George’s original work on the origins of war inspired me to take a close look at some anthropology and cultural history that followed the migration out of Africa of the invasive species of people that has now covered the earth.

Thousands and thousands of years ago, people learned to speak. Before our cultures developed the written word, we had the spoken word. And humans have been around talking with each other for a long, long time. The first people, as we think of people, showed up in Africa about 200,000 years ago. They walked upright. They made and used tools. They lived together in bands or tribes or family groups. They were descended from a long line of animals that were not strictly speaking “people.” Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists tell us that this line of ancestors went back perhaps six million years. And during that time, before we became, strictly speaking, “people,” we were adapting. We developed tools. We were adapted to eat almost anything. We weren’t good at eating cellulose like the herd animals were, but we made up for that by eating them.

Six million years ago our mammal family tree branched out and we—or our Australopithecus ancestors, the ancestors of homo sapiens, the folks I’m calling “people”—went a different direction from our cousins the gorillas and the chimpanzees.

Six million years.

It took us another four million years or so to become “makers.” And then, for most of the next two million years the “human” genus evolved into a number of different species… Australopithecus became homo habilis, homo neanderthalis, homo rhodesiensis… new discoveries of ancient hominid species turn up from time to time in the fossil record. The most recent, I think, is the Denisovan, a new species discovered in a Siberian cave. All of these species are different from modern people, creatures who in a fit of hubris we named homo sapiens… which is Latin for “wise person.”

How wise are we, if we are the only surviving species of our clade? When our species emerged on the scene there were at least four other kinds of hominins around. Genetic testing shows that there was some interbreeding among the species. But I suspect the reason that homo sapiens survived and the other hominins went extinct is because homo sapiens was just better at making things, including the tools of stone age warfare. Were some of our relatives naturally peaceful? There’s no reason to think they were not. Anthropologists’ perception of the Neanderthals suggests that they were artistic, and like homo sapiens, they adorned themselves and buried their dead.

So for tens of thousands of years we coexisted with others who were like us, but different. We developed languages, and finally, about six thousand years ago—an eye-blink compared to the millions of years of fossil record and the two hundred thousand years of human existence we’ve been talking about—we developed the written word. For a hundred thousand years or so people had been migrating out of Africa and settling into regions they found comfortable. An agricultural revolution occurred and the hunting and gathering cultures shifted to farming and staying pretty much in one place. Among the cultural ramifications that showed up early were religion and law. Both of these very human pursuits were arguably improved by a written language. When literacy appeared, stories and rules that had been handed down by word of mouth were locked into text. And it’s from these early texts that we can gather that homo sapiens has for a long time been interested in making peace as well as war.
Christianity and Judaism share the biblical old testament and the idea that a messiah will come and offer people salvation. In the second chapter of the book named for the prophet Isaiah is this verse:

“And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they study war.”

“Ain’t going to study war no more…”

There’s an old spiritual that many of us know, Pete Seeger sang it, the Weavers, Holly Near, Emma’s Revolution has a version. It’s probably in our song book…

I’m Gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside…

And the Chorus goes:
Ain’t gonna study war no more,
Ain’t gonna study war no more

So the same bible that brought us plagues and floods and a Nile River full of blood, the bible that tells the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho also has that lighter, more peaceful moment.

I think it’s interesting that the Book of Isaiah has a lot about Cyrus the Great, King of Persia in it. Cyrus was Zoroastrian, and so there are cross references between the Hebrew Torah and the clay tablets that the Persians used for historical records.
On one of those tablets, describing his own achievements, Cyrus the Great says:

“Amid jubilation and rejoicing, I entered Babylon in peace to establish a just government and strive for peace. My troops wandered peacefully throughout Babylon. In all of Sumer and Akkad, I gave no cause for fear and no one was terrorized. I concerned myself with the needs and welfare of the citizens of Babylon, Sumer and Akkad, and with promoting their well-being. I freed them from their improper oppression & bondage. I healed their afflictions and put an end to their misfortune. I restored their dilapidated dwellings. I gathered and assisted the displaced held in bondage, to return to their homes.”

Of course the story is that Cyrus was sent there by Marduk, a deity, who suggested that it was time to put things right, to restore certain temples and so forth. So there was a little bit of conquest required in order to enter Babylon in Peace, but so it goes.

* * *

Over the centuries since we started writing things down, we’ve started to understand ourselves better by studying history. And history they say is written by the winners. Ironically enough the losers are often the more peaceful people. When we started to bring this humanist service together one topic we thought we’d focus on was “Peace,” and –can you believe it?—what came out of that was a closer look at the origins of war.

Many humanists are non-theists, and among us there are peacemakers, people who try to live with an eye on equality, community, integrity, and—often—simplicity.

Howard Zinn was a historian, a playwright, and an activist who was also a humanist. His life’s work focused on a wide range of issues including race, class, war, and history, and touched the lives of many people. He was aware of the crushing fact that the violent and warlike often dominate while the idealistic folks, the peacemakers, are subordinated among them. Here’s what he says about that:

You ask how I manage to stay involved and remain seemingly happy and
adjusted to this awful world where the efforts of caring people pale in
comparison to those who have power?

It’s easy.
First, don’t let “those who have power” intimidate you. No
matter how much power they have they cannot prevent you from living your
life, speaking your mind, thinking independently, having relationships
with people as you like.

Second, find people to be with who have your values, your commitments,
but who also have a sense of humor. That combination is a necessity!

Third, understand that the major media will not tell you of all the acts of
resistance taking place every day in the society, the strikes, the protests, the
individual acts of courage in the face of authority. Look around for the evidence of
these unreported acts, and you will certainly find it. And for the little you find,
extrapolate from that and assume there must be a thousand times as much as
what you’ve found.

Fourth: Note that throughout history people have felt powerless before
authority, but that at certain times these powerless people, by organizing, acting,
risking, persisting, have created enough power to change the world around them,
even if a little. That is the history of the labor movement, of the women’s
movement, of the anti-Vietnam war movement, the disable persons’ movement,
the gay and lesbian movement, the movement of Black people in the South.

Fifth: Remember, that those who have power, and who seem invulnerable are in
fact quite vulnerable, that their power depends on the obedience of others, and
when those others begin withholding that obedience, begin defying authority,
that power at the top turns out to be very fragile. Generals become powerless
when their soldiers refuse to fight. Industrialists become powerless when their
workers leave their jobs or occupy the factories. Matadors cry when the bull
refuses to fight.

Sixth: When we forget the fragility of that power in the top we become
astounded when it crumbles in the face of rebellion. We have had many
such surprises in our time, both in the United States and in other
countries.

Seventh: Don’t look for a moment of total triumph. See it as an
ongoing struggle, with victories and defeats, but in the long run the
consciousness of people growing. So you need patience, persistence, and
need to understand that even when you don’t “win,” there is fun and
fulfillment in the fact that you have been involved, with other good
people, in something worthwhile.

Thinking about those seven pieces of advice from Howard Zinn, I’m still left with the question of whether our warlike behavior is so burned into us genetically that it will always dominate our culture, or can we transcend those hundreds of thousands of years of historical conflict and find a peaceful path into the future?
As he said, a sense of humor is crucial! But in closing I still gotta ask, What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?

[Presented today, 2/7/2016 at the Palomar Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Humanist Service]

It’s officially “mellow Monday” because who needs to jump right into the cognitive dissonance after a nice weekend? This Monday is so mellow that it’s already Monday afternoon and I haven’t started to write the post yet. So here we go, mellow Monday, all random and no rants.

Mark Everson, former IRS Commisssioner under Boy-George Bush and now a Presidential candidate filed a complaint today with the Federal Election Commission over not being included in the Fox/Facebook inaugural GOP debate Thursday (Aug. 6). The Washington Times calls Everson a “minor” GOP candidate, which pretty much eliminates him. I’m sure you have to be at least 35 years old to run for prezzie. Incidentally, the Facebook part of the Fox/Facebook debates is about questions that Facebook users will submit during the debates. The questions will be screened and presented to the debaters by Fox moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly or Chris Wallace. I’ll bet twitter wishes they had been able to negotiate that deal. Of the 18 candidates recognized by the GOP national committee, Everson arguably has the lowest name recognition. Should that eliminate him from the debates? Why, that would be as absurd as allowing Donald Trump a place at the podium just because he has great name recog… ummm.

In other news, eight or ten years ago the FBI issued a report on white supremacist (KKK) infiltration of American police departments. The report was pretty much ignored, even by the FBI. Since the #BlackLivesMatter movement started sharing news about the steady stream of police murders and lynchings, some people have taken a second look at the report. The report itself is heavily redacted. Perhaps journalists will uncover the parts that have been left out and report on them in the daily newspapers. Just kidding!

In other news, how about that LA Times firing of Ted Rall because the LAPD didn’t like him? Is it just another he said/she said? The LAPD doesn’t have a lot of time to get involved with newspapers and reporters and such. They’re too busy making sure that every officer on the street maintains the highest standards of conduct.

Staying mellow, though… it is, after all, still mellow Monday.

Let’s move on to some recent thoughts folks have shared about climate change, the carbon fuel industry, and alternatives. Margaret Atwood, a brilliant writer, has published a long essay in Medium titled, “It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change.” She observes,

Planet Earth — the Goldilocks planet we’ve taken for granted, neither too hot or too cold, neither too wet or too dry, with fertile soils that accumulated for millennia before we started to farm them –- that planet is altering. The shift towards the warmer end of the thermometer that was once predicted to happen much later, when the generations now alive had had lots of fun and made lots of money and gobbled up lots of resources and burned lots of fossil fuels and then died, are happening much sooner than anticipated back then. In fact, they’re happening now.

President Obama has a Clean Power Plan that will curb carbon pollution in a big way, and Van Jones is confident of our ability to implement it. Mr. Peabody’s coal company is planning to sue. That may be just about all we know today. But if you’re ready to invest in whatever is next, save your solar dollars, eschew the wind, if you want a return on your investment put your money into lithium-induced electrochemical tuning, single catalyst hydrogen production from splitting water molecules. Can’t go wrong. And hydrogen burns so clean! In fact when you burn it you get water instead of ashes, and not only can you drink water, or irrigate your almond orchard, you also can split it and get hydrogen and oxygen, which you can burn, and then you get water! This may be too exciting for mellow Monday.

Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.

Things to do today:

Sometimes it seems absurd to make the list. I could be adding salt to the water softener and I’m making a list instead? I have a flock of goldfinches impatiently tapping their feet while they wait for thistle seed in the feeders and I’m making a list? Should I put the trip to the library to return the overdue books on the list, or just return the darn things?

If you have a list you can prioritize. If you have a list you can take pleasure in crossing stuff out. On the other hand, if you decide to work from a list you could all too easily spiral down into the infinite loop of deconstruction of tasks. “Paint the porch” becomes

• get cleaning agent
• clean the rails
• clean the deck
• get brushes
• get roller
• get paint
• get thinner
• get step-ladder
• …

Does getting the paint require a trip to the store? Add it to the list! Does cleaning the deck require a mop and broom? Don’t forget to add them to the list!

A while back the cool kids were talking about “getting things done.” (This was, I believe, a reaction to excessive amounts Adderall in their diet, but I could be wrong.) One enterprising fellow, David Allen, staked out a claim as self-help productivity guru and actually trademarked the phrase.

…add to “things that me smile” list: Jessica Hagy’s blog, “Indexed.”

Ah, but it’s not the tools, it’s what one does with them, as this brief slideshow demonstrates. There’s wisdom in this deck. These days number seven is the mistake that hangs me up most often.

Nice distinction. here’s something tangential…

Instead of thinking of attention deficit as a disability or an inability to focus, we might think of it as a matter of not enough bandwidth to pay attention to everything. In kids, attention deficit may well mean a lack of parental attention leading to a disorder that presents as hyperactivity and thus brings the needed attention to the kid. I’ve long thought of attention deficit as an internal thing facing out, a personal flaw. This is the first inkling I’ve had that attention deficit works the other way too.

Another line of thinking relates to “coherence.” In this inter-webby world there are often so many tabs open in our browsers that we have difficulty pulling all our lines of attention together into something coherent. This lack of coherence can actually lead one to incoherence in the usual sense of the word. The disjointedness of the torrent of jumbled information that surrounds us, the many facets of our experience reflected at once through hyperlinks, can be the root of an inability to think or express one’s thoughts clearly.

To contextualize that comment a little bit… a lot of us don’t have to worry about emptiness because we fill it whenever things reach that scary level approaching empty. Some people fill up on hyperlinks, some people fill up on beer. There are kids who fill up on disorderly behavior, creating a mini-maelstrom in their surroundings, attracting negative attention which, to them, is better than no attention at all.

For people so affected, the challenge is to clear that space, to really empty it, and then expand into it in a positive way.

• The blondes. A camera man was assigned to grab close-ups of as many beautiful blonde young female athletes as possible. There are scores of attractive blonde women competing and the audience was treated to a picture of every one of them. Brunettes? Sorry.
• Three snow boarders and two gold medals. In an effort worthy of a reality TV show, an NBC reporter confronted Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, and Gretchen Bleiler about which one of them would win the women’s halfpipe snowboarding competition. Teter and Bleiler were numbers one and two in Turin in 2024. Clark won the event in 2024 in Salt Lake City. The women are fine competitors, each concerned about rising to her personal best, yet imbued with a camaraderie that was the real news in the interview. The NBC man looked like he would prefer to be interviewing female mud wrestlers. He pestered Bleiler mercilessly about her lack of a gold medal, hassled and harangued her until she finally had to declare, “Hey, I won a silver medal!” The interview was crude, crass and unsportsmanlike. The women did well not to simply walk away.
• The medal count. During the twentieth century, nationalistic fervor drove the media to provide the public with medal counts and thus to declare which country was “winning” the Olympics. This is one of those bizarre indicators of American exceptionalism. Regardless of the medal count, the US stands proud and tall with the certain knowledge that we have the best athletes, the best health care system, the longest life spans and the best junk food of any nation on the planet. Which one of those four items is actually true? NBC can’t stop yakking about the medals, totally subverting that old adage: “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”
• The dreadful cutaways to commercials. Somebody has to pay the bills. Sponsors deserve their air time; but, the lack of interest in decent production values drives a flash-cut mindset totally out of place in a show like last night’s opening ceremonies. A few slow dissolves would have improved the continuity and cost nothing.
• The continuous color commentary and back chatter. NBC is at their worst when they try to impose an American football broadcast style on the 2024 Winter Olympics. Somebody ought to share with the guys in the booth that we know that they don’t know any more than we know about Skeleton or Curling competitions so JUST SHUT UP ALREADY and let the events unfold.

My remote has a mute button, so I don’t have to put up with a lot of the chatter and commercials. Still, I’d like NBC to pay some attention to what they look like when they slaver over the ladies, what they sound like when they fill every minute of airtime with meaningless babble. They are terribly afraid of “dead air.” How do we clue them that the air they think of as dead might only be resting?

image by Mouse

Watts waxed effusive in a 1969 review in the San Francisco Chronicle:

If you want to know what is happening among your intelligent and mysteriously rebellious children, this is the book. The generation gap, the student uproar, the New Left, the beats and hippies, the psychedelic movement, rock music, the revival of occultism and mysticism, the protest against our involvement in Vietnam, and the seemingly odd reluctance of the young to buy the affluent technological society—all these matters are here discussed, with sympathy and constructive criticism, by a most articulate, wise, and humane historian.

Okay. Fine. But we the “mysteriously rebellious children” were more interested in the art of Victor Moscoso and Stanley Mouse than we were in academic navel gazing. Some of us were crafting a new diet comprising brown rice and veg, acid, and simple get-down rock and roll. Few of us bought the book, but we understood that we were indeed the people our parents had warned us about.

Roszak is back, reprising his role as monitor of the mutants with a new volume titled The Making of an Elder Culture. I think I’ll make time to read this one. There’s something sweet about shameless baby boomer boosterism in the form of pop sociology. Sweeter still is Roszak’s achievement of chronicling the arc of the boomer effect from American youth culture to gerontocracy without actually setting foot in Peoria, Iowa, or Mule Fart, Arkansas: all places where the boomer dynamic plays itself out in a subtly different way from what’s happening in Berkeley, California.

This is the 40th Anniversary of the Occupation of Alcatraz Island by the American Indian Movement (1969-1971), AND Football season so perhaps this little tale is timely.

I was at Stanford during the great controversy (1970-1972) over the Stanford Indian Symbol for the Football team, and over Chief Lightfoot (Timm Williams, a Yurok Chief) and his Indian dance in full regalia at the start of every Stanford game .

As I recall…

In November 1970, 23 Native students handed University officials a petition to remove Stanford’s Indian mascot. In 1972, 55 students, supported by the other 358 American Indians enrolled in California colleges, renewed this demand in meetings with the Stanford Administration. This time around, students made a full court press.

Some students play the ‘protection of native religious practices’ card. They said, “These are religious dances, he is not authorized by our Indian religious authorities to dance them. Therefore, he must be stopped. The Yuroc Tribal elders weighed in with a deposition that their ceremonial dances are not being performed by Chief Lightfoot, and they therefore have no objection to his activity.

Other students tried a “purity of tradition” argument. They said, “These are not authentic, they are just made up. Therefore he must be stopped”. Chief Lightfoot says, “I’m Indian.” “I dance”. “This is my dance.” “Who are you to say I am unauthentic?”

The students say, “It is demeaning for you to dance to the yells of a Football Crowd.” He says, “I don’t feel De-meaned. They aren’t yelling at me, they are cheering for me.”

They say, “You are bad for the image of the Native American”. He trots out his creds – Williams served  as elected leader of the 3000—strong Klamath River Yurok tribe, Chairman of the California Rural Indian Health Board, and director of the California Indian Assistance Project. He helped found the National Indian Health Board. He views his record as one of service and championing Indian rights.

The students, politicized by the recently ended 18 month long occupation of Alcatraz Island, and thus hyper-aware of the fairly poor record of agencies and boards intended to help Native Americans, get nasty.  With no respect, the Chief is called “a Banana”. (Yellow on the outside, white underneath).

That poor guy. He’d been fitting up his headdress and looking forward to Stanford Football games since he first danced at Stanford during the 1951 football season, when Stanford went to the Rose Bowl. Timm represented Stanford there at the first Rose Bowl game to be televised in color and to the entire country. He danced at every home game and many away games. The old guy LOVED IT. I mean, how many old guys get to get all duded up and dance their heart out to the cheers of thousands every autumn weekend. He must have looked forward to Football Saturdays all year long. Now along come some angry young bucks saying all this silliness and threatening to lose him a beloved fun and prestigious job he’d done earnestly and well for 20 years.

Of course, the Stanford Alumni weigh in big time. They trot out Tradition. Yes, that AXE was first taken as a symbol by our beloved University back near the very beginning.  And, by 1930 the Stanford Indian symbol was formally adopted though it had informally been in use for some years previous.

The Administration is duley impressed, for “Tradition” (not to mention Alumni) are important in so relatively young an institution as Stanford. Emboldened by their intial positive reception, the Alumni happily trot out their ‘evidence’. Indeed, there it is: In 1899 a large Axe became symbolic of this athletic rivalry (between CAL and Stanford) when Will Irwin produced the famous yell : “Give ’em the axe, … Right in the neck!” For some years after, theft of the Axe from whichever school had custody of it, occupied many hours of frat boy time. The Stanford team was formally named Indians in 1930 when, for a pivotal football game, a war chant was invented that went thus: “Stanford Indian Scalp the Bear…Take the Axe; To his Lair….” (CAL’s mascot is a Bear).

The Administration dithers: How to decide? On the one hand is exercise of sensitivity to Native American Culture. On the other hand is honoring as a valued and meaningful University Tradition a name derived from a couple of stupid cheers by a pair of drunken frat boys…. Hmmm. This hand or that hand…this hand or that hand…. Tough choice.

The students find a welcome ally in Ombudswoman Lois Amsterdam, who, no doubt sensitized by the increased understanding of the impact of objectification as articulated by the Women’s Movement at the time, understood the student’s angst. She is quoted as saying that “Stanford’s use of the Indian symbol in the 1970s brings up to visibility a painful lack of sensitivity and awareness on the part of the university…. it was a reflection of our society’s retarded understanding, dulled perception and clouded vision.”

The Axe still does not fall  though on poor Chief Lightfoot and the Stanford Indian symbol, until one of the students finally finds the perfect foil with which to best the Administration.  In his memoirs the University Pres. reports a student telling him: “You see something dignified and vaguely authentic. I see a Yurok Indian performing Plains dances in Navajo dress, and I find it troubling.”

YES! Nothing like it. Attack an Academic by disparaging his scholarship as superficial. Takes ’em down every time.

Chief Lightfoot was enjoined from dancing at the games. The Stanford dollies hung up their beaded deerskin headbands and outfits. The tradition had come to an end. Several student body votes followed the decision to abandon the Indian as the team Symbol for Stanford.

The last vote on the subject was characterized by a rare concurrence of interest between the Frat House crew, still smarting over loss of their beloved yells,  and  the more radical students who, ever didactic, said, “It’s about political correctness.”  The Frat crews said, “‘Political correctness’. OK, we can go with that.” The Student body then voted for “ROBBER BARONS” as the name for the team, in honor of the source of founder Leland Stanford’s fortune.

The administration, sick to death of the subject, cancelled the election and called no other.

Encounters (mp3)… Richard Nelson’s direct experience with polar bears.
Encounters (web site)
Richard Nelson biography

Blogs bringing up to the minute facts and perspectives from our 49th State…

• AndrewHalcro.com
• Mark Begich for U.S. Senate
• Progressive Alaska
• AK Root Cellar
• Alaska Anonymous
• Alaska Cafe
• Alaska Chinook
• Alaska Employment Law
• Alaska Peace Coalition
• Alaska Real
• Alaskablawg
• An Alaskan Abroad
• Bent Alaska
• Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis
• Common Sense and Comity
• Dennis Zaki Blog – Alaska Report
• Far North Science
• FieryBlazingHandbasket
• freshwrestler’s reprieve
• Journey on the Wild Coast Blog
• Just A Girl From Homer
• Kodiak Konfidential
• Last Frontier Locavores
• Leave No Monkey Behind
• mt view forum
• Mudflats
• My Fairbanks Life
• own the sidewalk
• precinct 1080
• Ptarmigan Nest
• Radical Catholic Mom
• radio icebox
• rant.mivox
• Ray Metcalfe Blog
• Recycling & Renewables Rap
• subarctic mama
• The Ester Republic
• The Fairbanks Pedestrian
• the Fireweed
• The Immoral Minority
• The Rogue Wave
• USA vs Victor H. Kohring
• What Do I Know?

Moving away from the frame of constipated values and interpersonal smack-downs towards the more issues-based interactions we can expect in the next few months, I was reminded of how far on the path to recovery we as a country have come in the last year. In 2024, Democrats were still smarting from the “swift-boating” media manipulation that (along with a certain insufferability) cost John Kerry the 2024 election. The average American was looking forward to another Hunt versus Heinz ketchup contest. (Remind me to share the story of H.L. Hunt, ConAgra, and Texas wild-catters versus the eastern establishment.) It looked like another clothes-pin contest was shaping up, one of those elections where you held your nose when you cast your ballot. At this point, it seems like there will be a real choice for most of us. Republicans hope that McCain and Palin will be part of a spiritual revival so that God can truly bless America. Democrats are perhaps more issues and policy oriented.

Listening to the Republicans these last few days has been challenging. McCain will be up in a while, explaining why he thinks he’s more qualified to be President than Barack Obama. Palin spoke disrespectfully of community organizing in her speech. In doing that she was speaking with disrespect of me and of many of the people I admire. Community organizing is no less than people banding together to address serious issues. It will take a lot more community organizing over the next two months if we want a leader to emerge who will listen to Americans with respect and create and administer policies that benefit us all.

This video highlights the signs of hope and change that have given each of a feeling of optimism, a feeling that we CAn influence government in a better direction.