Morning Update: 06/13/24

Feeling okay and doing well are two separate things. I felt fine yesterday when the day started. Tipper and I took a walk to the store, though, and I found myself running short of breath before we got there. I only needed olive oil and freezer bags, but when we got to the register, I forgot the sequence of the numbers in my PIN. I remember which numbers are involved, just not the order. Tipper was able to handle the olive oil for me, but not the freezer bags. I still need freezer bags.

I wasn’t sure I was going to make it home without having to stop and rest. The round trip is only three miles, a trip that we’ve taken often without any problem. It easily fulfills the 6000-step recommendation for the day’s activities. Yesterday, for reasons I can’t explain, my body wasn’t having it. I came home, went to bed, and pretty much stayed there. There was lunch in there somewhere, G made stew for dinner, which was really good. Still, it wasn’t all that late when I made all the cats scoot over and make room so I could go to bed for the night.

Today may be more of the same. I don’t feel rested. I need a shower and should do a load of laundry or two, but sitting here this morning I’m not convinced that any of it is actually going to happen. I wish it were easier to know which disease is causing which problem. If I did, I could contact the appropriate doctor and perhaps we could make some adjustments in medication. As it is, I just have to put up with what I hope are mere side effects to the overall situation.

I don’t know if you saw last night’s rant about the stupid things people are doing, but looking through the headlines this morning, and that’s all I’ve had time to do, I’m beginning to wonder if stupidity is part of our DNA. I’m not sure how science would prove such a concept. There would have to be a specific stupidity marker at the very least, or possibly even a stupidity gene that is handed down from generation to generation. I think the matter is worth the investigation. Let me tell you why.

2000-year-old DNA from skeletal remains found at Chichen Itza show a pattern of child sacrifice as part of religious ceremonies long before there was any European influence. They were all boys, often siblings, sometimes twins. We already know that ancient Phoenicians, Canaanites, Assyrians, and some branches of post-Abrahamic Israelites (Yahwists) all committed child sacrifice. For me, this makes an argument that void of any scientific understanding of the world or the universe, people make incredibly stupid decisions in the hope that those decisions might somehow change whatever is being experienced. Who/where they are doesn’t seem to make any difference. Stupid was there in the beginning.

Today, we sacrifice our children in different ways. Sometimes we call it war. Sometimes we call it religious rights. Sometimes we can call it safety and security. No matter what we call it or how it is achieved, the results are exactly the same: dead children offered up to appease some unknown and unknowable force in hopes that the world will get better. We blindly think that if we can just dominate this group, if we can overpower that country, if we can force this opinion over the whole populace, that things are going to get better, and if our children have to die in the process, then so be it.

Think about that for a minute. How does what we’re doing today make us any different than the ancient Assyrians, Yahwists, Phoenicians, or Mayans? Are we supposed to be comforted by the fact that we dress them up in smart uniforms and arm them with weapons that allow them to kill and be killed by enemies they never see?

This morning, there are Russian warships in Havanna Harbor. Remember what happened 60 years ago when that was just a threat? I was still little, but the memory of the fear my parents felt is still present. This morning, G7 leaders decided to use the interest from seized Russian assets to pay for Ukraine’s defense against the invading bully. Despite the UN’s demand for a cease-fire, Israel pushes deeper into Rafah and Hamas leaders say proposed amendments to the cease-fire are “insignificant.”

It’s been 1,000 Days since the Taliban barred girls from secondary education. Pro-Trump influencers fire up fears of migrant ‘invasion’ and the people they’re using don’t even know they’re being involved. Denmark recalls some Buldak spicy noodles as social media dares spread because that stupid gene apparently doesn’t fall far from the tree. Democrats are forcing a vote on women’s right to IVF in an election-year push on reproductive care. Oklahoma Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit of last Tulsa Race Massacre survivors seeking reparations because even our justices don’t really believe in Justice.

So please, dear geneticists around the world, would you mind looking for a DNA-level sign that we humans are inherently stupid? It would explain a lot of our behavior, both historic and current, and if we can identify what’s causing the problem, perhaps we can do something to curb it, if not eliminate it entirely.

Please. I’m starting to wonder how much longer we can survive ourselves.