Barrel Strength

A genome paper provides interesting results and conclusions thus corroborating old assertions.

Results: Among the 17 tissues, the highest similarity in gene expression patterns was between human brain and testis, based on DDD and clustering analysis. Genes contributing to the similarity include ribosomal protein (RP) genes as well as genes involved in transcription, translation and cell division.

Conclusions: Present results provide evidence to support the proposal that human testis and brain share the highest similarity of gene expression patterns. The implications of the similarity regarding that both brain and testis contributed to human speciation are discussed.

Your correspondent received the following travel story from a friend.

Last week we decided that we wanted to visit an island in Bahamas that was off the beaten path. Given the limited ferry routes, and our desire to spend only one night in a place with limited amenities , our choices were limited to the island chains of Eleuthera and Andros. We selected Eleuthera based on the logistical issues and set off for Spanish Wells, an island that is about half a mile wide and two miles long with a population of about 1,600. Other than that salient fact, we didn’t know much about this island.

On the way there in a ferry, my friend sat beside a black man and innocently enquired if he was going to Spanish Wells as well. He pointed at his forearm and said to my friend, “they don’t like my kind there.” Needless to say that this came as a surprise to us given that the population of Bahamas is 90% black. We disembarked the ferry and went into a restaurant to eat our breakfast. The waitress/cashier/hostess was white and that is when I started noticing similarity to Man-O-War cay in the Abaco island chain.

Both islands are populated by white evangelical Christians and both of them are dry. The proprietor of the only restaurant in Man-O-War cay, told me that he had a liquor license but didn’t want to serve alcohol, because the locals would ostracize him and he would lose business. He blamed it on “narrow-minded religious people” and said that with a straight face, as I gazed at the 6″ brass cross he was wearing around his neck. I was told that at one point they did have a liquor store in Spanish Wells, but it caused too many problems. Given that there is only one level of government, the individual cays do not have right to ban alcohol but societal pressures keep these two cays dry, although it is easy to acquire it with no prohibition on bringing it in, unlike some of the native communities in northern Canada.

Spanish Wells itself is a prosperous community that relies on fishing for its source of wealth. The fisherman on this island sell all their lobster catch to Red Lobster chain of restaurants in North America. It is obvious that this hard work has been rewarding. Houses are well maintained, roads are clean, lawns are pristine and there is very little crime. I was informed by the young lady to leave my rented golf cart in the front, with the keys in the ignition, if the counter was unattended. The beaches are amazing and one can walk a couple of miles out into the water and still be only waist deep. About 70% of the population goes to the three churches on Sunday and I heard more Christian music at the church fund raiser than I have in my entire life. This cay takes it cultural cues from US in many ways. They are rabid sports fans and follow New York Yankees avidly as if it is their home team. Golf carts are painted with various sports motifs.

Like the rest of the world, there is the usual divide between the younger generation and the rest. The friendships on the island are over a wider age group, because of the small number of people in each age group. In the 18-35 age group one of the things to do is to go to the beach at night, light a bonfire, drink beer and smoke marijuana. It is not enough to keep the two resident policemen on the island busy . Several of them had a desire to leave the island, as they found is boring and stifling, but they also understood that they had no means of doing it. The openly referred to blacks as niggers and opined as to what might happen to you in Nassau, the capital of Bahamas. Blacks are not made welcome here and that explains why the population is, in my estimate, 98% white. Rhodies would feel at home here.

Meanwhile back in the country formerly known as Rhodesia we find this:

I had lunch in Mutare yesterday, a town in Zimbabwe on the Mozambique border.

To give you a benchmark — bread is currently over 110 million a loaf; on 22nd April it was 40 million per loaf.

The lunch bill: soup — 50 million, oxtail — 600 million, coffee — 50 million, with no charge for the pink ice cream.

During the meal, one of my mates was drinking beer — 750ml bottles of Castle Lager (fondly called bombers). He ordered a fifth one, was advised that the price, which when he ordered his first, second, third and fourth ones was 160 million per bottle, had gone up to 340 million per bottle.

That’s right — during lunch there was a price increase…

US Federal Judge Bernard M. Decker:

“It is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear …. The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy of even hateful doctrines … is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country.”

By June 24 1978, US Nazi leader Frank Collin had assembled his forces and was ready to parade his might before an astonished world. Apart from his drive to make a fool of himself, Collin himself was a character of minimal charisma and absolutely no consequence, while his Brownshirts were an ill-favoured bunch of mixed physical types, mostly unremarkable. In press conferences, Chicago reporters enjoyed asking Collin whether he was of Jewish descent so they could watch his face turn red. For months, the ACLU had been fighting for Collin’s right to lead his dozen confused young adolescent males on a march through Skokie, a mostly Jewish suburb of Chicago. For some reason, the US federal government was forced to host a Nazi demonstration and chose Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago as the venue. The Chicago police were drafted in to make this all happen. Their solution was to bring the Nazis in through the back of the federal building and on to the plaza. The wags on the force had decided to place the press inside a double line of saw-horses between the Nazis and the mob. (Jim Belushi was there with the world’s phoniest press pass, to gather material for Second City skits. The cops didn’t care. You want to be part of a human coil-spring between angry and stupid? Fill your boots.)

It was a beautiful day and everyone got there early for the warm-up. College kids came in for miles around to confront the demonstrators. It could have been a festival, with street vendors and music, except people were carrying signs mounted on two by fours and lengths of steel pipe. The police did their best to confiscate those, along with the rocks and bottles, but it was a big crowd.

The demonstration itself was quite brief, and Collin’s bull-horn was totally inadequate to the storm of noise and debris that instantly broke over him. While he exercised his right to free speech, the Chicago cops exercised their baton arms on the unfortunates who were jammed up against the barriers. The press got a story with lots of exciting ‘vis’, and the students got a lively outing. Everybody got something. This is how a free people conducts its business, in the open air, in full view of all. Hateful people have a right to say at least some hateful things, and government has at least some obligation to protect them. Whenever I look at the wasteful, inept and ultimately useless human rights cases in Canada, I think of the US government making sure Frank Collin had freedom of expression. He is long gone now, but the lesson remains. Give a free people free expression and free access to ideas - they know what to do.