“Each of these lives is the right one! Every path is the right path. Everything could have been anything else and it would have just as much meaning”
by Nemo ( actor Jared Leto) from the movie Mr.Nobody
All posts by Philip Wardlow
What is in that 2%
Neil Degrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and consummate educator of all things Sciencey… 🙂 – Stated that in regards to DNA, chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas share approximately 98% of our DNA.
OMG! Think about that 98% and that small difference he exclaimed!
Humans can do complex math, humans create and design great edifices, travel into space, perform surgeries, compose music, write books, and create wonderful works of art…etc.
Chimps can be taught sign language, to count, perhaps to ride a bike, or create rudimentary tools to accomplish a task. But that is where it ends for them. (does it? I ask) That has been the height of their evolution. (is it? I ask)
He then went on to speculate and ask, what is in that 2% of our DNA that bestows these great intellectual gifts upon us humans yet denies the Chimp access to it?
What is in that 2% ?
He goes on further and asks what if we were to meet aliens from another planet and our situation was reversed.
What if we were the chimps and we had only 98% of DNA in common with that alien race?
How SMART would they be compared to us? Our smartest Mathematicians on the planet would be drooling idiots next to their children coming out of 1st grade. Their pre-school children would probably intuitively just know Algebra like our children know 1 +1 .
(That possible fact, if it were to be one, would shout that we are not as special in this universe as we like to think we are but I digress..)
What discoveries have they already made while we are still banging rocks on the ground to open a nut. Wonders I imagine, he speculates ( I am paraphrasing).
YES, a interesting concept BUT Neil never goes the other way in his thinking.
True they might know wondrous things, mysteries may be revealed to them beyond our chimp like comprehension.
BUT at what cost?
How many wars have we waged on this planet? How much violence has been done against another in the years we have lived together? We are the least savage and the most “civilized” and the smartest animal on this planet?
So what of those aliens. Does their intellect exceed their civility and universal morals ? Or does it keep pace? Are they violent, bigoted, sexist, apathetic, a specist (yes that last one is an actual problem here on our planet).
My theory is that it’s a mixed bag by all probability. Meaning, one set of aliens out there are well adjusted and smart as hell and way above us intellectually but are very civilized and peaceful with very minimal violence towards themselves and their own planet.
While another alien race out there is smart as hell also but the most corrupt species and apathetic, greedy, power hunger seeking race you will ever not want to encounter in your entire lifetime no matter the curiosity you might feel of wanting to know if life exists outside of our blue ball a planet. Keep them distant please, thank you very much.
WILL we get better ourselves. WILL our intellect still exceed our morality like it has for millennia after millennia. Will we end up that alien race that goes out one day into the galaxy like Columbus sailing from the shore of Espana to the West Indies claiming lands in the name of Queen Isabella subjugating, raping , enslaving, and killing the locals?
I would like to think not….but meh..who knows…I am always surprised on a daily basis at what depravity exists in our world on Earth.
Time will tell if our DNA wins over our hearts and tells us if that 2% makes us better or worse.
Peace? What’s that? I want a piece
2013 International polls as reported by BBC news shows that the world , including a significant portion of Americans, deem the United States as the greatest obstacle to peace:
It seems most Americans are not aware that these Polls came out. Apparently none of the top Five news organizations here in America ever mentioned it back in 2013.
See original online article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-25496299
My Kind of Humor #2
A Spanking is needed
The world needs to be taken and spanked
No admonishments, no time outs, no taking away
of their favorite pastimes, friends or toys.
Just simply bend them over, pull down their pants,
and SMACK!
Kick your legs, wail and cry if you must world,
but its long over due.
Like “Oh Fudge” there are certain words or phrases that cannot
be undone or taken back,
nor deeds that need to be reasoned or examined.
Vicious little children at times,
knowing sticks and stones do break
bones as their words
words sink in and bite them.
I want to spank the world until their breath
comes in shudders and they are barely
able to mutter, a single syllable of hate.
Feel the shame burn below,
Feel the lesson course in your soul
that begs to be enlightened.
Sit gingerly and remember the pain
and know it may come again
if you continue your childish
ways.
Grow up oh little world,
Grown up.
Philip Wardlow 2016
Pigment problems
In the days not too long past,
the whitest of white
sought to separate themselves from
the working class.
Men and women both splashed the white powdery ash
upon their face, lest they face the wrath and derision of a fellow
friend who might have thought they worked in the fields,
tolling with broken back in an honest man’s way all day.
Oh no, perhaps they might have caught a bit of sun that flitted through
a pane or two as they sat in their darkened parlor of a room.
The pallor of their skin showed the true sin, yet they knew it not.
For why could anyone every feign to believe that the mere
color of your skin could raise your station in this impartial life
we lead.
Were that a fact, then by all means dunk me in a bucket of bright white and
send me out into the world to fight the good fight.
Ah, but we all to come to the party late, for you see,
dead is dead at the end of the day no matter the skin your in.
So dash off your clothes, fling them to the ground
whether you be white, yellow, brown,
black or chartreuse
Run down the beach with bare cheeks.
Soak it in.
From the bottom of your feet to your bum and all the way
most especially
to that brain which sits up in that head
that dwells their aching to be used.
Let it finally see some sun.
Trust me,
you will be happier in believing you
are not above it all when you come to
realize your are human just like me.
and will continue to be all the
more days to come.
by Philip Wardlow 2016
Keshia Thomas reflects on saving man from beating outside KKK rally
Below Article written by
By The Ann Arbor News
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on October 31, 2013 at 5:35 AM, updated October 31, 2013 at 12:39 PM
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2013/10/former_ann_arborite_reflects_o.html
Keshia Thomas is now in her 30s and living in Texas, but she’s still remembered for an act of courage and kindness at the age of 18 when she saved a man in a Confederate shirt from being beaten outside a Ku Klux Klan rally in Ann Arbor.
The Ann Arbor News caught up with Thomas by phone on Wednesday as accounts of her inspiring story from the 1996 incident were once again making their way around the web following a feature story in BBC News Magazine.
“Personally, the one thing I take away from it is that you never know what change can happen in just a moment,” she said of how things unfolded that day. “Whether you do the right thing or the wrong thing, change happens in just a moment.”
Thomas was with an anti-KKK group protesting the rally the white supremacist organization was holding outside Ann Arbor’s city hall on June 22, 1996. At one point, a woman with a megaphone shouted, “There’s a Klansman in the crowd!”
Thomas, who was still in high school, turned and saw Albert McKeel Jr., clad in a Confederate shirt with a Nazi tattoo on his arm. It wasn’t long before mob mentality took over and the crowd had McKeel on the ground.
Thomas, horrified to see the man being kicked and beaten, threw herself on top of McKeel to shield him from the blows.
Thomas said she hasn’t had any contact with McKeel since that day, but she did meet one of his family members some months after the incident. She said a younger man came up to her in a coffee shop and thanked her.
“For what?” she asked. “That was dad,” the man replied.
Learning that the man had a son, Thomas said, gave her a greater perspective on everything.
“Imagine what would have happened if they had killed his father out there,” she said. “That would have just been another person filled with anger, hate and revenge.”
Attempts to reach McKeel were unsuccessful.
Thomas, who was born in Detroit and raised in Ann Arbor, said she moved out of the area back in 2002 and lived in southern California for a while before moving to Houston about a year ago, where she now works at a restaurant.
She said she still has family in the Ann Arbor area and plans to move back to Michigan before long so she can be part of the revitalization of Detroit.
“Detroit is getting a lot of negative attention with the bankruptcy and everything that’s going on, but I’m really proud of what people are doing there,” she told the Ann Arbor News on Wednesday. “We have to continue to go forward.”
Thomas said she’s concerned about the violence that plagues the city, where the homicide rate is the highest it’s been in 20 years and shootings occur daily. FBI crime statistics show Detroit witnessed 386 homicides in 2012.
“You can’t change an environment like Detroit until you change people’s thought process,” Thomas said. “If you can change somebody’s mind, thoughts and ideas, then their actions change, and that’s the most important thing.”
Thomas said she’s still trying to make a difference in the world and still trying to break down racial stereotypes through small acts of kindness.
She said disaster relief work has been a passion of hers over the years, whether that’s meant going to Ground Zero after the twin towers fell or helping those in need following Hurricane Katrina and wildfires in California.
**************************************************
Word from me:
To add to this story, McKeel’s son found her later in his life and thanked her for stepping in to protect his father that day. I think that right there shows a lot about the effect she had. The son didn’t have to come to seek her out, but he did, the son of a clansman sought to seek her out to thank her .
Imagine that….. 🙂
#unsung
Chaos also dances
Chaos also dances~
Angels may dance on the head of a pin
but no one has ever told you that their partners
called Chaos are dressed in drab coats
disheveled and dirty with drink in hand, barely
able to stand as they try to keep up with the music.
They fling obscenities to the wind, raucous and rank.
Who invited them to this dance?
Did they come of their own volition or did they
receive in the mail a nagging invitation,
with promise of delicious Hor D’oeuvres served on
a golden plate to soothe a palate knowing only
seeming hate.
There is only so much room on this floor.
Only so much of this crowd that this world
can allow.
This pushing, this jostling, as elbows fly.
So, I shall take my drink and withdraw to
the balcony, stepping into the
cool night air.
And toast the moon and the stars, wishing I was
anywhere but here.
by Philip Wardlow 2016
My thoughts dwell in Nice, France
My heart is with France and the people in the city of Nice who fell victim to a terror attack last night…. ❤
My kind of Humor
Ain't no rest for the Wicked - Philip Wardlow - The real and the sensual sides to life in all its facets.. 