CSotD: A time to be thoughtful, and overthoughtful

Marty Two-Bulls has standing to comment on the incident at the Lincoln Memorial, or maybe he should recuse himself, I’m not sure which.

The Rashomon element of this event is incredibly strong, with plenty of blame and a bit of unfortunate timing and a huge element of “Where were the grown ups?” not only in terms of the chaperones for this busload of demonstrators but also in the more metaphorical sense.

And let me here interrupt myself to interject our first

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(F Minus)

 

(Moderately Confused)

I seemed to know a lot more about what had happened at the Lincoln Memorial (an appropriate site for it, BTW) yesterday morning than I did by nightfall.

It used to be that people got the headlines on TV and then waited for the newspapers to get the details. We’ve lost the ability to sit back and wait, and, while that was happening, the stock swappers who bought up the newspapers have made it all but impossible for them to report the news in depth.

And so yesterday we had the first, outraged video, and then a carefully edited opposite looney tunes video and a pseudo-rational contrarian “You’re all wrong!” take, and I finally came across this apparently raw video and I’ve read what the kids had to say in their own defense.

After which I tend to agree with Kevin Necessary, who posted this on Facebook:

 

But he also reposted an earlier cartoon:

And I’m going to cast a bit of blame in that direction, though it still all boils down to “Where were the adults?”

Here’s a photo of some young people who were also part of the March for Life.

While I don’t believe in legislating on religious lines, I respect these kids, with the proviso that, if they are going to defund Planned Parenthood, they need to pledge to support universal health care to guarantee the other services PP provides, and I’d want to know that they also backed WIC and other programs to guarantee young mothers and babies full support.

It’s entirely possible that they do, because they seem focused on the issue for which they gathered.

However poorly supervised the Covington kids were in DC, I would further fault the school for not properly teaching them to focus on the mission.

I would have told them to leave the MAGA hats and other off-topic political stuff behind, because, even if the school teaches that immigration is  bad for America and that grabbing women by the pussy is okay, it’s not relevant to the point of their trip.

I’d have taught them that, when you are trying to convert people to a particular cause, you should avoid alienating them with side issues.

Failure all around.

 

Other Juxtaposition of the Day

(Mo)

 

(Free Range)

Man-oh-man. When your bartender and your dog both tell you to get over yourself, I think it’s probably time to get over yourself.

 

This discovery stands alone

I’ve been sitting on this Stephen Collins cartoon for a couple of days, and I’m glad I did because I got some unexpected back up to my academic response to it.  (Click to embiggen, but you’ll need to use the back arrow to return here)

I’ve known for some years that lactose intolerance is sort of the default, and that the ability to process milk beyond early childhood is largely a Northern European trait, at least in a large enough percentage of the population to make milk a viable food.

The Maasai drink milk mixed with blood, and milk is popular in Mongolia, but in the latter culture, it is, I believe, usually fermented, which negates the lack of lactase that kicks off all the negative reaction. Lactose intolerance, AFAIK, remains the default in Africa and Asia.

As it happens, I recently came across reports that, back about the time in Collins’ cartoon, ancient proto-Europeans were making cheese/yoghurt kinds of fermented food, which would create a sort of bridge towards, as the caveman/barista suggests, evolving to the point of being able to digest the stuff raw.

And, by yompin’ yiminy (as we say in Northern Europe), some people on Twitter began pointing out the same thing.

But never be it said that I can’t overthink even an intelligent cartoon like that.

For instance, here’s some stuff about the Maasai and lactase persistence in pastoralists. 

 

And here is what the Masaai sing as they milk their cattle. I wish the collector had not had to use stock photos, but I’m impressed that the women move so easily among the cattle and milk them without stalls or stanchions.

 

And I’m not done yet. As Johnny Clegg explained in a lecture I attended at Dartmouth few years ago, the Zulu also keep cattle, though the culture there seems more geared towards celebrating the men and their bulls.

Apparently, like the Mongolians, the Zulu prefer their milk fermented, which suggests that they haven’t mastered the lactase persistence thing.

I do note that they also like beer, however, so let’s overthink that for a moment.

 

I don’t know how the Zulu make it, but I suspect they have some way of fermenting it, unlike Bud Light, which doesn’t consider yeast a necessary ingredient.

Which might explain why their stuff seems so bland.

To which I say not “Dilly Dilly” but “Fap!”

 

In our distinctive culture of Northern New York, we brewed it the old fashioned way.