’t even read the cover. These books I just grabbed have grabbed me in return – I have read five in a row, books I have to talk over with my husband while I am reading them, they are so full of ideas I need to explore, unsettling settings, shaking to insecurity all that we take for granted.
This one, though, is seriously dark. I read until past midnight last night, adrenaline pumping through my system, as the man and his son evade marauders, thieves, and cannibals. I needed the human warmth of my husband’s body next to mine to drive away the alienation of this book. Even safe in my own bed, though, my sleep is troubled and I wake feeling scared and depressed. As you read The Road, you realize how very thin the veneer of civilization is that holds us together in community, and how that veneer rips when there is no longer law holding back the more powerful, those with weapons, those with more resources. When food becomes scarce, when people become very hungry . . . the rules break down, in serious and unthinkable ways.
If one book can have such an impact on my emotions and feelings of security, I can’t help but think how the trauma of the Iraqi invasion must still be resonating, invisible, below the surface, but an uninvited guest in the daily lives of those who experienced those horrors and trauma in Kuwait. You wonder if you will ever trust in “normal” again?
When your world suddenly shifts in a heartbeat, when your wealth disappears, when you suddenly have only your wits to survive on, how will YOU do?
As the Father and Son travel The Road seeking a warmer climate, and “the good guys”, goodness is remarked by its absence. Our protagonist refuses to help a lost child, a cellar full of people being kept as a food supply, and a couple of men along the road whose situation is even worse than their own. His son, born just after the event which forever changes the world, begs his Dad to share, but the Dad, knowing how spare the food supply is, refuses.
Beyond a crossroads in that wilderness they began to come upon the possessions of travelers abandoned in the road years ago. Boxes and Bags. Everything melted and black. Old suitcases curled shapeless in the heat. Here and there the imprint of things wrested out of the tar by scavengers. A mile on and they began to come upon the dead. Figures half mired in the blacktop, clutching themselves, mouths howling. He put his hand across the boy’s shoulder. Take my hand, he said. I don’t think you should see this.
Yes.
It’s OK Papa.
It’s OK?
They’re already there.
I don’t want you to look.
They’ll still be there.
He stopped and leaned on the cart. He looked down at the road and he looked at the boy. So strangely untroubled.
Why don’t we just go on, the boy said.
Yes. Okay.
They were trying to get away, weren’t they Papa?
Yes. They were.
Why didn’t they leave the road?
They couldn’t. Everything was on fire.
I dropped other things I really needed to do so that I could finish The Road. I can’t spend another night wondering how I would survive in this dog-eat-dog world. I need to move on with my life. I need to shift my focus.
And yet . . . I recommend McCarthy’s The Road to you. It is dark, it is brutal, it is relentlessly bleak, but still there is a thin golden thread of the father and son relationship weaving through the tapestry of despair, which redeems the book. You can’t help but admire the determination to persist, when the signs are all around you that nothing is going to get better. Somehow, in spite of all the despair, there is redemption, and even hope.
MOC Bans Porno Film Sites
Today’s Kuwait Times:
Internet Porno Film Sites
The Ministry of Communication has closed down all new sites that advertise pornographic films. The ministry of Communication represented by Undersecretary Eng. Abdulaziz Al-Osaimi and his counterpart at the Ministry of Information achieved this new step. This move was done in order to have control over the sites, which are being followed by the Ministry of Information. Al-Osaimi has assigned administration director Nassar Al-Kandari to work on closing those sites from the Internet and ensuring that companies do not use other systems to re-open it. The ministry succeeded in coordinating with local internet companies to close all porno sites, but lately the ministry realized that there are new sites marketing through drama films to porno films.
My comments:
I truly hate porn. I hate it because it creates a fantasy world that real women can barely compete with. I bet if men spent half the time and attention on their wives and families that they spend on porn, there wouldn’t be so much divorce. And guys – those women are PAID. They’re ACTING. Most of them would rather be doing anything but what they are doing, but they do it for the MONEY. It’s about as real as the World Wide Wrestling Federation Matches, it’s all staging and airbrushing and making money off YOUR fantasies.
Rant over – reality strikes. How do you ban pornography?
First, how do you define pornography? When I was a student in political science, we spent a week of class time trying to come up with a definition that everyone could buy into. We never succeeded.
There is some pretty powerful erotic literature, erotic art out there, stuff I don’t find pornographic in the least. So what are the guidelines?
Second, WHO defines pornography?
Third, how on earth will the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Information keep up with all the new porn sites that keep popping up? These sites make people a LOT of money, they have the money to pay ingenious high tech guys to keep devising new ways to get their product to market.
And last, who is the poor porno-guy who has to watch all this garbage and enforce the ban?
And – is your internet phone still working? 😉
The Truth about Angels
A friend sent me this piece in the morning e-mail. I hadn’t seen it before, and I loved it. Hope you do, too.
I only know the names of two angels. Hark and Harold.
Gregory, 5
Everybody’s got it all wrong. Angels don’t wear halos anymore. I
forget why, but scientists are working on it.
Olive, 9
It’s not easy to become an angel! First, you die. Then you go to
heaven, then there’s still the flight training to go through. And
then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes.
Matthew, 9
Angels work for God and watch over kids when God has to go do
something else.
Mitchell, 7
My guardian angel helps me with math, but he’s not much good for
science.
Henry, 8
Angels don’t eat, but they drink milk from holy cows.
Jack, 6
Angels talk all the way while they’re flying you up to heaven. The
basic message is where you went wrong before you got dead.
Daniel, 9
When an angel gets mad, he takes a deep breath and counts to ten. And
when he lets out his breath, somewhere there’s a tornado.
Reagan, 10
Angels have a lot to do and they keep very busy. If you lose a tooth,
an angel comes in through your window and leaves money under your
pillow. Then when it gets cold, angels go north for the winter.
Sara, 6
Angels live in cloud houses made by God and his son, who’s a very
good carpenter.
Jared , 8
All angels are girls because they gotta wear dresses and boys didn’t
go for it.
Antonio, 9
My angel is my grandma who died last year. She got a big head start
on helping me while she was still down here on earth.
Katelynn, 9
Some of the angels are in charge of helping heal sick animals and
pets. And if they don’t make the animals get better, they help the
kid get over it.
Vicki, 8
What I don’t get about angels is why, when someone is in love, they
shoot arrows at them.
Sarah, 7
(Image courtesy fotosearch.
Sparkle Plenty Jumps In
Sparkle Plenty has always loved good jewelry. She is on first name terms with the major jeweler in our home town, and they always grin when she walks in. Her blogging name is well chosen!
She is my sister, although almost of another generation. She is the youngest aunt, the “fun” aunt. Everyone likes hanging around Sparkle Plenty’s house – and all the cousins gather there around the pool – or the pool table. Sparkle Plenty and her husband have all the fun toys, the fun gatherings and her house is full of laughter.
Her house is also full of pets. She and her husband, Mariner Man, have a soft spot for anything lost or injured or abandoned. One by one, they have gathered a menagerie of cats, dogs and birds who are all grateful not to be out on the streets. They take the ones who limp, the ones no-one else wants. Sparkle Plenty and Mariner Man are all about heart.
After a couple months of commenting, now she had jumped in to the blogging party, and her theme, Flashes of Light that catch the eye, the mind and the heart is perfectly expressive of her goodness and her compassion and her yearning to be a force for good in the universe. Welcome Sparkle Plenty, and may the force of good be with you!
Please visit Sparkle Plenty and welcome her to our virtual community.
“We Think We Are SO Hot”
The scene: Gulf Road, night, and these two “hotties” are weaving in and out, going through the red lights and busy looking everywhere but where they are going, checking to see if everyone can see how very cool they are. Oh – under the left arm of the guy in back is his helmet. The guy in front has his between his legs. How cool is that?
The tires on this very tired motorbike have no tread left. These two young men have no protective clothing on. They are hopped up on adreneline and eager to see and be seen.
Welcome, Earthling!
The commenter on this blog known as Earthling, now has his own blog under his own name. A geographer with GoogleEarth, he has frequently given info and tips on Google Earth which I have passed along to you.
His blog is a hoot. Matt is a picky eater, surrounded at Google by free, high quality food in huge abundance and variety, and that is what he is blogging about. Maybe he will also show their on-site laundry and gym facilities 😉
In spite of his self-proclaimed picky eating habits, Matt is a very good cook, a creative cook, and I always loved it when I could hear him puttering around in the kitchen because something good was going to come out of it all. His one food addiction is hot peppery sauces, and his Jambalaya is so fiery I can’t eat but a bite or two.
Here is a Matt story (every family has these stories):
One day Matt’s Mom was making dinner when Matt, about fifteen at the time, walked in and asked “what’s for dinner?” She told him. Twenty minutes later the delivery man from a local restaurant pulled up and rang the doorbell – Matt’s dinner had arrived. Matt’s Mom was dumbfounded, and then laid down the law – if she was going to all the trouble of fixing dinner, her family would eat it! No delivery!
You can find him HERE at Google-Food-Spot.
Check in and give him a big welcome, please.
Readings for Today
You will notice to the right, in my Blogroll, is an entry for The Lectionary. The Lectionary readings are scheduled so that every three years you read completely through the Bible. Actually, my sect, which is Episcopalian (the American version of Anglican, although the two have been closer at some times than others) shares the same readings with many other Christians, we also have some books/chapters in our Bible that most of the main-line Protestant bibles don’t have.
Today’s gospel reading is one of the hardest ones. You look at it and you read it and it SOUNDS so simple:
Luke 6:27-38
27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
33If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
34If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.* Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
37 ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven;
38give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’
There is nothing easy about loving your enemy. One priest, as I was anguishing through this passage, told me “You don’t have to LIKE them, but you MUST love them.” That helped, but still, loving your enemy is probably the hardest thing on earth to do. And “Do not judge”????? Holy smokes, we judge one another on a daily basis, and usually not to their credit.
Give, even if you think the begger may be lying?
And then, the hardest one of all – “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” So like, if I don’t forgive . . . I don’t get forgiveness? Like I have to give up my grudges, the chip on my shoulder? I have to forgive the unforgivable, the personal insults, the slights, the jerk who cuts me off on the road? I have to forgive my neighbor? I have to forgive my friend? My husband? George Bush? Osama bin Laden? I have to forgive to receive forgiveness??
But, at the last, the reward – that no matter how hard it is, if you follow these rules, abundant life will be poured in your lap.
You can follow the daily readings by clicking on the Lectionary, in the blogroll, and scrolling down to the current week. Click on the week and it will take you to the daily readings, which include the Psalms, the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Gospel. The reading above, from Luke, is today’s Gospel reading.
Qatteri Cat Gets Bored
The Qatteri Cat remembers what it was like to live on the streets. He doesn’t remember the hunger, the thirst or the danger. What he remembers are the smells, and the great adventure.
When he first came to live with us, he often escaped. He could run out the back, up a tree and once over the wall, he was GONE. He always came back . . . unless, of course, he was stuck in someone’s back yard, or up a tree so tall he couldn’t figure out how to get down. We always knew when that happened – we could hear him yowling all the way home.
But now, he can’t get out. There are days when he yearns for the street, for the smells and strangeness of the great outdoors. We try to amuse him, and he humors us.
We hid one of his “babies” under the sack. It’s driving him crazy:
He pushes the sack, trying to get his baby:
Finally, he wins!
“Make This Case Go Away”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times.
MP Intervenes to save rapists
by Hanan Al-Saadoun
Kuwait: Two men accused of kidnap, rape and assault were let off the hook after pressure from a lawmaker and a senior police officer. A captain from the Traffic Department was on duty in Khaitan when he saw a parked car with an Asian maid in it and a man standing next to the car. The maid suddenly pointed to the officer and cried for help, so the captain rushed to the car and found another man inside with the maid.
The captain asked the man outside what the problem was. The main replied that this was a runaway maid and he was a detective. The captain asked for his ID but the man refused. The captain then realized that the man smelled of alcohol.
The men suddenly assaulted the captain and bit his hand, injuring him severely (emphasis added by blogger.) After the captain subdued both men, they confessed that they were drunk and that they had tried to rape the maid. The captain then tried to file a case at the Khaitan police station against the two men, but the MP intervened and tried to stop the captain from registering the case. The captain persisted and kept pushing to file a case for a week, until his superior intervened too and told him to “forget the incident.”
My comment: If I ever stop getting outraged when I read reports like this, God forbid, I will be dead.
First, the maid’s life is seriously damaged. Any victim can tell you that the terror of abduction, with or without rape, resonates through your life. When you are in a situation where you have no power, and are at the mercy of someone stronger or more powerful than you are, it is a life-changing event. And would her sponsor accept her back, even though it were no fault of her own? Would they not be afraid she might be diseased? They might even accuse her of inviting the assault – and this was an assault.
Second, these young men lied to the police, impersonated a police officer, resisted arrest and caused bodily harm to a senior police official. Did you notice – THEY CONFESSED.
Third, the police captain had the guts and integrity to persue filing this case against these wicked young men, inspite of pressures from above. WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO on you, brave one, for your integrity.
Last, kudos for Hanan al-Sadoun who does such a great job presenting so many of these outrageous stories in an objective manner, letting us fill in the details and express our outrage in our blogs. Brava, habeebti.
Evidently this air tight case will never get to court.
And what have these young men learned about accountability? That their name and wasta will make their despicable actions go away? What is the fitting punishment for what they have done? C’mon readers, check in on this one.
OK, OK, I’ll take a deep breath and stop now.
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