From time to time @MzKeekz messages me about anthropology.  Mainly she is interested in the origin of the first Americans.  She wants to know what I have been reading.  So here it is.  I might write longer a blog if I can organize it.  She is welcome to help, of course.

Africa is the most genetically diverse place on Earth.

I am relying on a milestone paper by Sarah Tishkoff, University of Pennsylvania, and an international team of scientists .  Her team identified 14 "ancestral population clusters" in Africa that share DNA markers and often share a language or culture. 
dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/04/tishkoff-et-al-on-genetic-structure-of.html

The 14 clusters are: Mbugu, Chadic, Saharan Cushitic, Eastern Bantu, NiloSaharan, Saharan/Dogon, Fulani, Western Bantu, S.African Khoesan/Mbuti, Niger Kordofanian, Sandawe, Central Sudanic, Hadza, and W.Pygmy. 

All non-African people are descended from one such cluster, or possibly two.  In other words, the Japanese, Scandinavians, Arabs, Navajos, Inuit, and Mongolians, together, are only one branch of our tree! 

In the popular view, there exists a black African race.  But really, the genetic distance between, say, the Khoesan and the Chadic is much greater than that between the Japanese and the Swedes. 

The Fulani and Cushitic (an eastern Afroasiatic subfamily) clusters, which likely reflect Saharan African and East African ancestry, respectively, are closest to the non-African clusters, consistent with an East African migration of modern humans out of Africa ..."

A FULANI WOMAN:  IS THIS OUR MOTHER?

CUSHITIC CLUSTER:  OROMO WOMEN

Dear @MzKeekz, 

Some individuals of the Fulani and Cushitic clusters certainly migrated out of East Africa. 

I read that the first Aborigines arrived in Australia around 60,000 B.P.  This was possibly the first migration of modern humans.  Later there were other population waves from East Africa.  Comments? 

There remains a great deal of controversy on this date. 

"One theory holds that a wave of migration from Africa began about 50,000 years ago, with modern humans moving north through North Africa into the Middle East, then moving east and west into Asia and Europe." 

"Another model suggests that modern humans left Africa in multiple waves of migration that started perhaps as early as 80,000 years ago, with ancient settlers dispersing globally via northern and southern routes." 

"Two separate studies published in the current edition of the research journal Science support a third theory: that a single rapid dispersal occurred somewhere between 60,000 to 75,000 years ago." 
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0513_050513_modernhuman.html

"New research points to earlier human migration out of Africa, 125,000 years ago." 
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/27/AR2011012705098.html

A confounding factor is the massive Toba volcano 74,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.  It unleashed one of the greatest eruptions ever known, flinging up thousands of cubic kilometers of rock and spreading a layer of ash across southern Asia.  If humans arrived in Asia before then, they almost certainly went extinct. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory 

  
Sincerely, 
your anthropologizing pal 

p.s.  YO MAMA FULANI.

p.p.s.  yo mama so fulani she ride a camel.

This is an update on John's health.  I am his daughter Nancy.  A week ago, a neighbor alerted me that the police and animal control were responding to some sort of wildlife event.  I rushed to his apartment to help, only to find John in a chicken costume ranting about the "goddamn fascist pecking order."

The police seemed rather confused, and I had no explanation to offer, except to plead with them to put away their taser guns.  Which they finally did.  He knows very well that he will answer to me later.

At present he is heavily sedated in a secure care facility, and not for the first time.  What did I do to deserve this?  Why does he hurt me this way?  If he's not being locked away as the Queen of England, he's a Viking warlord, or yes, a chicken.

On another occasion John really did manage to get himself tased.  The policewoman found him dressed as a camel, and he leaned over and loped toward her as if he were indeed the desert beast.  “I’m a camel!” he screamed. “I’m a camel!"  Removing his costume, he shrieked, "Hump me! Hump me!”  It did not turn out well.

The drugs do not always work. I remember finding him on his knees in the darkness outside the care facility, apparently trying to choke himself with his own hands.  But when I grabbed him, he said he was trying to un-screw his head from what he called his “neck-pipe,” so he could “check the wiring” in his own brain.

I know John has friends here in Xanga.  We all hope for a recovery.  Please leave a get-well note for him to read when he is better.

-Nancy

Do you want to improve your vocabulary?  Tired of thrashing about for the right word?  Are you being disrespected?  Regarded as a poltroon?  Mister Vocabulary Person wants to help you!

Um .. what is a Poltroon?

It means a poultry spittoon, in other words, a failed person.  It might also mean a paltry goon or a poultice macaroon or a potlatch baboon, or any one of a plethora of insults.  But it does not mean you.

What is a Plethora, and how do I get one?

A plethora is a mesozoic pterosaur discovered by Richard Dawkins in his book God is Creepy.  It originally served as a multi-purpose trove and is now used to store extinct reptiles.

I think we're at Loggerheads.

Good for you!  I have a fine collection of logger feet and logger hands, but mainly I collect their heads.  Thank you for noticing.  I like to store them in my plethora.

My teacher is Flabbergasted.  Does she need to see a doctor?

Flabbergasting refers to an indescribable sex act, so lewd that the true definition can never be said aloud, although everyone basically knows what it is. 
"Last night my girlfriend came over to my house, and after 30 ounces of vodka, I flabbergasted all over her, ruining her new cardigan."

I've been warned about a Boondoggle.  Is it dangerous?

What you've been warned about is a baboon-like primate with large canine teeth and purple hindquarters.  You'll be okay if you offer it some bananas.  Do not touch its balls.

You are in my Wheelhouse now.

Indeed.  Linda Ronstadt's "Heart Like a Wheel" went to number three in the pop charts, and it paid for her new house.  Linda Ronstadt has a wheelhouse.  You do not.

I was told that Reince Priebus means prolapsed scrotum in Portuguese.

Close, but the true meaning is an abnormal growth.

"My dermatologist just told me I have a benign growth on my reince priebus. Gotta get it scraped." 

"My dog ate some goose droppings and now he's got a bad case of reince priebus."

What is the good life?  While hitchhiking in France as a young student, I got some advice from a charming old motorist.  "Un bateau, du vin rouge, et pas trop de femmes."  A boat, some red wine, and not too many women.  This I should have remembered.

I used to work at the Survey Research Center, but it went awry -- too many women.

There is a critical mass of female staff beyond which men are not perceived as team members.  The Survey Research Center was around 72% female.  Whenever I wanted to talk about data, I had to wait half an hour for the clerical staff to finish discussing their new kitchen drapes with my supervisor.  A pervasive conversation topic was the problem with men.  True, I could have worked more on my perception-as-female skills, but I have my dignity.

The supervisor did not know Visual Basic, C++, or Access.  She got her position years earlier by creating dBase databases.  One day she placidly promised a manager that I would produce a windows version of a DOS coversheet tracking application in two days.  If you know programming, you know this is delusional.  Of course I tried patiently to describe all the steps to organize, code, test, and retest the app.  It was not what she wanted to hear. 

Mary passed away.  She lost her fight with cancer.  A black fog filled the interstices of my world, and I made an appointment for grief counseling.  At the same time, the supervisor decided I was not behaving acceptably and ordered behavior counseling.  She brought in a ditzy "family issues" administrator to say that mandated counseling was suitable for grief.  But the insurance rep said that "mandated grief counseling" was outright nonsense.  Since the insurance was not going to pay for both, I had to cover the grief counseling out of pocket. I met with the grief counselor.  As a professional, she told me she was obliged to stay in consultation with the other (political stooge) counselor.  So I just basically abandoned the grief counseling.  My fiancee did not need to have her memory fouled by these midget office hacks.  Mary was a marathoner who had earned two masters degrees and participated in many community organizations.  When I expressed dismay to my supervisor about the futility of counseling, she arranged a new disciplinary hearing for my bad attitude.  The broad never missed a chance to fabricate a complaint just to make me go away.

It was all traumatic in ways I probably still do not grasp.  Years later I returned to grief counseling.  What else was there to do?  But it was somehow too late.  It cost about a grand to find this out.  In the end it was time, not counseling, that healed the wound.  Time along with a good helping of porn.  I am assuming the wound is healed.

So I am finished with therapy.  I am alone.  I have a beard.  I have a blog.  Life goes on.

O-bla-dee.

  
What have we learned?  If this story has a moral, it is (choose the best answer):

1. Man up, tinkerbelle
2. Always buy new drapes
3. Women are always right
4. Office hacks are midgets
5. Always grow a beard
6. Always avoid therapy
7. Time heals all midgets
8. Avoid too many women

This guy turned 66 on March 12, 2013.  Woo-hoo.

New Blog Site:  I am migrating to blogspot, because Xanga is insufferably crappy.  You are welcome to visit me: LINK.  First, I am going to paste the best of the old entries.  There are about fifty of them.  Then I will start blogging anew.  To be clear on this, xanga sucks.

Survey:  Please answer the following questions honestly.

My sex is:

a. Male

b. Female

c. Other

d. Not lately

e. Yes, lots of it

f. None of the above

Most traumatic childhood event:

a. death of santa claus

b. death of imaginary playmate

c. parent on a diet

d. forced to kiss warty old relatives

e. spanked by parent

f. spanked by imaginary playmate

g. molested by santa claus

h. having a dorky name

i. forced to eat broccoli

j. maury povich seen on tv

No-one understands me like:

a. My mother

b. My father

c. My PC

d. My parole officer

If you were really depressed, I would:

a. Listen to your problems

b. Get you drunk

c. Laugh about it

d. Take your wallet

Past sexual experiences:

1. I have done it in a bed 
2. I have done it with the dead 
3. I have done it on a boat 
4. I have done it with a goat 
5. I have done it on the beach 
6. I have done it with the teach 
7. I have done it with a virgin 
8. I have done it with a sturgeon 
9. I have done it with your dog 
10. I have done it on a log 
11. I have done it on a dare 
12. Hey, I really think you care

This tune, composed and played by Oscar Peterson, will make you feel better.  I promise. 

Text by Oscar Peterson 6/16/2002
Copyright Universal Music Canada

 In my early recording days with Clef Records (owned and operated at that time by Norman Granz), I from time to time would discuss intended recording sessions beforehand over the phone from L.A. to Toronto with him. On one of these telephone discussions Norman brought up the fact that he wanted us to do an album that had a definitive blues feeling to it. The date was finally set and the Trio came to L.A. to fulfill a nightclub gig, and it was during this engagement that Norman pressed for us to get the album done. We started the recording session one afternoon just shortly after midday, and as the session progressed, Norman from time to time would leave the control room and come into the studio to go over each tune verbally with us, pertaining to the feeling that he would like each selection to have. It is true that various tunes on the album do not fulfill the blues harmonic pattern, some of them being ballads, and others being more uptempo, such as "Band Call" and "Honeydripper."

After we had recorded almost enough time to fill the album, Norman returned to the studio once more and said, "I want one tune that has a distinctive blues pattern to it. I don't care about all the modern harmonic changes and riffs; I want you to revert to the earliest blues-type format in playing this particular take."

 I decided that the only way that we could satisfy his unquenchable thirst for the early blues feel was to revert to a Baptist-type church approach. I told the group (Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen) to let me have the first chorus by myself, and they were to join me from then on throughout the tune. 

I tried, to the best of my ability, to recall the various church renderings of numerous Negro spirituals that I grew up with, and within this form I attempted to construct the melodic and harmonic first chorus of what was to become the "Hymn to Freedom." The melodic and harmonic line is total simplicity within itself, and to my thinking, personifies a form of Negro spiritual that might be sung in almost any of the black churches of America. 

After I finished the first chorus, I looked up at Ray and Ed and nodded for them to join me on the tune. They did so, with Ray taking a two-beat approach to the bass line, and Ed joined in softly with his brushes. During the improvised solo passages that followed, I glanced up at the control room glass, and could see Norman with his eyes closed and his head buried in his hands. As the blues spiritual deepened, we all seemed to react with exactly the same impetus. When it was over, Norman came into the studio smiling and said something about, "That's the way you guys should have played this whole session." Realizing that the material was original, he asked me what the title should be and I decided, due to the predominance of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the time, and the intense focus on the Civil Rights Movement taking place, that it should be called "The Hymn to Freedom." 

Sometime after its release, I started receiving calls from various parts of the United States and Europe about this selection, informing me that in various parts of the country, and the world for that matter, the "Hymn to Freedom" was being sung in various places as an anthem to the Civil Rights Movement.

Over that period of time, up to and including the present day, the song has been performed by various choral groups of varying sizes. I had the honor of being present in Aachen, Germany to hear the Deutsche Welle Choir of fifty voices perform it at the ceremony during which I was given the UNESCO International Music Prize.

I am indeed truly proud of this composition, which came about due to Norman's insistence, and I feel that he deserves to be considered part composer of the selection.

During a very personal memorial tribute that my wife and members of St. Peter's, Erindale Church arranged after Norman's death, "The Hymn to Freedom" was the final selection played on a tape during the ceremony.

I feel that perhaps in reality the Hymn realistically belongs to my dear friend, Norman Granz.  NOTE: On a recent visit to Canada by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II celebrating her Golden Jubilee, the Hymn was once again performed as a closing selection of a Gala Tribute Concert by various Canadian artists, including yours truly and my quartet. During the rehearsal in the afternoon, a lady was brought to my dressing room and introduced herself as Susan Wright, Choral Director of the Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir, who joined the Quartet, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelsohn Choir in performing the "Hymn To Freedom" as the finale of the Tribute to Her Majesty and Prince Philip. Ms. Wright informed me that the "Hymn to Freedom" has been adopted as the unofficial anthem of youth choirs throughout the world, and that these choirs always close their concerts with "Hymn to Freedom."

My mouth is full of pies, 
My brain is full of flies, 
I like to pick up guys, 
Addicted to Moon Pies, 
Or bees and butterflies, 
My head is full of lies.

My sorrow multiplies, 
I watch her as she lies, 
With alabaster thighs, 
My lunch is full of fries, 
My closet full of ties, 
My head is full of lies.

I fail to hear your cries, 
You're infinitely wise, 
You'll never compromise, 
Your worker's paradise, 
Or stare into my eyes, 
My head is full of lies.

turn around.  leave.  don't look back 

I've been given an X-rating thanks to trolls.  Not everyone can view my blog, it seems.  Please take a minute to rate me as "A"

Thank you.

I learned about this speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, from April 16, 1953, while researching defense spending.  Ike had a keen understanding of the role of the military in peace and wartime having led, of course, the allied victory in Europe.  I was amazed by Eisenhower's laser-like clarity.  Armaments are "a theft from those who hunger," he said.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

The papal conclave will soon convene in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope.  The existing pope Ratzinger announced his retirement last week in order to spend more time watching porn or something,  ahaha listen, this pageantry does not really interest me.  Here is the wikipedia article if you want accuracy.

The conclave to elect the new pope is expected to start sometime between 15 and 20 March 2013. Article 37 of Universi Dominici Gregis requires the conclave to begin between 15 and 20 days after the vacancy takes effect. Even though the see becomes vacant on the evening of 28 February 2013, the waiting period does not begin until the first full day thereof.

The see will become vacant ... but we don't need to wait until March 15 to make wagers.  International gambling sites are already taking your action.

The odds for Richard Dawkins and Bono are not shown, but we must assume they exist.  People are also betting on Bob Geldof, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, and Lance Armstrong.  Visit the web site for further surprises.

You mean Oprah could be the next pope? 
Stranger things have happened.

What will be her papal name? 
Karol Józef Wojtyła became John Paul II, and Ratzinger became Benedict XVI.  Beginning in the sixth century, popes adopted a new name in order to show how cool they were.  There has never been a female pope, so it is anyone's guess.  St. Bookclub, maybe?