LEFT HANDEDNESS, SPANISH STONEHENGE, TWITTER, AND MORE: #15

 

THE LESSONS OF LEFT HANDEDNESS

Sandy Koufax was my sports hero growing up. I also followed and admired Bill Russell and Johnny Unitas and other big sports names of the time. But Sandy was my hero. To this day, when I'm filling out a ballot and I just don't like any of the names, I write in Sandy Koufax. On the list of the greatest lefties of all time, Sandy rules.

As it happens, I have been married for 50 years to a lefty. She complains occasionally about scissors being designed for right handed folks. But I hadn't thought about it much until I viewed an interesting TED Talk on YouTube. The presenter pointed out that, if you want a small taste of what it's like to be a person of color in the United States, a very small taste, consider the plight of the lefty.

Only 10% of humans are left handed. No one is certain why. A recent major study revealed that there are measurable differences in the brains of lefties, mostly in the right brain, but those difference are so slight that they only appear when studying large data sets. In this case, the researchers studied over 30,000 brain scans, 3,000 of which were of lefties. Even so, the researchers concluded that, not only could they not determine why people are left handed, they also could not predict just from looking at scans whether an individual was left handed or not. So lefties are just like the rest of us, only different.

But here's the kicker. Imagine that you are left handed. It's not just scissors that are designed for righties. Everything is designed for the 90% of us who are right handed. School desks, baseball gloves, guitars, EVERYTHING. Just ask your left-handed friends. Oh, for certain. You can generally buy the item that you are looking for designed especially for the left handed. But you'll pay a premium and there will be fewer choices.

And now imagine that you are a person of color in an increasingly white nationalist USofA. Of course, the system is designed in favor of the majority. That's the way that it works, isn't it? And if you are a white nationalist and looking at the numbers, you are bound to notice that your privileges are about to be revoked. In a right handed world, white nationalists are learning what it might be like to be left handed. And they are scared. And they should be.

RAND PAUL IS AN IDIOT

Senator Paul is quoted as saying that the FBI will have to justify their actions. 

The National Archives asked politely for the documents. The documents were subpoenaed. A lawyer submitted an affidavit representing that all documents had been returned. And still, the FBI found Top Secret documents in Trump's possession. Illegally.

Under those circumstances, the FBI has nothing to justify. But Trump sure as hell does. In court, I hope.

SPANISH STONEHENGE

No one expects the Spanish Stonehenge. (If you immediately thought of Monty Python, give yourself five bonus points. If you don't understand the reference, google 'no one expects the Spanish' and see what pops up.)

Climate change has resulted in severe drought in many regions around the world. Sunken boats resurface in lakes that are drying up. Ghost towns reappear. In a particular dam-created lake in the USofA, several bodies have been located, some in oil drums, clearly murder victims intended to be lost to the light of day forever. In Spain, we have something a bit different.

Thought to be from 4,000 to 7,000 years old, the Dolmen of Guadalperal have been uncovered for the first time in 60 years. First submerged in the 1930s, the result of a Franco rural development project, the standing stones are back in the sunlight. Perhaps a question greater than the purpose of their construction is the question of why it would be considered progress to submerge them in the name of progress in the first place. 

It goes to show that humans are just hairless bipeds with big, useless brains.

TWEETS AS JOURNALISM

I read the news. I have a television, but I just use it for streaming videos and movies. When I lived in the USofA, I watched the evening news on TV. It made me crazy. Now, I am in France. Now, I read the news. I subscribe to a major American newspaper and to a European wire service. I cruise two sites that aggregate news from a variety of sources - from FOX and media even farther to the right, to CNN and others farther left. And I have come to hate Twitter.

Freddy Baseball has been traded to the Yankees. Twitter has exploded. Read some examples.

Sally Popstar's new boyfriend is twenty-three yeas older than she is and the Twitterverse is in a tizzy.

I understand that the proliferation of platforms has led to a scramble for content. But please. Don't pretend that the random typing of my neighbor 's teenage son qualifies as news. It doesn't.