The past week has been a bit much, but it is time to make myself do some normal writing, reaching out, etc. Starting off with a collection post so limited in options it's really just a pair. But it's something.
Off we go:
First off, a discussion of the human concept of ancestral "descent" I would find rather wonderful if I weren't such a jaw-clenching jerkweed about use of the "word" millenniums. The not-at-all-incidental sideline to this piece is a spiffy deconstruction, if not precise debunking, of the Merovingian Heresy. I always love those!
The risk of today's genetic genealogy tests is that they tend to divide people into groups, whereas the real message that emerges from genealogy is one of connections. ... In the 18th and 19th centuries, they pounced on the idea of race and used it to formulate hypotheses about human differences that had disastrous social consequences.
Secondly, yet another extremely charming example of the ridiculous "snips and snails and puppy dog tails" school of gender understanding (I'm sorry - that's contamination, actually) which still - and more than ever - informs and downright rules our culture thanks to advertising. The Mad Men were and still are bastards. Even the ones working from the thriving advertising industry outlets within my own community ... where that dadgum lizard was born, y'all. Gender conatmination - because, even without millennia-obsolete male-dominated religion to keep us in order, women are still ritually unclean.
Le Sigh.
(Edited to be completely disgusted that Blogger accepts the non-word millenniums above with no problem, and marks the correct term, millennia, with a jagged red MISSPELLING underline. Speaking of bastards.)
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