Where Did You Say You're From?

Yesterday my son posted on Facebook that 5 per cent of his DNA comes from Mali, Africa.  This prompted a big on line discussion.  It's been fun and interesting to watch.

We all learned just this past week that a jaw bone was found in Israel which shows us that the person who's jaw bone it is, migrated from Africa 40,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The lead anthropologist said, "The entire narrative of evolution of Homo sapiens must be pushed back by at least 100,000 - 200,000 years."

So, this was a reminder that, among other things, we all came from Africa at some point.

However, this is not what's been most controversial about the popularity of us getting our DNA tested.  What's causing problems for some of us is learning that our dad really isn't our dad at all.  The neighbor down the street is our dad.  (This was addressed in the "Ask Amy" column yesterday.) Since I and my son have had our DNAs tested, we've learned a couple of similar distant family secrets.

Should we share them with other family members or not?  I say "No!"

Family linage is complicated and some families (like my family of origin) are big old secret keepers.  And I've noticed that some distant relatives that my son has contacted have a different memory than I do about who was married to whom, etc. This can cause problems, especially when your mother was one of 13 children, as mine was.

 There is a song that is a cautionary tale regarding getting your DNA done and contacting long lost relatives.  If you want to listen to it look up the version by Willie Nelson.  It's the best.  Or you can just ask me to sing it for you because I know it by heart.  Below are some of the lyrics.  It's a very long song.  Good luck with your family discoveries.

I'M MY OWN GRANDPA

Now many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow, who was pretty as can be
This widow had a grown-up daughter
Who had hair of red
My father fell in love with her, and soon they too were wed

This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life
Now my daughter was my mother
Cause she was my father's wife

And to complicate the matter
Even though it brought my joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad
For if he were my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown up daughter, who was of course, my stepmother

Oh, I'm my own grandpa
I'm my own grandpa
It sounds funny I know but it really is so
I'm my own grandpa

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What Life Changing Word Will I Hear or Read Today?

I'm still meeting with my Power Rangers on a regular basis.  We are an accountability group who've been getting together for several decades.  We're in various stages of disrepair but still powerful.

A week ago Wednesday, when some of us expressed our feelings of pain or helplessness, one of us suggested we all bring in positive quotes this Wednesday.  Then on Friday she fell down a flight of stairs so has spent the week in the hospital and now in rehab.

Yesterday, even though she wasn't there,  we decided to bring in our positive quotes anyway.  They were amazingly helpful to me.  Some were deeply spiritual.  Some were practical.  One of us led the rest of us in a healing prayer/meditation for our fallen member.

Words, written and spoken, have great power.  I'm choosing mine very carefully these days.

P.S.  The film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which I reviewed for you last week and has now been nominated for several Academy Awards, is all about the power of words, both hateful and loving.


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Late Stage Meniere's Disease

Image there is a guy with a leaf blower going full blast in front of you.  That's what it feels like to me in a crowd of people all talking at once.  Now imagine that, on the other side of the leaf blower, there is a person trying to communicate with you one-on-one.  You can hear the words only if you strain your brain and concentrate.  But as the crowd gets louder so does the "leaf blower."  So you find yourself just wanting to escape to a quiet place.

This is my world.  My Meniere's disease has settled into constant tinnitus, sometimes worse than others.  It seems like an oxymoron to have half my hearing gone but my biggest problem is noise.  It exhausts my body and my brain on a daily basis.

On the other hand, the vertigo and other symptoms have quieted down.

I have chosen this situation rather than one last highly invasive procedure - that may or may not work.

So, how's my spirit?  It's good.  I get up every day, put on make up, comb my hair and live this one fantastic life I've been given.  It helps me immensely to be around positive, funny people,  some of whom are going through way worse things than I am.  And not a week goes by that I don't hear from a person who has vertigo.  "What should I do?"  "Get a diagnosis!  Vertigo is a symptom. "

I'm still loving my devotional, "The Sun Still Rises," by Leonor Tubbs Tisdale, professor of homiletics at Yale Divinity School.  Much of the readings are about how she dealt with her cancer diagnosis and treatment.  It's hard hitting but positive.

That's what I want to be.


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Going Ape

STEM - The academic study of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

STEM is a way for us to understand the physical world so that we can, hopefully,  continue to move forward and keep it healthy.  Right now we are experiencing some troubling signs that our physical world is not well.

So when I read an editorial in the Orlando Sentinel this morning by Brandon Haught, a science teacher and author of the book "Going Ape:  Florida's Battle over Evolution in the Classroom," I was kinda distressed.

What he's saying is that some of us Floridans continue to be unhappy with the teaching of evolution and climate change in our public schools and are constantly trying to switch things back to the old way of thinking.

For instance, it was proposed in Nassau County (again) that we stop teaching evolution as fact.  Why?  Because "it can crush their (our children's) faith in the Bible."

In Brevard County people are complaining about social studies textbooks assertion that climate change is caused by humans.  They call it "blatant indoctrination."

One of the sponsors of one of the bills, Sen. Dennis Baxley, claims that "a college professor who teaches evolution but not creationism is a 'classroom dictator.'"

I, personally, have a positive view about the future of our planet.  The same planet my grandchildren and your grandchildren will being living on.  I think that science, technology, engineering and math will be key in providing them with the tools for keeping God's commandments to take care of our earth.

I just don't know if our Florida students will be equipped to be part of it.


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Three Billboards

Dave and I have been wanting to see this highly acclaimed but very strange film for a while.  Finally got to the theater yesterday afternoon and was surprised to see that it was full.  We sat in the second row - but with the new reclining chairs it was great.  Like looking at a movie on the ceiling while lying in your bed.

On the way home we talked about language and how it can hurt.  This past week the whole world has had to deal with our president using some terrible language to describe some third world countries, including the entire continent of Africa.

Frances McDormand wears this getup
throughout the entire film. 

The language in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" is over the top violent and mean.  Disgusting words are used to describe African Americans, women, and little people.  Every person in the movie is angry and dealing with that anger in a destructive way.  Not to mention setting each other on fire, getting shot in the head, and so forth.

Along with all of the above, this film is extremely funny.  Frances McDormand, one of my favorite actors, is grieving, vengeful and mean while, at the same time, being funny and sympathetic.

When the film is over it seems like nothing has changed.  BUT, every character's life has changed for the better.  So everything has changed.

This all comes about because the sheriff, played by Woody Harrelson, sets the moral compass in a most intriguing way.  He does it with the written word.


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President Oprah

Oprah Winfrey gave a powerful speech on the Golden Globe Awards the other night.  She said absolutely nothing about running for president but that's all that's being talked about on the news.

She spoke truthfully about her roots, thereby reminding us of our own roots and how far we (especially women) have come.

Why in the world would Oprah want to be president?  She is beloved around the world.  And that's a hard thing to pull off when you're a billionaire.  The minute she would announce her candidacy, half the people in this country would hate her.  Who needs that?

And there are other billionaires who are working hard to make our globe a better place.

Billionaire Bill Gates spends his time and money working for public health around the world.  He gets bad feedback from some folks here because he works mostly on the African continent but even our isolationists need to understand that we all benefit when polio and AIDS are eradicated.

Billionaire Melinda Gates is changing the world by helping women and girls not get pregnant if they don't want to.  This is a cause close to my heart.  It's about empowerment.  And it's about a better quality of life for all of us.

Billionaire Bono does the same thing.  And we could name several others who are using their vast wealth to change the world for the better.

But Oprah didn't talk about them.  She mentioned Sidney Poitier but she talked more about Recy Taylor and Rosa Parks and their ...ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning even during our darkest nights...A new day is on the horizon.

Thank you Oprah.  Please keep doing what you are doing.


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The Shape of Water

When he looks at me, he does not know - how - I am incomplete.  He sees me...as I am.  - Eliza 

I was mesmerized the entire time I watched Guillermo del Toro's ravishing adult fairy tale, "The Shape of Water."  I loved the look of it, the old movie clips throughout, the way they spontaneously break into song (especially  Alice Faye singing "You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You",) and the lavish song and dance number featuring Eliza and the Fish Monster, to name a few favorite moments.  The film is menacing, cruel, funny, romantic and highly symbolic.

It also depicts the monster as a loving Christ-figure, just as so many other films have - like"Beauty and the Beast" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," to name a few.  It's easy to see that del Toro was deeply affected by the 1950s film "The Creature From the Black Lagoon."

Why is it we want to kill the one who comes to save us?  The one who is different.  The Other.

Except for one totally disgusting scene between and man and his wife,  sex in this film is not the violent, selfish kind we're used to seeing in movies made for adults.  Instead, it is total love.

You know I love Redemption movies.  This is not so much that.  It's more of a "New, abundant life" movie.

P.S.  Spoiler Alert:  At one point Dave leaned over to me and said, "did you notice those scars on Eliza's neck look like gills?"


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