3532 You don't know you're 1/8 anything. Stop it.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

The art of life is to show your hand.

-- E. V. Lucas --

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Some woman somewhere running for some office or something has come under fire because her opponents claim that in applications she had claimed mixed heritage and used a university's diversity goals to achieve her position, and it is now discovered that her claimed mixed heritage consists of 1/32 Cherokee.

Bullpoopy.  You can't claim any genetic heritage less than 1/2 without a DNA test, and anyway, it's possible to be more culturally Cherokee than a full-blooded Cherokee, without having a single Cherokee gene.

Let's establish some definitions and ground rules.  Even 100% heritage is questionable, but let's grant that it does exist.  Most people confuse race and culture anyway.  Let's pretend that they're both valid classifications for various arguments, and for this argument I'll use common claims, not technical racial classifications.

So, let's assume someone who is 100% (let's call that 1/1) Cherokee has a baby with someone who is 1/1 European/Caucasian.  We can validly say that the baby is 1/2 Cherokee and 1/2 European/Caucasian, because half of its genes are pure Cherokee and half are pure Caucasian. (But if the child is raised Cherokee, does the proportion of genetic material matter?  Couldn't we say the child is culturally Cherokee, no matter what the genetic makeup?)

After that point, genetically speaking, all bets are off.  Because subsequent generations get a random mix of genes from the mother and father, the combination of 1/2 Cherokee/Caucasian and 1/2 Cherokee/Caucasian can produce offspring who can be genetically 1/1 Cherokee or 1/1 Caucasian, or any fraction between.  It just depends on what genes they happened to get.  The next generation is even more emulsified.  That's how white couples have black babies, and black couples have white babies.  Random combinations of available genes.

So anyone who says "I'm 1/4 German, 1/4 Welsh, 1/8 Polish, 1/8 Native American, 1/8 ..." is full of crap.  Without a DNA test you don't really know.  It's more accurate to just say, "I had a Cherokee great-great-grandmother, a Welsh great-grandmother, ...."  That at least is probably true.

So the woman who got her job at a university because she was 1/32 Native American?  The university should be ashamed. They should know better.  (So should she, unless she is at least 1/32 culturally Cherokee.  How do you measure that?  By counting and classifying her recipes and food preferences?)
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2272 Bits and Pieces

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

On NPR today, a lot of people were asked to define love. There were all kinds of complicated, fanciful, and flowery definitions, most of which seemed to fit a particular situation, and most of which seemed a bit smothering to me.

I like my definition best (of course): "Love is when you want for someone whatever makes them happy, even if it doesn't happen to include you."

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Evidence of the spread of the financial crisis - Dubai. Wealthy city. Very expensive. Disneyland, Las Vegas, and New York city all rolled into one, party center of the world (even though sin is against the law). Dubai has attracted speculators from all over Asia and the middle east. And now it's crashing.

In the US, when you can't pay for the house or the car, you can hand the keys to the bank or dealership and walk away. Not in Dubai. You pay debts, or you go to debtor's prison.

In the past four months, the police have found more than 3,000 cars abandoned at and near the airport, with the keys in them. Surprise. People are quietly sneaking onto planes, getting out.

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I knew that the US real estate market was ridiculous, especially in California. Some people still have a distorted opinion of what their property is worth. Look at what $200,000 (down from $250,000) will get you in San Diego:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego
/3225-National-Ave-92113/home/5890483/
sandicor-080074949

"Major fixer upper. Needs lots of work no bathrooms fixtures, toilets, tiles. No light fixtures, no kitchen cabinets, partial carpets, stucco needs finish. No landscape needs fence contractors. Dream major fixer sold as is. Needs some windows & new doors, may need some roofing & garage door, no exhaust fans present in kitchen or bathrooms & steps need repairs. Fixer Fixer Fixer!"

"Dream"? Do check the link. It has no foundation, is supported on a few widely spaced posts and whatever else they could find. It looks like you'd be buying nothing more than a small narrow trashed lot.

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Quote from A-Rod: "I laid my bed, now I've got to sit on it."

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I have the Maury show on in the morning because it leads into a show I really watch. I am amazed at how those people overreact! No matter what's going on with me, I'd never be accepted for the show by the producers. They don't want someone who will hear some shocking revelation and respond, "Oh. Ok. I guess that settles that." and walk away.

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Along those same lines, Ben Sherwood, author of The Survivors Club, was on PBS last night. He had some interesting things to say about people who manage to survive disasters, who breeze through crises. He says there's a misconception that most people freak out in an emergency. Actually, he's discovered that in any group of people, there will be 10% who become leaders and do exactly the right things, 80% who obey and follow those leaders, and 10% who flip out and do all the wrong things, endangering everyone else.

He says that

"An international team of scientists has identified a set of genes that seem to protect people from the greatest stresses and strains in life. Researching my book, I actually underwent genetic testing to see if I’ve got the Resilience Gene."

I find it interesting that so many people these days get old sayings wrong, even mature journalists. He said that many people, in a crisis, "run around with their heads cut off", which brings up an image quite different from a chicken with its head cut off.... I guess nobody kills their own chickens much these days.

I took the test at the above link. I came up "Realist". I am, in fact, good in a crisis, and I don't easily stress out.
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