My headline, here, my title for today's blog posting, is an intentional overstatement. My apologies! I wasn't really trying to trick you. I was just trying to grab your attention. The actual truth, as outlined in an article in The Wall Street Journal, is as follows:
New DNA research shows that half the human beings alive today are descended from the Yamnaya, who lived in Ukraine 5,000 years ago.
So, not 100%. Only "half" of us are "Ukranians." Still, 50% is an awful lot! Probably half the people who live in Russia today, which nation is powerfully engaged in trying to kill Ukranians, are decended from the Yamnaya, too, just as 50% of those of us who live in the United States are.
Maybe we should all stop trying to kill off our brothers and sisters. What do you think?
That's a thought, anyway - and it's a thought that I have had for a long time. Starting when I graduated from college, in 1966, I have been, on the record and officially, against "participation in war, in any form, by reason of my religious training and belief." That's a "magic phrase" in the arena of Selective Service law, by the way, which was my specialty when I first came to Santa Cruz as a young attorney in 1971. Click right here for a discussion of an important Supreme Court case that established the rule that excuses "conscientious objectors" from military service.
If we would all stop killing each other off, in the alleged pursuit of some positive (usually national) goal, maybe we could get together to address some of the massive global problems that are affecting everyone. I do include global warming right at the top of that list.
In fact, global warming is just "warming up" as a problem, the way I see it, and represents a huge challenge to human civilization. A lot more damage is still to come, if we continue our present patterns of consumption and combustion, which are on the road to making Planet Earth uninhabitable.
The picture at the top of this blog posting shows us where we are each headed, individually.
Memento Mori and all that. That has always been the case. However, we have also operated on the assumption, thinking about death, that if we are not going to be able to live forever, individually (and, of course, we won't be able to do that, individually), we can still have confidence that our children, and their children... will carry on after us. "If I don't make it, I know my baby will," to quote Bob Dylan.
Anyway, that's the thought that we are putting at risk today. Global warming; nuclear war; worldwide pandemics; environmental degradation - all of these are what we do need to identify as "credible threats" to the longterm continuation of human civilization. Once in a while, that's worth thinking about.
From time to time, I like to end these blog postings with a song, when that seems appropriate - and it doesn't always have to be a Bob Dylan song, either.
Today, this Sunday, let's think about what The Youngbloods have to tell us Click here for the lyrics; click below for the song:
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