Category: Thoughts

General thoughts and ramblings, sometimes going somewhere but not a requirement.

‘Roseanne’ Cancellation by ABC

roseanne-reboot

ABC canceled the popular ‘Roseanne’ reboot because of the furor caused by the malicious and controversial tweets posted on Twitter by Roseanne Barr and they have rightly done so. I will not dignify the remarks by repeating them here though, by now, we have all read them and know them for the racist comments that they are. Some will say that it’s okay now because she took them down and apologized. Others will say that this is just an overreaction by a “politically correct” liberal-leaning Hollywood-run corporation. But most disturbingly, I think, is that some will say that this is censorship and that it infringes on Ms. Barr’s right to free speech. I say disturbingly because no one person, no one group, especially with as great a following as Ms. Barr has, should make, as ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey put it, the “abhorrent and repugnant” remarks she made without expecting consequences. A “bad joke” she called it. The bad joke is on our society if we believe for one moment that this sort of behavior, especially coming from one so well known, is okay. It is not only wrong it’s morally wrong to even think of condoning it.

Yes, we do live in the world of the MeToo movement and the anti-bullying crusade but why they even exist goes to the heart of what is wrong with our society. We Americans were once known as a people of acceptance and tolerance, of fighting not only for the freedom and rights for ourselves but for others in the world, a giving people when we saw those in need and a righteous and moral nation that based itself on the concept that we can be better than we are. Yes, we have faltered many times through bigotry and ignorance, greed and intemperance, selfishness and indifference. And in the end, we recognize our faults and as one people we correct our mistakes by doing what is right. We don’t do that anymore.

 Instead, we are a nation divided not because of cause or politics, but because some believe it is ideologically correct to abandon our moral conscious, our duty to others, our civic obligation to uphold the basic Rights that founded our country of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. We are rotten with the abscess of hatred that corrupts our soul and gives strength to our neurosis of fear. We build walls to exclude others. We threaten with violence those that do not agree with us. We cheat those less fortunate to “get a better deal”. And most troubling we abuse others because of their gender, race, religion, and place of origin.

Is there a cure for what morally sickens our nation? I don’t know. But, I do think what that the company owned by “The House That Mickey Mouse Built” did today is in the right direction.

-A. M. Holmes

Sunday Thought

Extremist ideology has always used the idea of the “external threat” as a source of their power and “us against them” the reason for abandoning democracy for a dictatorship. Angry White Americans, because of extreme Right-wing ideological demagoguery and rhetoric, perceive themselves as disenfranchised see politically driven lies as truths. The Left is no better but nothing is more insidious than the manner in which populist nationalism brings down a republic from within. Just look at every dictatorial regime in the last 300 years that ended democracy by proclaiming “We will make our nation great again!”

“QUIT MAKING IT A CRIME TO BE QUIET IN THE CLASSROOM” from INTROVERT, DEAR

 

I read a posting on INTROVERT, DEAR titled Quit Making It a Crime to Be Quiet in the Classroom that I can relate to. I was a very quiet, awkward child in grade school and there was only one teacher that I remember, a Mrs.Truxell (sic) that ever got me. I still remember the book on dinosaurs she gave me because she understood how fascinated I was (still am) about those creatures. Just because a child seems to be quiet and not so outgoing doesn’t mean there’s something wrong or make them mentally ill. It may simply be that they are blessed with a certain introspectiveness most people can not understand. But in this age of mental health concerns how do you know the child may need help? Simple, get to know the child, find what their interest are, and most of all, never judge nor presume.

-A. M. Holmes

 

Seen on a Bulletin Board at Our Nearest Guitar Center

So, while I was waiting while my daughter was taking guitar lessons at our nearest Guitar Center…

(“THE INSTRUCTOR LOOKS LIKE EFF’N SEAN LENNON! TELLING YOU, IT’S EFF’N SEAN LENNON!”)

sean-lennon-259079-1-402 

(This is the real Sean Lennon. We couldn’t take a picture of the instructor -he wouldn’t let us. But he eff’n does look like that.)

…I took a moment to peruse the adverts and want ads posted on their bulletin board.

 

Here are a few interesting ones.

photo1

Such wonderful penmanship, Terry, you must have gotten a lot of practice writing those “sick” absentee notes for school. Betcha you got busted on the spelling, though.

 

photo2

“Original” rather than “Fake”, or “Copy” or, hey, “Cover” rock band? Love the influences although I’m tempted to play “One of the 4 is not like the Others…”.

 

photo3

“Horn players on pot who do Matchbox 20(?) and Foghat(?!!) and who are serious about living the music lifestyle practicing until midnight (radical!) and smoke pot and shit (hardcore radical!!) as long as it’s cool with Billy’s mom.” Wait-what?!

 

photo4

I’m sorry, “NovaCain” but I don’t really think the world is ready for you.

 

-A. M. Holmes

Natural Selection versus Genetic Drift in Single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs

41467_2018_4191_Fig1_HTML

Research published from The University of Queensland indicates that natural selection plays a greater role than genetic drift in SNPs dealing with height, waist-to-hip ratio, BMI, and schizophrenia among European, African, and Asian populations (Does evolution make us or are we just drifting that way?). Led by Professor Jian Yang from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience and Queensland Brain Institute, the team used more than 400,000 genetic samples from African, East Asian and European populations to determine if the SNPs (pronounced as “snips”) showed a tendency towards randomness, implying genetic drift, or not, and thus natural selection.

41467_2018_4191_Fig2_HTML

The results showed that for SNPs such as height, waist-to-hip, BMI, and schizophrenia, there was a greater frequency for height among Europeans; a greater BMI number for Africans with Europeans having greater than Asians; both Europeans and Africans falling out of the mean for schizophrenia. None of these traits showed the tendency towards a random distribution which indicates that for these SNPs natural selection plays a greater role than genetic drift. In other words, what this study says that rather than in the colloquial debate of Nature versus Nurture it’s more like Selection over Nature and Nurture not having a factor at all. This is important in that it gives hope for the potential to treat certain ailments, such as schizophrenia through treatments such as CRISPR. 

It has left me to wonder how much of natural selection over genetic drift influenced hominin traits? Eyebrows/brow ridges, robust/gracile, even “having a chin” how were these more a product of selectivity among groups than randomness among Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans? More intriguing, could this be applied to culture as well? 

-A. M. Holmes

 

 

Wow, and I thought I was a Progressive Thinker.

Three female scientists discussing their research

This morning I got a Twitter notification from All Revolutions (@RevolutionsCen) about an article from The Atlantic by Ed Young (@edyong209 ) where, as he tells it in I Spent Two Years Trying to Fix the Gender Imbalance in My Stories , “I knew that I care about equality, so I deluded myself into thinking that I wasn’t part of the problem”.  He had seen how a lot of his articles reflected a gender bias he never intended to portray. Reading this opened my eyes to the fact that even though I claim to be “gender-blind” I wasn’t doing any better. Here I’m thinking I’m a progressive thinking person now to find out I’m as dirty as our misogynist President (I wasn’t aware of Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, and CRISPR). I was fooling myself completely. Now I begin to wonder where else has my supposed “blindness” toward gender, race, or ethnicity has misled me to promote instead the same prejudices I have always felt unjust?  The article is very enlightening. Also, it has good resource information at the end of it.

-A.M. Holmes

“Populism” is the New “Nationalism”

 

The New York Times op-ed says, “If freedom is to prevail over the many challenges to it, American leadership is urgently required.” Unfortunately, the U.S. has leadership but not in the form it needs to preserve freedom.

In the U.S. “Populism” has become just another word for “Nationalism”. “America Great Again”, “America First” these are fascistic slogans used by a radical movement within the GOP that has Trump as its leader. This is a group that believes in the suppression of the free press, divisiveness along socio-economic and cultural lines, isolationism, and “bread and circuses (tax breaks and parades) for the masses. These people are elitists who have nothing in common with the average American and yet know how to manipulate and lie to achieve power through the ballot box. They are un-American and if we continue to allow them to usurp the government they are a threat not only here but globally as well.

-A. M. Holmes

Where the Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot Is My Lasagna?

DSCN2825

I think there’s something seriously wrong with me. Or is it maybe it’s the universe that took a left turn on me? I went to the grocery store this morning and I swore I got a Stouffer’s lasagna to make for dinner.

 

At least, I thought I did.

 

Nope, no lasagna in the bag after I got back.

Here’s the messed-up part. It’s not on the receipt. Instead, though, I have a bag of “country style hash browns”. WTF? I can’t even eat potato and yet, there they were AND PAID FOR!

 

But no lasagna.

 

I think I just had a Mandela Effect moment and my lasagna slipped into an alternate universe. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

A. M. Holmes

 

Scoobynatural!

scoobynatural

 (Image courtesy of Entertainment Weekly and The CW)

 

Tonight on the CW at 8 pm/ 7pm central is the crossover episode I’ve been waiting for since I first there was the possibility it could happen. ‘Scoobynatural’! Yep, that’s right folks. The venerated cartoon classic from the 70’s will be coupled together with the series ‘Supernatural’ in some freakish impossible way that can only happen to the Winchester brothers. Dean (Jenssen Ackles @JensenAckles), Sam (Jared Padalecki @jarpad) and Castiel (Misha Collins @mishacollins) all star in the show along with Scooby, Shaggy, Freddy, Daphne, and Velma. I’m as giddy and excited as a little school girl waiting for her parents to bring home the puppy she saw at the pet store and wanted it so bad. Yeah, like that.

Briefly, because that’s all we have, after Dean purchases a tv for his “Man Cave” at the Men of Letters bunker he, Sam and Castiel are transported into the animated world of ‘Scooby-Doo’. The Winchesters figure that this is a scheme by the Trickster to torment them (if you don’t follow the show just trust me when I say that, yeah, this something he would do) and believe that the only way out is to finish the storyline of the cartoon episode. Dean, the ‘Scooby-Doo’ aficionado takes lead thinking he recognizes the mystery to be solved. So, the three of them meet up with the Scooby Gang (Dean writing off the bucket list by finally meeting his lifelong dream girl, Daphne) and they help along trying to solve the mystery. Except, as if things can’t get any weirder, this is not that Dean, or anyone, remembers and now they are as clueless as the local law enforcer. 

The others starring in the show as voices are Grey (DeLisle) Griffin as Daphne, Kate Micucci as Velma, Frank Welker as Scooby and Freddy, and (drum roll please) Mathew Lillard doing what he has been done very well for years, Shaggy. It is written by ‘Supernatural’ seasoned writers Eric Kripke (creator/producer of the show), James Krieg and Jeremy Adams. It is directed by another ‘Supernatural’ veteran, writer, producer, director Robert Singer.

As of this posting, the show premieres in a little less than two hours. I’m already silencing my phone, getting dinner ready, and making sure, for the fifth time today, that the DVR is set to record so I can see it again. And again, and again. I also warned my friends, children, and ex-wife I’m running in ‘silent mode’ so “no one visits, calls, messaging unless someone is bleeding profusely and at the ER and even then, be near death”.  A little over the top? Well, at least I’m not locking my wife out -she’s a fan.

-A. M. Holmes