You too can grow up to be President

In the 1960's a groups of eager first graders were told that if they worked hard enough, that anything was possible in the US, they could even become president! This mantra was repeated many times during the 60's maybe even the 70's, might have been in the 80's and I have no clue about the 90's and after.

What they should have said to us is that you have a chance of being president as long as you aren't African-American, Latino, Chinese-American, Japanese-American, Somali-American, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Wiccan, Pagan, Buddhist, Sikh, female, transgendered, gay, etc. etc. etc.

Basically little first graders if your not white, male and Christian, you need not apply.

Well it's 2007 and it's gotten better, women and non-white born Americans have a better chance at being president. Many countries developed, western, and developing beat us at having a more diverse pantheon of leaders than we do. We now have Jews, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Latinos, gays and women in the House and Senate (how Henry Ford and others must be spinning in their graves)

But the presidency and vice presidency are still prizes only for the white, Christian males.

But we are still making progress, or so we thought when Minnesota elected the first Muslim, Keith Ellison (D-MN), to congress. Apparently if Keith had been a "good quiet ni_ _ er" and just went along, everything would have been fine. But he had the audacity to want to have his ceremonial picture taken with the Qur'an instead of the Bible.

The right wing fear mongers have gone nuts. Of course they only needed an excuse and Keith probably gave them this to get it over with. But still, only days away till the new congress convenes, one wonders how http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/02/goode-ellison-911/ hysterical Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) will deal with his colleague.

Maybe Mr. "Goode" should go to the 10 Islamic schools in VA and look into the face of the children going to school and tell them that they may pay taxes, be good citizens of this country, contribute to society in a meaningful way, BUT because they are Muslim they may not participate in the government, except for voting (and we'll try and make sure your precinct doesn't get enough ballots).

Maybe he should do a tour of the mosques in VA too and tell those parents NOT to fill their children's heads with the idea of equality, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, etc. Those, after all, are only for Christians and Jews.

Keep in mind that Rep. Keith Ellison is risking more for this country than Mr. Goode is and probably ever will. It is not just his professional and political life on the line, but the lives of himself and his family. He has to watch himself from every direction. From those who honestly feel that Virgil Goode is a hero and that they need to protect the country from an "Islamic take over, " taking Keith out in their minds be the first step in protecting this country and its institutions.

Keith also is in danger from the very extremist who join Al-Qeada and in whom Goode is very afraid. They view Keith Ellison as at best and Uncle Tom and at worst an apostate worthy of termination with extreme prejudice.

He is laying a lot on the line for this great country. I wonder if this country, the people of this country are aware of what he is doing. We need to, in turn, help watch over him and his family so that nothing happens to them.

Were Africans smarter than their white ensalvers?

In light of the assertions that race was a deciding factor in hurricane relief and rescue efforts went searching for a book in my book case. The book "Two Nations; Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal" by Andrew Hacker, was published in 1992 and at the time created quite a stir. I'm re-reading, how much has changed and how much has stayed the same?

Was hurricane response and rescue determined by race, did race have a hand in it? Was it really due to class differences, and a contempt of the poor no matter the race? Was it blue state versus red state politics? Or was it a combination of all of these issues?

Some where in all this thought and debate my mind went off in a different direction. "Was the African and black slave actually smarter than the whites who marginalized, enslaved and imprisoned them?"

My question was raised and debated inside my head because of what we now know about the brain. For instance, we know that for a child be able to walk correctly they must be allowed the crawl as infants. That crawling helps "wire" the brain to walk. "Wiring" the brain or brain development, for physical, emotions and intelligence also happens through movement in the first few months, years of life. The swaying of a care giver holding an infant helps in brain development. Infants in intensive care are often rocked and an incubator with a mildly rocking bed was invented. We now know that movement, which is innate, (you automatically rock a child when they are crying) is terribly important to childhood development.

Back in the 1960's two Peace Corps volunteers came back to Colorado. They had served in Africa and had noticed something about the way African mothers cared for their infants, they carried them with them where ever they went, whatever work they had to do. They carried their children with them by placing them in a shawl and then tied it around them. She observed how these mothers and babies interacted, and how calm and secure these babies were.

This was far different than the rather sterile western environment of the infant, mother relationship in the west. "Don't pick babies up often or carry them much, you'll spoil them," was what mothers heard from their own mothers, their family and doctors. These mythes were also perpetuated by leading doctors may have come from the wealthy or aristocratic classes in Europe and then America because it's hard to see how a European peasant woman would not go with the practical side of carrying her baby with her. The rising European middle class may have seen this as “what poor folk do” and in an attempt to emulate the rich aristicratic class, they may have discontinued its use.

Since Africans held their babies in shawls, this allowed infants to experience continual movement, so necessary for development. While white Europeans and Americans did not value this, possibly feeling instead that it was something the poor trash, heathens or slaves did, and spoiling besides) is it possible that all else being equal (nutrition, etc.) Africans were smarter than those who enslaved them? At least in Africa?

The argument that if they were smarter they wouldn’t have been enslaved doesn’t work either. Many smart people died in Nazi concentration camps and gas chambers.

It also is an argument for evolution. Infant monkeys and apes hold on to their mothers constantly (grasping is an automatic reflex in a human baby). If we are related, if we humans are primates, than the constant swaying of the mother while the babies hold on, wires ape and monkey brains too. And I believe research has shown that.

Why would the wiring similarities be there if we weren’t related?

I think I’ll go have a banana.

I knew about Snuglis in the 1970 and bought one in 1984, for my first child. And used that same Snugli for all my children. It is quite different than the Snuglis of today.
I do believe in evolution and in God.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/03/06/national/main276664.shtml
http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/ilives/annmoore/annmoore.html