Monday, January 19, 2009
First, let me thank all of you who have read my posts. I am honored that you took the time to read and in some cases respond. Someone once commented that they didn't know what they thought until they wrote it. I have found that true in writing this blog. In many cases, my ideas became clear to me as I wrote and revised. It has been a wonderful experience and I have tried to be regular in posting them. From now own, however, these blogs will be only occasional. I have started writing my third novel, The Hawai'i Wake, and need to concentrate my writing time on that. The Hawai'i wake is the name of the wind from Asia that blows Hawai's weather to the islands. The book tells the story of the murder of Hawai'i's first Nobel Prize winning scientist and the chaos it causes at his home university. I hope that you will check back from time to time.
Inauguration 2009
Tomorrow the US inaugurates a new president. Much is hoped from him because so much is needed, but whether he can deliver us from ourselves remains to be seen. We got ourselves into the mess by voting in the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It will take someone wielding a very sharp knife to cut away the excess, the unwise, the arrogant, and the corrupt. It will need to be someone who owes nothing to anyone. I think Barack Obama is such a man, and I think that at least four groups may be disappointed by the calm rationality with which he will conduct his presidency.
Among those groups disappointed may well be Hawaii, which has been claiming Obama as one of its own. Yes and no. The Hawaiian Islands were taken illegally from the Hawaiian monarchy by a group of businessmen who overthrew the monarchy. The US government was appealed to but chose not to return the Islands because of their strategic position. This created a permanent underclass of Hawaiians in their own lands. Today, the Hawaiians—those that remain—are at the bottom of every list that is good and at the top of every list that is bad. The intermarried population of the modern islands is called “local” rather than Hawaiian. Local culture is a mixed bag of values and attitudes derived from the Asian and Pacific peoples who met and blended there. As an outpost of the US, a far flung state five hours flying at least from the mainland, Hawaii is not and never has been a cultural outpost of the US. In fact, local people tend to disapprove of brash Caucasian mainlanders whom they call “haoles.” Obama probably escaped much of the opprobrium of being half-haole since he had an admixture of race, much as the local population does, but he was set apart in another way. He earned a scholarship to the premier, expensive, exclusive Punahou School, for which parents plot ways to get infants in line for attendance and plan to mortgage their houses if their child is offered a place. Graduates of Punahou and the other highly respected private schools in the Islands are an elite.
Then there is the group who might want him to rattle the American sabre and throw American weight around. In fact, he spent some of his childhood in Indonesia and his father’s family is African. This sets him apart because it indicates that he understands that not everyone speaks English and that people exist in other countries who do not necessarily subscribe to the American corporate way. How unique to have a president aware of a foreign language. I don’t expect him to have the xenophobic my country right or wrong, because he has some sense that people exist outside the US.
Another group who may wish to claim him and may be disappointed are the Civil Rights leaders from the Old School. These are the Southern leadership, many ministers, who held rallies and led marches, and called for justice and equality. He is the new generation and not from the South. He represents the successful entrepreneurial spirit of success that was predicated by the emotional appeals of his predecessors but is not dependent on them. He speaks in his own rational voice and will be a consummate pragmatist rather than an advocate for any particular group or religion.
The final group will be, I believe, the Democratic Party. I don't anticipate Obama allowing his policies to be dictated by the traditions of the party, He has been completely candid about the fact that partisan politics is a danger when the country faces economic ruin. Obama has to play the hand he’s been dealt and he doesn’t know yet exactly what he will be faced with. This is not the time to apply predetermined solutions. He will have to be flexible and see what will work.
I, for one, find refreshing what I believe will be his cool objectivity and eye to what’s needed rather than to group self-interest and to maintaining a guilty status quo. It’s cheering that he managed his way through the corruption of Chicago politics and managed not only to make a difference but emerge unscathed. As he takes on the monumental failures he must now address, I hope that he maintains his perspective, sets aside the unworkable ideologies and self-delusion that have marked the past administration, and gets us all back on track. He’s about the only one tough and detached enough who can do it.
Among those groups disappointed may well be Hawaii, which has been claiming Obama as one of its own. Yes and no. The Hawaiian Islands were taken illegally from the Hawaiian monarchy by a group of businessmen who overthrew the monarchy. The US government was appealed to but chose not to return the Islands because of their strategic position. This created a permanent underclass of Hawaiians in their own lands. Today, the Hawaiians—those that remain—are at the bottom of every list that is good and at the top of every list that is bad. The intermarried population of the modern islands is called “local” rather than Hawaiian. Local culture is a mixed bag of values and attitudes derived from the Asian and Pacific peoples who met and blended there. As an outpost of the US, a far flung state five hours flying at least from the mainland, Hawaii is not and never has been a cultural outpost of the US. In fact, local people tend to disapprove of brash Caucasian mainlanders whom they call “haoles.” Obama probably escaped much of the opprobrium of being half-haole since he had an admixture of race, much as the local population does, but he was set apart in another way. He earned a scholarship to the premier, expensive, exclusive Punahou School, for which parents plot ways to get infants in line for attendance and plan to mortgage their houses if their child is offered a place. Graduates of Punahou and the other highly respected private schools in the Islands are an elite.
Then there is the group who might want him to rattle the American sabre and throw American weight around. In fact, he spent some of his childhood in Indonesia and his father’s family is African. This sets him apart because it indicates that he understands that not everyone speaks English and that people exist in other countries who do not necessarily subscribe to the American corporate way. How unique to have a president aware of a foreign language. I don’t expect him to have the xenophobic my country right or wrong, because he has some sense that people exist outside the US.
Another group who may wish to claim him and may be disappointed are the Civil Rights leaders from the Old School. These are the Southern leadership, many ministers, who held rallies and led marches, and called for justice and equality. He is the new generation and not from the South. He represents the successful entrepreneurial spirit of success that was predicated by the emotional appeals of his predecessors but is not dependent on them. He speaks in his own rational voice and will be a consummate pragmatist rather than an advocate for any particular group or religion.
The final group will be, I believe, the Democratic Party. I don't anticipate Obama allowing his policies to be dictated by the traditions of the party, He has been completely candid about the fact that partisan politics is a danger when the country faces economic ruin. Obama has to play the hand he’s been dealt and he doesn’t know yet exactly what he will be faced with. This is not the time to apply predetermined solutions. He will have to be flexible and see what will work.
I, for one, find refreshing what I believe will be his cool objectivity and eye to what’s needed rather than to group self-interest and to maintaining a guilty status quo. It’s cheering that he managed his way through the corruption of Chicago politics and managed not only to make a difference but emerge unscathed. As he takes on the monumental failures he must now address, I hope that he maintains his perspective, sets aside the unworkable ideologies and self-delusion that have marked the past administration, and gets us all back on track. He’s about the only one tough and detached enough who can do it.
Friday, January 2, 2009
DNA Illusions
Recently, I had my DNA tested through www.familytreedna.com -- I’m not really sure why. Sid asked me that same question when I got the results: How was my life different now I had this information? I’m still not sure. I guess I went into it with the same sense of longing to belong that led me to my intensive searches to find my father. All I can really do at this point is repeat that famous comment by the perplexed and cautious—the process has been very interesting.
The test itself was easy enough. Family Tree sent me three tubes and a scraper to wipe down the inside of my cheek for 60 seconds. That surprised me because on the cop shows on TV they just take one swab. Not here. They wanted repeated wipes and even then said that sometimes the test had to be repeated. I dutifully swapped my cheeks sore and put the results into the tubes. Then I mailed it back and waited. They said it would take six weeks, but it took only three. Then I was sent a printout of lines of data, which presumably were some of the building blocks of my physical existence. They were all as incomprehensible to me as the fact of my existence among a world of so many possibilities. Why me? The DNA strands they reported held no answers.
Where things became interesting was in the comparisons to other people. They have 250,000 results in their database and the number grows daily. They sent me 73 names and e-mails of people sharing my genetic code, all of whom had agreed to be contacted. These people turned out to be primarily in Germany, Scotland, and England, with an admixture of French, Polish, Irish, and Swedish. Some of this made sense: my parents were strongly Scots and English so I expected that. Germany and France didn’t really surprise me either, given the pattern of invasions of the British Isles. But as it turned out, all the conclusions I jumped to were completely wrong. The movement of people was not towards England, where I was born, but spread throughout Europe of which England was only a part.
In my egocentric way, I initially used this list of national origins to bolster romantic illusions of my being unique. If I had not sprung whole from the thigh of Zeus then certainly I imagined that I was related to the Scythians, whose women warriors I once wrote about, whose people swept across the Steppes and forced their wills on the original people of Europe. Without DNA, I was free to imagine whoever I wanted to be.
Then I read the material that came with the results. Back down to earth. I belong to Haplogroup H, which means that I am descended from Helena, one of the so-called daughters of Eve—the seven women from whom most modern Europeans are descended. She is said to have been the most genetically successful of the women and her descendants, including me, can be found throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. Well, I guess you can add the Americas too. She lived about 20,000 years ago on the borders of France and Spain, her people having migrated from the Middle East. In fact, she has been so successful genetically that nearly forty percent of modern Europeans are descended from her. So much for being unique. I am child of Europe, with all the wars and conflicts and achievements that entails.
I think what I’ve learned most from doing this test is a renewed sense of wonder that one woman can be the common ancestor of so many. Despite all the famines, diseases, and wars, her genes survived. That makes us all survivors, because what are the odds of our existence anyway?—and to be carrying within us the genetic inheritance that traces back to single individuals is amazing.
Now that I think about it, I think I'll tell Sid that rekindling the sense of wonder is maybe worth the whole process.
The test itself was easy enough. Family Tree sent me three tubes and a scraper to wipe down the inside of my cheek for 60 seconds. That surprised me because on the cop shows on TV they just take one swab. Not here. They wanted repeated wipes and even then said that sometimes the test had to be repeated. I dutifully swapped my cheeks sore and put the results into the tubes. Then I mailed it back and waited. They said it would take six weeks, but it took only three. Then I was sent a printout of lines of data, which presumably were some of the building blocks of my physical existence. They were all as incomprehensible to me as the fact of my existence among a world of so many possibilities. Why me? The DNA strands they reported held no answers.
Where things became interesting was in the comparisons to other people. They have 250,000 results in their database and the number grows daily. They sent me 73 names and e-mails of people sharing my genetic code, all of whom had agreed to be contacted. These people turned out to be primarily in Germany, Scotland, and England, with an admixture of French, Polish, Irish, and Swedish. Some of this made sense: my parents were strongly Scots and English so I expected that. Germany and France didn’t really surprise me either, given the pattern of invasions of the British Isles. But as it turned out, all the conclusions I jumped to were completely wrong. The movement of people was not towards England, where I was born, but spread throughout Europe of which England was only a part.
In my egocentric way, I initially used this list of national origins to bolster romantic illusions of my being unique. If I had not sprung whole from the thigh of Zeus then certainly I imagined that I was related to the Scythians, whose women warriors I once wrote about, whose people swept across the Steppes and forced their wills on the original people of Europe. Without DNA, I was free to imagine whoever I wanted to be.
Then I read the material that came with the results. Back down to earth. I belong to Haplogroup H, which means that I am descended from Helena, one of the so-called daughters of Eve—the seven women from whom most modern Europeans are descended. She is said to have been the most genetically successful of the women and her descendants, including me, can be found throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. Well, I guess you can add the Americas too. She lived about 20,000 years ago on the borders of France and Spain, her people having migrated from the Middle East. In fact, she has been so successful genetically that nearly forty percent of modern Europeans are descended from her. So much for being unique. I am child of Europe, with all the wars and conflicts and achievements that entails.
I think what I’ve learned most from doing this test is a renewed sense of wonder that one woman can be the common ancestor of so many. Despite all the famines, diseases, and wars, her genes survived. That makes us all survivors, because what are the odds of our existence anyway?—and to be carrying within us the genetic inheritance that traces back to single individuals is amazing.
Now that I think about it, I think I'll tell Sid that rekindling the sense of wonder is maybe worth the whole process.
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