Of archeology and technorati links. The proprietors of Friends of America's Past have put up the fascinating transcript of the recent oral hearings for the appeal of the Kennewick Man case. (Well, fascinating if you're into that sort of thing, which I obviously am.) Be amazed at DoJ's arguments. The central irony of this and related cases is apparent therein - a law created with the reasonable intent of addressing and redressing the misappropriation of history and culture is being used as a device for pursuing imperial claims on the past, for the obliteration of the record of the as yet unknown dead. All your history are belong to us, indeed. (For an illustration of how this is not of concern only to scientists, see here.)

And the technorati links? Oh, referral checking on another topic led me to a heretofore unknown blog, whose author, Peter Sean Bradley, also checking around on another topic, chanced upon a K-man post, and added some tart comments, in the context of the history of science and society, to the discussion.

(More Kennewick posts here.)

You've been warned. So I went to the Antichrist calculator and typed in the spouse's name. He's clean. Me too. Then I typed in the kid's name. Bingo. 666.

Just thought I ought to put that up as a public service announcement.

Medpundit has an interesting post on a couple of physicians who ditched dealing with insurance companies. Instead, they expect patients to pay and file with the insurance companies themselves. After a six month shaking-out period, it seems that they are now happy little docs.

That's the route I'd go, if that were my profession - it sure looks to me that having to deal with insurance bureaucracies would suck the joy right out of practicing medicine. From the patient side, this enrollment period we're wondering seriously if there's a way to go retro: that is, purchase "major medical" and cover other medical expenses the old-fashioned way (you know, just pay for them). Something's got to give - there's no way around the fact that modern medicine is expensive, but the endless tormenting layers of administrators, PPO gatekeepers, etc., etc., has got to be driving costs up (as well as damaging the purchasers' mental health).

(Apropos of insurance, and since I just mentioned Jim Henley below, I recall he recently had good post on the history and problems of the employer-based insurance model.)

Tomato tomahto. Just back from a trip to the grocery during which I was listening to NPR. Once again, the puzzle gnawed: why do all NPR readers pronounce the word "news" as "nyooooze"? Is it some northeastern thing? Some secret code? Some mid-Atlantic affectation? Some good ol' liberals' club shibboleth? Have my ears perhaps received only a biased sample? Nyoooze. (It's properly "nooze", of course.)

Birds and being. A while back an acquaintance of mine was bemoaning the fact that American society did not allow polygynous marriages. Being the cruel person that I am, I let out a derisive snort, referenced the middling status of his person and his income, and suggested that perhaps he hadn't thought this one through very carefully. We discussed for a while the fate of Joe Average (and Joe sub-Average) in polygynous societies and species, and it all ended in his staring, wide-eyed with horror, into the abyss of his "ideal" marriage system, where the prospects of his ever getting laid by a member of his preferred sex were woefully minute. (He felt particularly for the bachelors of certain bird species we lit upon - "They never get laid? Not in their whole lives?" "Nope. Never." He went quite pale at that thought.)

OK, that was not a serious conversation. But it's a serious subject; here's some food for thought. (Via Mark Shea, via somebody else I can't remember alas.)

The above linked article also discusses the issue of gay marriage. Jim Henley and Eve Tushnet are having a nice argument on that subject. Just a comment on this bit from Jim:

1) Eve: "Opponents of SSM need to work much harder on explaining what "the children!" are doing in our argument. There needs to be much more careful attention to the role of ideals and models in people's lives. Instead, we're getting bogged down in questions about infertile couples, etc., which I think are just plain irrelevant."

The discussion also "bogs down" in discussion of couples who are childless by choice. There are a lot of them and, if one is male and one is female, they are legally permitted to marry in the United States. Clearly, while marriage is a sound structure for the rearing of children - I know no better - marriage is not just that.

It ain't bogging down to note relevant facts. Legally and practically, marriage is not only about rearing children.

Obviously, any marriage is not all about children, and some marriages are not about children at all. But Eve is correct about the "irrelevance" of the issues of infertility, childlessness, etc. Marriage, as a social institution, contra Jim, is not about "fairness" - it is about children or it is about nothing at all. Now I must rush to add - as all the knees prone to jerking begin to jerk and everybody starts talking about the law, their inheritance, their employee benefits, etc. - this recognition does not necessarily exclude gays from the institution, any more than it excludes the childless. The point is not whether individuals X and Y need to fulfill certain conditions in order to enter upon marriage. The point is whether the condition of X and Y (and maybe Z) is such that their participation requires a change in the structure of marriage, such that this new structure would work against the interests of children*. As Eve rightly suggests, the onus is on her side to convince me that SSM would work against the interests of children. I'm not persuaded, but the questions she raises - such as gender roles - are important and are brushed aside all too glibly. (If one can recognize that fatherlessness can have negative effects on children, the question of what effect single-sex parenting has on children follows logically - and deserves more than an anecdotal answer.)

*As, for example, I think polyamorous marriages obviously would (and serial marriages do).

Crapweasels, continued. Well, you knew this was coming. Yes, I know, you scum have some sacred constitutional or God-given right to intrude upon my privacy with nuisance calls hour after hour. As I mentioned before, I'm not even getting a pitch when picking up the phone - they're all just "ghost" telemarketing calls: yeah, just tryin' to conduct bidness with no-answer harrassment calls, hour after hour. (Did I mention I was trying to paint today? Did I mention how many times I had to put down tools and climb down the ladder to answer a "ghost" call? Not that I would always do that, but some days you are, ya know, expecting calls?)

These people are filth. Absolute human garbage. Shoot 'em and burn 'em. (Not the author of the piece linked, of course. I rather like his suggestion for number ownership.)

Yo mama, spleen girl! Now the bitch is dissin' us Iowa housewives. Compare us to eurotrash, will ya? The gloves are off, Harris.

Shut up. It's the new fall color scheme. I don't want to hear any complaints. I like it.

Hearing synopsis. Here is a synopsis of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals oral briefing on the Kennewick Man case. (You might be interested in following the links provided and pondering the government's handling of this case - even if only from a taxpayer's perspective.)

(More Kennewick Man links here.)

Hmmmm. Now when did that Protein Wisdom test pattern change? That Jeff, such a tease.

More Kennewick. I'm waiting with bated breath for a transcript of today's hearing. Here is a report from Oregon Public Broadcasting. I draw your attention to this description of the government's refutation of the claim that K-Man's skeletal attributes suggest he may be unrelated to modern Native American populations:

But attorneys for the federal government argue Kennewick Man was found with no European-style artifacts. So he was clearly a Native American [...]

Good grief.

More tomorrow, hopefully.

Addendum: And furthermore -

Judge Susan Graber asked whether the legal definition of Native American could cover any bones found in North America that were so old they rivaled the age of ancient fossils in Africa or could even qualify as ''Adam and Eve.''

''Yes, they would be considered Native American,'' said Ellen Durkee, a Justice Department attorney representing the Interior Department and various federal agencies.

Judge Ronald Gould questioned whether the timing of ancient migration to North America suggested that 9,300 years was long enough to separate the skeleton from any relationship to modern tribes, but said, ''That's a metaphysical question that's outside my pay scale.''

About as far as they've come to admitting that there are problems with the "1492 rule" is to concede that hypothetical Viking remains should be excluded from its purview. (Must be fair and note that these folks are just doing their job here, which is to defend an indefensible interpretation of law.)

UPDATE: I'd say the context given for Judge Gould's statement about "metaphyical questions", above, is inaccurate. The actual context, from a transcript, follows:

Judge Gould: I guess my question - I'm not assuming that one could look at human remains anywhere in the world and say they are Adam and Eve or the original progenitor of the species. That's more a metaphysical question that's outside my pay scale. But assuming that, and this may not be a correct assumption, but assuming that our species didn't simultaneously spring up in every continent in the world then there's probably some migration at some point had hominids or Homo sapiens that get to a place. My question was aimed at is there any limit on time or any limit on time in relationship to current tribes that the government recognizes that relates to what's Native American. I realize that the definition from the Secretary said if you go back to something before European, before documented visits by Europeans to the continent, the people who lived here are Native American. And my question is, is there any limit to that. Would that go back 150,000 years, if people lived here 150,000 years ago.

DOJ Ms. Durkee: Yes, it would cover that.

(More Kennewick Man links here.)

Another day in court for K-Man. The appeal on the disposition of the bones of Kennewick Man will be heard today in Portland.

The decision is expected to take months, and the case is likely to be appealed to the supreme court.

The complete content of the Oregonian article linked above offers a fair synopsis of the case and problems with NAGPRA, but the leading paragraphs mislead the reader in a way that is irritatingly common in coverage of the case [emphasis mine - mb]:

The case pits scientists who say they have a right to study the ancient skeleton against Native American tribes who say they have a right to bury the remains of a sacred ancestor.

Although most of the media attention has focused on the conflict between scientists and tribes, the legal case centers on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which is aimed primarily at returning Native American remains in museums to tribes. The authority of the 13-year-old law has collided with the scientific value of ancient human bones for researchers who deem them vital to learning about the earliest people in the Americas.

Among the complex issues the court will address is whether skeletons as old as Kennewick Man should be considered Native American under the law.

Attorneys for the federal government and a group of four Columbia Basin tribes will maintain that the bones belong to the tribes. Attorneys for eight prominent anthropologists will argue their clients have the right to study the ancient remains before they are buried.

Although the third paragraph quoted above correctly addresses the real issues - the intent of NAGPRA and the validity of claims of cultural or genetic affiliation - the emphasized sentences suggest that the scientists (and everybody else) of course concede that these bones are "Native American", but are of such tremendous scientific importance that an exception should be made to allow some study. Furthermore, unless I am mistaken - and I've been following the case pretty closely - nobody has said anything about eventually returning bones for burial if the courts do not concur with the claims of the disputing tribes. I believe that statement is flat-out false (and this is not the first time I've seen it reported as fact), and it completely muddies the issue.

Addendum: An article of interest from July.

(More Kennewick Man links here.)

Bring back the shushing librarian. As the Possum remarks about the case of the irate librarian:

Quite possibly the worst way to perpetuate the stereotype of librarians as uptight, shrewish, bothersome, bluenose, harridans is to allow yourself to get your drawers in a wad over a doll...and be quoted in a news article about it.

But wait - I rather wish for the return of those stern shushing harridans. I've always been a great user of the local public library branch, and am keeping up the habit in my new town. (The county library branch was the only air-conditioned joint when I was a kid on the Gulf Coast; I can probably attribute my bookishness to the lure of creature comfort.)

My new local library has an appealing, vaguely Egyptian-sarcophagus architectural feel to it, and, as it's right around the corner from the keed's Tae Kwon Do class, I get an hour of peaceful reading in most every weekday afternoon, while the daughter is kicking ass and taking names. Right across the street is an undertaker, housed in what must be an old turn-of the-(19th)century house. It has a large standing clock in the front yard, whose poetical resonance I did not note until the keed remarked it. "Don't you think it's funny, Mom, that an undertaker has a clock right out front? 'Tick-tock, passerby, tick-tock!'" Right she is, of course, and the heretofore unnoticed clock is now a daily memento mori.

But I was speaking of death and the (old) maiden (librarian). Why do libraries no longer enforce quiet? Even in neighborhood branches there are still always serious people attempting serious work, or just seeking a chance to hear themselves think, outside the traffic and the (execrable) music piped in anywhere humans are likely to congregate. But people chatter away at normal volume throughout the building, oblivious to the old merciful rule of silence in the stacks. I was reading the other day and took note of some screeching giggling pre-teens running up and down the aisles, now disappearing, now re-appearing, always noisy. A loud adult voice called after them. They answered, and the conversation between them continued, in very loud (outside voice, children!) voices. I finally stepped out of the stacks to gently remonstrate, thinking that it was my duty as a dragon in training to show them the Way Things Should Be Done. Alas, the Loud Adult was one of the librarians, not at all averse, apparently, to the screeching, running, and giggling.

I went back to my business. I failed, I know. I should have knocked heads. Then maybe they'd make an action figure out of me.

Better than "niggardly". This is too funny.

Skull stuff. More info for the First Americans debate - skull measurements of the Pericú, a group of hunter-gatherers who occupied southern Baja California until a few centuries ago:

[Rolando González-José, of the University of Barcelona, Spain] thinks the formation of the Sonora desert isolated the Pericú for thousands of years, but they vanished when Europeans disrupted their culture. González-José measured 33 Pericú skulls and found their features were similar to those of the ancient Brazilian skulls. [For example.]

This backs the idea that a first wave of long, narrow skulled people from south-east Asia colonised the Americas about 14,000 years ago. These were followed by a second wave of people from north-east Asia about 11,000 years ago, who had short skulls.

The above source based on a Nature article [abstract], which I'll have to go look up.

(More Kennewick Man links here.)

Wednesday grammar nazi. A note on correct usage by a self-anointed grammar scold expert:

"The slinky burgundy cheongsam was hung in the back of the closet."

"The spy was hanged wearing her slinky burgundy cheongsam."

Just fussin' 'cause in the last few days I've seen quite a few instances of the former form used for the latter circumstance. I have no idea what the literate, edumacated, preferred form of the past participle of "to hang", as in "to execute", is. I could be dead wrong about this, and my nails-across-a-chalkboard reaction completely idiosyncratic. Just sounds all wrong to me - "was hung" being lightweight, risible, lacking in the awful gravity of the act denoted. (Yes, I know my example lacks awful gravity. Nonetheless.) And odd, really, considering the tendency in the opposite direction - that is, the habit of using the past tense for the past participle: "had drank", "had ran", etc. Once again, nails-on-chalkboard to my ears, but a usage that I found to be very common in the western U.S.

Ad hoc usage panel of readers, feel free to correct me. (And be hanged for it, may I add.)

Folks what wants killin'. By the way, about those hell fiends telemarketers. These people really, really need to be killed, brought back to life, and re-killed many times over. One would think they could not be more annoying, but I note the latest refinement of privacy-invading torment: until recently, one could tell a telemarketer by the marked delay between the anwerer's "hello" and the fiend's response. Now, probably due to a perceived increased efficiency in sucker-discovery via increases in automatic-dialing rates, a good 90% of telemarketing calls have no available scum-insect to respond at all to the harrassed householder's pick-ups. At least, that's my current theory about the recent significant uptick in ghost-calls.

And no doubt there are leagues of holy-warrior lawyers beavering away to make sure that the rights of these sainted marketeers remain totally unrestricted by, you know, the heinous freedom-hating ideology behind the no-call list. God damn them all to hell.

Hot air. Dr. Frank has an amusing post re gluttonous comfort-loving Americans and our air-conditioning. People who should know better seem to have no grasp of the relative latitudes covered by the United States vs. Europe; at any rate, one would think that the even limited experience would reveal that the summer climate in most parts of North America is abominable. I somehow doubt that my ability to completely abjure AC when I lived in Colorado or trans-Cascade Oregon had anything to do with superior hardihoood, physical or moral. (And don't miss the comments - particularly from the reader whose Brit friend worried about the health and safety hazards of those peculiar appliances known as "ceiling fans".)

But I snap my fingers at weather worries. (For now - I'll change my tune when the natural gas bills come due in a few months ). The heat has broken, and I've been spending any free time biking through a succession of exquisite late summer days. (Screw blogging.) Listen up, weather gods - this is what "summer" is supposed to feel like. A clear white light, not mellowed into fall's gold, a prevailing breeze, a trembling mystery to the landscape from horizon to horizon, the warm soft glamour of the air that yet carries low warnings of harsh winter to come. All the sweeter.

Looking down from my office window into the neighbors' backyard one sees a hammock strung up under a cottonwood tree. One could put one's head under the shifitng shade of the leaves and warm one's toes in the sun. Wonder if they'd mind if I made some ice tea, climbed over the fence, and put it to its purposes. There should be someone lying in it on such an afternoon; in a few weeks it will have to be taken down.