Almost noon. You finished your exercises and decided to weigh yourself mid-day. Your target was 275 but alas you are 278.6 which is two pounds less than a couple of days ago. – Amorella
I was rather depressed but hey, I haven’t been in the upper 270’s since 2003 at the earliest. Before that I would have to go back to the early eighties or late seventies. So, overall, I am surprised and pleased. Yesterday we had a big meal out and decided to forego the left over pizza until tonight. So, for supper I piddled around with a few cracker snacks and Cheerios instead. Today, a banana and skim milk; no peanut butter. Blood sugar was up last night – mostly from that Graeter’s kid’s cup of cookie dough and chocolate chips. I wish they had half a kid’s cup. Maybe I just ought to take a bite or two of Carol’s instead, but she prefers double chocolate chip or mint chocolate chip.
You are thinking of going to another journal just for food commentary but it works here once in a while. Besides, this is what it is like growing older and getting ready to hit the seventy-year mark, boy. Writing is one of your few pleasures outside of friends and family, you are usually at your calmest while writing. Nothing like giving yourself away on paper to keep your spirit freer, that’s my take. – Amorella
Carol has turned on the news and wouldn’t you know, the big announcement here in Cincinnati – a new Graeter’s flavor: cake batter fudge brownie, available through June. Mostly clear skies though cooler, in the low sixties for a high. Ice cream and weather, important personal level matters in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have nothing else to say.
As Carol has begun one of her 'number in the block' games on her iPad that sounds like a plan.
Lunch in Kenwood at Potbelly’s, a stop next door at Barnes and Noble for the DVD’s for seasons one and two of Downton Abbey, and two shirts size 3XL from Casual Male. Home for Carol to pick up her shoes and now at Pine Hill Park for Carol to do her walk.
I feel somewhat guilty I did not walk part way, perhaps next time. I did do the aerobics for forty minutes though so it’s not like I didn’t do anything. We saved about twenty-two dollars on the DVD’s with promo discounts then Carol’s ten percent added to it. We love the series, we love period pieces, especially from the Isles and Europe. The British Isles (includes Ireland here) and Europe are in my blood, no question about it.
They are in your heart, boy, much more so than your blood. Your blood is earthbound first. Geography does not matter as far as the species and its propagation is concerned. Blood begets blood – politics and religion not withstanding.
I like to think I have Celtic and European roots first.
It’s the other way around – Central Asia, Celtic and European roots is a better suite in Hotel Earth, thirty thousand years is far enough back. At least you know about those pieces of DNA. Project pieces of yourself back that far to gather in the imagination for the rest, back to 170,000 or so years to the DNA mother, the direct ancestor every woman who is alive. It’s the female who is most important here (in context), not the male. From the book’s perspective no one alive is directly related to Mother Gloama’s grandfather, Panagiotakis, and it is the female who is more important in these books.
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The origin of Homo sapiens
(From: World Book 2009 software)
Scientists classify today's people as Homo sapiens, a term that means wise human being. Anthropologists disagree about the precise evolutionary relationships between Homo sapiens and earlier peoples, such as Homo erectus. They also disagree about where and when H. sapiens first appeared.
Anthropologists today reject the idea that human beings can be divided into biologically defined races. Only slight differences distinguish the features of any two modern peoples who developed in neighboring regions. Thus, it is hard to draw a dividing line between them. But groups of people who have lived in certain parts of the world for many thousands of years tend to differ in appearance from groups in other parts of the world. These differences are probably adaptations to local environments. For example, people whose ancestors have lived for generations in sunny climates tend to have dark skin. Dark pigment helps protect the skin from sunburn and reduces the risk of skin cancer.
The multiple origins theory states that after H. erectus spread out of Africa, groups of these early human beings settled in different parts of Asia, and then, later, reached Europe. As they moved to new areas, with differing climates and plants and animals, these scattered populations developed different characteristics. In each geographical area, human groups with different appearances evolved.
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The spread of early human beings. According to the single origin theory, the first Homo sapiens appeared in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, having developed from H. heidelbergensis in that region. Soon afterward, H. sapiens spread to other parts of Africa, as well as to Asia and Europe. In these regions, modern H. sapiens replaced the earlier peoples who lived there. All these earlier peoples, such as the Neandertals in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia, became extinct.
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Molecular biologists have gained a greater understanding of human evolution by studying the rate of change of human genetic material. By calculating this rate, some scientists have concluded that all living people must have evolved from a small group of human ancestors who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. But some molecular biologists doubt that enough is known about human heredity to draw such a conclusion.
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The first part of the Stone Age is called the Paleolithic Period. It began with the first toolmaking over 2 1/2 million years ago and lasted until about 10,000 years ago, when some people in the Middle East began farming. On the basis of toolmaking techniques, scientists divide the Paleolithic Period into three parts. From the earliest to the latest, they are called the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic. Anthropologists most often use those terms to describe periods of European prehistory.
Even after some people learned to farm, many others continued to live by gathering wild plants and by hunting. These Stone Age hunters and gatherers who lived after 10,000 years ago are called Mesolithic people. Farmers from this period are called Neolithic people.
Throughout the early stages of human evolution, the rate of cultural change among prehistoric people was extremely slow. At times, stone tools and other products of human skill remained unchanged for many thousands of years. The cultural activities of the first physically modern people resembled those of the Neandertals and other early people who lived during that time. For example, the modern-looking human beings from the 100,000-year-old sites of Qafzeh and Skhul were found with the same kinds of stone tools that Neandertals used at sites nearby. Thus, the appearance of modern human beings did not represent a sudden change in lifestyle or culture from the earlier people. About 35,000 years ago, however, the rate of cultural change began to accelerate rapidly. This later period is generally referred to as the late Stone Age, or, in Europe, the Upper Paleolithic.
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The Stone Age lasted until bronze replaced stone as the chief toolmaking material. In some areas, this occurred about 5,000 years ago.
The appearance of art was one of the most spectacular developments of the late Stone Age. The oldest known works of art date from this period. Furthermore, the practice of creating art seems to have spread rapidly in Europe, Africa, and Australia.
Some of the oldest artworks from the Upper Paleolithic were ornaments, such as beads made from polished shells. After about 30,000 years ago, prehistoric people began to produce a variety of artwork. They excelled at carving-creating beautiful sculptures of animals and people, usually from ivory or bone. They also made engravings of people, fish, birds, and other animals on bone, ivory, and stone. In addition, the Upper Paleolithic people in Europe sculpted clay, ivory, and stone figurines of women, which may have represented fertility.
The development of speech. No one knows when or how spoken language developed. However, some anthropologists think that human beings may have first begun to speak sometime during the late Stone Age. These scientists believe that the many cultural developments that occurred at this time-especially the appearance of art-may be related to the development of speech. The beginnings of speech, the creation of artwork, and the making of complex tools all required advancements in human intelligence and cooperation.
The spread of settlement. Prehistoric people spread into new areas during the late Stone Age. Cultural and technological advances enabled them to migrate to such places as Australia, the Pacific Islands, and North and South America.
As early as 60,000 years ago, people used boats to reach Australia. About 20,000 years ago, people from Australia and Asia began to colonize the Pacific Islands. These people used sophisticated navigational systems involving knowledge of the stars, water currents, and wind direction. They also used simple navigational tools.
By 130,000 years ago, human beings had spread to the cold, harsh plains of western Siberia, but not until later did people move into the eastern part of the region. At that time, because so much water had been frozen as glacial ice, the level of the oceans and seas was lower than it is today. As a result, the Bering Strait was dry and formed a land bridge between northeast Asia and North America. Most scientists believe prehistoric people crossed this bridge and were living in North America by about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Eventually, through a series of migrations from Asia, modern people populated North and South America.
The most recent ice age ended about 11,500 years ago. As the ice receded, the environment of many prehistoric people changed and greatly affected their way of life. In some areas, such as Europe, forests began to spread across the land. The people of these areas learned to hunt new species of animals and gather new varieties of plants from the forests. In other parts of the world, people began to experiment with methods of controlling their supply of food. They learned that they could plant seeds from the plants they ate. They also learned that they could domesticate animals, perhaps by capturing young ones from the wild and raising them. These discoveries led to farming.
The rise of agriculture, according to most scientists, began in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, or 8000 B.C. The first farmers lived in a region called the Fertile Crescent, which covers what is now Lebanon and parts of Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. At first, these people probably did not depend entirely on the crops they raised. But as they improved their methods, farming became their most important source of food. The earliest plants grown in the Middle East were probably barley and wheat. Early farmers in the Middle East eventually raised cattle, goats, and sheep.
People were herding cattle and growing grain in northern Africa by 6000 B.C. By about 5000 to 4000 B.C., agriculture had developed independently in Asia. In the Yangtze Valley of China, and perhaps in what is now Thailand, farmers grew rice and a grain called millet. By the same time, people had begun to farm in the Indus River Valley of what is now Pakistan.
Between about 4500 and 4000 B.C., farming peoples spread from southeastern Europe into the dense forests of central and western Europe. These people brought wheat and cattle with them. Foraging people in Scandinavia learned how to farm from these newcomers.
Agriculture began to develop in southern Africa by about 3000 B.C. By 1500 B.C., people had begun to cultivate corn and beans in what is now Mexico. By 1000 B.C., peoples in what became the eastern United States were raising gourds and sunflowers. Farming began later in other parts of North America.
Selected and edited from: World Book 2009, software.
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The above will serve as our lead as far as Merlyn is concerned. The Beginnings of Language and Art is the factor that further separates the consciousness of species with other species on the planet. The other unit of measure will be when human being began to bury their dead. With this there is an inkling of a ‘feel’ for a possible afterlife. That will be the reasoning. Fiction or not, the books have a laid out plausibility for your imagination to follow. – Amorella
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Burial
Intentional burial, particularly with grave goods, may be one of the earliest detectable forms of religious practice since, as Philip Lieberman suggests, it may signify a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life." Though disputed, evidence suggests that the Neanderthals were the first human species to intentionally bury the dead, doing so in shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. Exemplary sites include Shanidar in Iraq, Kebara Cave in Israel and Krapina in Croatia. Some scholars, however argue that these bodies may have been disposed of for secular reasons.
The earliest undisputed human burial, discovered so far dates back 130,000 years. Human skeletal remains stained with red ochre were discovered in the Skhul cave at Qafzeh, Israel.
From Wikipedia
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Comments on Lehrer’s Imagination: Chapter Four: “The Letting Go”
“ . . . this is why [Yo-Yo] Ma sways as he plays: Because he can’t restrain himself. Because he is experiencing the same emotions that he is trying to express. Because he is letting himself go. “The best storytellers always really get into their own stories,” Ma says. “They’re waving their arms, laughing at their own jokes. That’s what I try to be like on stage . . . I know that some of the best music happens when you let yourself get a little carried away.” pp. 87-88
And,
“ . . . Once we fall asleep, the prefrontal cortex shuts itself down; the censor goes eerily quiet. Meanwhile, neurons all across the brain start shooting out squirts of acetylcholine. But this isn’t the usual excitement of reality; this activity is semi-random and unpredictable. It’s as if the mind is entertaining itself with improv, filling nighttime narratives with whatever spare details happen to be lying around.” pp. 106-107
And,
[Yo-Yo Ma says]: “[A child] is playing for pleasure. He is playing because making this sound expressing this melody makes him happy. That is still the only good reason to play.” p. 111
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The focus of this chapter in the book is on musicians and their use of creativity. I understand the “getting carried away” though, only with me it is words. I see myself more as a researcher and writer at the same time. I’ll never forget writing about the marsupial-humanoids on their ‘Ship’ and how living grass was their carpet on Ship. I could feel the grass on my bare feet as I hit those keys on the laptop. It makes me feel better about myself to see these things in real artists; mostly I am a make believe artist – still, I have some of their same skills. Cool beans.
The censor must be quieted. I understand this too, but being a former teacher I feel the need to be polite. I used “BS” in class more than once, but I would never say the full word. Though I did make a mistake a few times – the worst was when at Mason and I was teaching a junior honor’s English class and I meant to say “Huck Finn” but it came out the other way around “Fuck Hinn”. Hey, everyone woke up at the instant, even myself. I thought, ‘Did I hear the word? Who said that? Holy crap, it was me.’ Some laughed until they teared up. Red-faced, I laughed too. I mean, what else could we do?
As far as the last quotation – I write because it makes me happy. That is the first and foremost reason. Why not, I’m retired and I always wanted to write, now I can write more, and do.
Enough for tonight, old man. Post. - Amorella
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