EVOLUTYION: WHAT WAS AND WHAT IS

As I get older, I realize all the many states of learning one must pass through.  Whoever designed us was pretty ironic.  Just we finally got it right, we either lose it all to dementia or die.  It would have been kinder if the designer had reversed it so that we were fully developed by age 18 and endowed with all the wisdom needed to make satisfactory life choices.  Then we might have several decades to truly enjoy life fully equipped for it instead groping our way or stumbling though it. 

It would be even better if all people really were made equal in intelligence, health, creative ability and all those good things a few seem to start out with or later acquire.  Speaking of intelligence, would it not be nice if our politicians had equal intelligence and knowledge.  We wouldn't have had men assigned to  science committees who lacked even a basic knowledge of human biology or science in the 21C.  Of course, responsibility also rests with the leaders in the Congress who appoint incompetent people to those positions.

How can we call ourselves a democracy when we have a Supreme Court who ruled that we should allow corporations and the wealthy to buy us our politicians.  Fortunately, the people saw through some of that and voted President Obama into office.  We must consider that there are politicians who still do not believe in evolution.  I heard the comeback of a physician to a patient who came in needing an antibiotic to kill a virus.  The doctor said that 30 years ago a particular antibiotic was used but it will not longer kill that virus which has adapted to it (otherwise known that had evolved).  Another has been developed.  He asked the patient if he would like the one that worked 30 years or the one being used today.

WHEN WEATHER DETERMINES ONE'S OUTLOOK ON LIFE

Today the world looks grim. It is raining and forecast to continue to rain all day with high winds and temperatures in the 40s. It is the middle of October and yesterday there were snow flurries. All that shouts that summer is over and winter not far has made itself clear. Inside the house, the furnace is unevenly heating the house as always. Hot and cold, alternating, as the forced hot air is never on long enough to heat the walls and furniture. The toilet seat is cold...the greatest insult to one's body imaginable!

When all the lights have to go on at noontime, the sense of dread drops over me like an umbrella caving in on me. World News only intensifies the sense of impending unpleasantness. Now the gloom is not only within but I am surrounded, as well, without. Snow flakes the size of quarters are falling against the greens, oranges, reds and yellows of the fall showing of leaves. It would be lovely if it weren't such an unwanted harbinger.

Then a realization surfaces. It is mid-October and my light box is still in the basement. Now I know why my body won't shed an ounce...it is grasping at every calorie ingested, to save it for hibernation in winter. Ever since a doctor told me I have vestigial tail bones at the end of my spine, I have known I am not as highly evolved as many around me. My S.A.D needs attention.

Never having been one to need to cry to rid myself of an excess of cortisol, I find a strange urge to weep creeping up on me. Another clue that I'd better get the light box beside me and on, especially on days like today. However, I need a surface on which to place the box to allow me benefit from the light. My bed is where I spend the greatest portion of my day. My computer is second, so it goes next to me there. Now all that is left is to clear a table to put it on...Oh, no!...I need a few days of the effects of the light to ready me to sort what to do with everything piled on the table since last winter...horrors!...how do I manage that one???? Eek!

EVOLUTION DOES NOT ALWAYS PLAY BY THE SAME RULES

Evolution is one of the most poorly understood phenomena in Nature. We know one rule, survival of the fittest. But here we fall into assumptions. We have believed that the fittest will always be the largest and strongest, but Nature knows better. Sometime less is better as in the case of the Soay sheep in Scotland. Because the smallest ones survive the winters there better, it has been observed that the sheep have shrunk 5% since 1985. As scientists make that observation, I cannot help but wonder if there aren't some other significant factors. Has the food available changed significantly. What other factors might be at play. Perhaps those who made the conclusion know what they are not sharing, if there may be anything at all.

This kind of research is extremely difficult because there cannot be strict control of the variables. Regardless of how and why it is happening, the fact remains that the sheep that survive have shrunk 5% in 23 years. For more details and the full BBC article, look here.

ANOTHER RAINY DAY

It seems as though it has already rained forty days and forty nights. Not only has it rained, but there has been thunder and lightning. When there are strong winds, we tend to lose electricity. It follows: one feels powerless without power! It is hard to read by flashlight only. Candles romantically illuminate but do little to enable reading small print.

These gray days make me tired, too tired to even look for the rainbow that must be there when it rains and the sun shines at the same time. Having seen rainbows in my lifetime (actually two, at once, over the Golden Gate Bridge) I can stay comfortable and dry and picture the rainbow in my head. It satisfies me, yet I wonder if memories like that are robbed by age. Are they less significant than plot novels, which I can't retain as soon as I have read the last page?

Straining to breathe the humid air, I realize that I am also straining it somehow through my nostrils. I wonder when my evolutionary lungs will revert back to gills. My ability to hold my breath under water has never been strong. In fact the closest i came to it was watching the guy on TV having himself waterboarded. Of what am I thinking? Give me some dry air!

Parking lots are small lakes. There is no way to see just how deep they are until I follow the car in front or find myself wishing my car was amphibious. Indoors, the humidity is quickly oxidizing the brass and silver I so recently used all my elbow grease to polish. Pages stick to one another; the next page makes no sense. Confusion forces me back. Everything around me has lost color.

I've begun counting the squirrels in the back yard and am sure a pair is missing. When I hear pounding I search for the Ark but since we live on a hill, I have yet to see signs on Noah, not even Evan Almighty. Meanwhile I watch the weather map and get cheered up. It's worse everywhere else. As I swallow more Vitamin D, I fantasy the death I am avoiding from tornadoes, forest fires, and earthquakes. Turning into a prune with moss on my North side seems preferable, somehow.