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Normally, I have a great deal of respect for The Guardian, certainly more than any other newspaper.  I think they missed the mark on this article, though.

Smart Neanderthal

Not through a lack of reporting.  A lack of reporting  can  almost be assumed, since we’re talking about Neanderthals and none of them have been  interviewed  for 40,000 years, at least.  We don’t have journalism.  We have speculations from scientists.  Which is better than science from speculators.  But it’s not good enough.

The crux of the article was that Neanderthals were just as intelligent as Homo Sapiens.  Oh, yeah?  We’re alive, they’re dead, so Q.E.D.  Of course, they might have been bright in some ways.  Perhaps they were amazing  musicians, we don’t know.  They may have had a rich and complex oral literature.  And we don’t know exactly how they died.

But if there was fighting  between Humans and Neanderthals (as I suspect there was, it’s the way of the animal world) we either developed better weapons  earlier,  outstrategized them, or both.  Because we were smarter.

Certainly, it is  a shame.  Human art would be richer, and our lives on Earth infinitely more interesting , if we  had the influence of another intelligent species to interact with.  How much  have  we lost, with the genocide of the Tasmans, and the Incas, and the Aztecs, and the North American Indians, and so many more?  And this was a whole different species.

It seems to me that they died out a few thousand years after Homo Sap discovered the joys of farming, which may have been a factor.  While the hunter-gatherers could keep up  in good times, when the cold hit, they were fucked.  Human beings had already invented four  walls and discovered the warmth to be had from sleeping in close quarters with cows and  goats. Smellier, but smarter.

Maybe it’s because, as I read in one article, they lived in small groups so had a  more  limited  gene pool.  Not real smart, right there.

This article  didn’t go into any of that, though.  It just pointed out that there was no proof they were dumber.  Which is true.  There are a million possible reasons why they died and  we lived which have nothing to do with intelligence.  Epidemic,  for one.  O.K., maybe not a million, but some.  But proving that we can’t prove they were dumber isn’t the same as proving that they weren’t.

For a couple of weeks there, I was  seeing articles about this new wondermaterial, Graphene, that was going to revolutionize electronics.  Dang, electronics is just getting revolutionized again and again.  I didn’t really look into it in depth, although new materials have an impact, and I wondered how this would affect the space telescope.

Then, in the last few days,  there are articles all  over the place about how graphene will destroy the environment, graphene is the evillest, most dangerous substance there is.  O.K.  Glad I didn’t jump on that bandwagon.  I remember I totally bought the hype when they said that Segway was going to be a revolution in transportation.

It seems like an awfully sharp turn, though, and that makes me suspicious.  I picture 5 or 6 rich guys sitting around, in a cavernous wood paneled room.  “So, whaddya think about this graphene stuff.”  “Oh, I dunno, I guess it’s gonna cost us money.” “What the hell is it, anyway?” “I dunno.  Some kind of new material.” “Kill it.”

But the thing is, if it isn’t good, it isn’t good, but it’s still a step in the  right direction, because people are looking for new solutions and eventually they will find them.

Of course, the main purpose of  the internet, the goal, if I say so myself, and I do, is to converse as randomly and as diversely as necessary to eventually wind up with the miracle conversation in which everything is laid out, the facts neatly separated from the bullshit, and a consensus of humankind is reached as to how to go forward and create a utopian future.

Of course, what you wind up with is the same old garbage repeated over and over.  It’s not a fundamental change in human nature, that tendency to focus on the lowest common denominator has always been the hallmark of groupthink, but damn…

While working on this month’s version of “Watson’s World News” an online newspaper we put together for  English language students, culled from the scandal sheets of the world, I came across a story of a man, obviously a gem of a human being until proven guilty, who has been charged with murder.  He wants to have his tattoo removed before he goes to court because he thinks it might give the jury the wrong idea.  The tat say MURDER, in all caps, on his neck.

There was one thing in the story that made me curious, that made me want more information.  All of the stories I read, from multiple sources, were almost identical.  Just a few lines below a picture of the tattoo, actually.  And one of these lines was always “charged with the murder of Damon Galliart, whose body was found by hunters in a ditch by the roadside.”

I searched through several pages.  I read a blog, I read a series of short police reports from Kansas.  I tried changing the search words, not mentioning the murder at all, hoping I would find something about Damon Galliart prior to being murdered by the man with the funny tattoo.  Maybe “Damon Galliart Wins Swim Meet”  or “Damon  Galliart Arrested for DUI,” but nothing.

They didn’t say “Damon Galliart, a young backpacker,” or “a seemingly homeless person identified as Damon Galliart.”  They didn’t say “Damon Galliart, a well known local restaurateur and father of 3,”  or even “Damon Galliart, 46.”

It’s as if the only important thing Damon Galliart did in his life was to be murdered, allegedly by a man with a funny tattoo.  Not funny ha-ha, more funny ironic.

Likewise, there was nothing in the article about the method of the murder or the evidence against Tatman.  Just the tattoo.  Admittedly, it’s a prejudicial item and I think a case could be made for it as circumstantial evidence, i.e. somebody who gets a tattoo that says MURDER has at least entertained the possibility of murder.  Of course, most of us have, but figuring out how much of that is fantasy and how much of that is planning, there’s the rub.

The newspapers don’t give us the whole story, just the bits they think we’d like to read.  And we,  with our comments and our blogs, tend to bob right along like jetsam in their wake.  Until we start wanting the whole story, and demanding it, and get better at ferreting it out,  we will continue to laugh at  people with bad tattoos,  and the ruling classes will control the dialog.

Today was just as normal a day as ever was.  Monday, so Helen took the kids to school as I’ve got an 8 a.m. lesson, and it is the perfect lessen to begin the week.  5 minutes walk from the house, a nice looking office girl with intermediate to advanced English.  We talk about things and sometimes I read her Tarot cards.  It is a low stress lesson, a nice way to start the week.

Then I came home, worked on a few stories for “Watson’s World News”: a robotic cow milker so cows can just get milked whenever they like and I sure think that has potential to change the world.  Not just because the cows choose more frequent milkings and therefore the amount of lactose deliciousness extracted is somewhat higher, not just because farmers get to sleep in, but because of the long term ramifications of robots allowing animals to have greater control over their own destinies.  Then an article about how Czech Deer still won’t walk across the German border, even though the electric fence has been down for 25 years, and most deer only live for about 15.  Then, of course the cute little story about the half-zebra, half-donkey animal, called a zonkey, that was just born in Mexico.

Then, I left the house at 11, thinking that gave me plenty of time to walk to my class at school, which is a lovely walk, along the river for the most part.  I got there on time, but I had to hustle at the end.  Gave the little brats a test and deliberately made it ridiculously easy.  I knew some of them were going to flunk it no matter what, and four did.  Two of whom I hadn’t expected.  Still, a lot of the class dullards actually got through it.  I just gave them 1 flashcard each, words like “mother,” “hat,” “dog,” “kite” etc.  and gave them 10 minutes to write 6 questions, using who, what,  when, where, why and how.

After that, had just time to come home and make lunch, fortunately there was an adequate supply of leftovers, then I went to pick up Isabel from school and take her to ballet.  We’d arranged for someone to come pick up Isabel, but my next lesson wasn’t until 5:15, and the ballet school has a coffee machine that only costs 10 crowns, so I waited in the lobby and tried, without much success, to write a poem and then the rain came fallin’ down and oh, my lord, it poured, and it felt so good. I am at the age now where I feel the barometric pressure, it’s not just a bone thing, there is a lethargy and a dullness that comes with it, and when the rain comes it just dissipates, like all of your anxieties and bottled rage at walking the floor at night with a screaming infant just dissipate the very second you realize they are asleep.

I end my Monday workday with another adult lesson.  We talked about Crimea and Ukraine and the similarities between the Ukrainian Russians and the Sudeten Germans, and a very funny incident of his kid falling in the mud.

I  realized as soon as I finished writing my blog yesterday that I had totally missed the point, with regard to Donald Sterling.  Not the point about him being a hideous old racist.  I’m sure everybody got that point, loud and clear.  You would have to be sub-sentient not to get that point.

No, I mean  the existence of the tape and the existence of miss V. Stiviano, whatever the heck the V. stands for.  Doesn’t matter.  She could be a Veronica, or a Violet, or a Valerie.  I can’t think of a single girl’s name starting with V that I don’t think is sexy, but this girl would be hot even if her name was Cthulhu All-Spark.

It’s not hard to read their relationship.  He is a rich, old man, with a puffy, wrinkled face and a mean demeanor.  He’s the top dog in a dog eat dog world, but he’s grizzled and gray.  She is young, and thin, with beautiful skin.  Long, dark hair.  Big, brown eyes.  And a strong determination to get ahead.

An unstoppable determination.  Look at her.  Look at him.

Of course, it’s just the old cute, young thing glomming on to a dirty old man strategy, which has been used by young women worldwide for centuries, nay, millenia.  What is new here, what is different?  First, small, concealed recording devices are not totally new, they’ve been around since probably the 50s, if not before, but they are getting smaller and better every day.  Second, there is the existence of Instagram, twitter, YouTube, facebook, and all the others.  Third, and maybe at least partially due to ‘second,’ racism is just not socially acceptable any more.  He was talking about how “that’s just the way it is, the way it always has been, and the way it always will be.”  He’s wrong about that last.  I see the walls are crumbling, a little every day.

Anyway, the reason I believe Miss V. Stiviano set her disgusting louse of a boyfriend up was her calm and collected demeanor throughout.  She was either totally acting or she’s totally the coolest person in the world.  (You are allowed to choose both)  If this was a real conversation between a girl and a man she had some feeling for who’d just told her that “Yeah, I know you’re half black, but I really don’t want anybody else to know, ”  crockery would have been broken.  Bad words would have been spoken.  Very fast.  In Spanish.  While she was stomping on his head.  With high heels.

But no.  She was all “I understand what  you’re saying” and other nice, polished phrases like that.  She set him up.  She was tired of taking his racist shit and she set him up.  She may have had another motivation.

Soon we will see her on talk shows.  She will cry with Oprah, sing a silly song with Jimmy Fallon.  Then will come guest spots on soap operas and NCIS.  Maybe even a film or two.  She could be the next Vanessa Williams.  See, another V.