Bling Bling in the ATL

Evolution

So NYTimes most e-mailed article today begins like this:

Evolutionary scientists have never had difficulty explaining the male orgasm, closely tied as it is to reproduction...

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant - doing their part for the perpetuation of the species - without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?

Which reminds me of two things: first, NYTimes is charging for its online Op/Eds soon. And second, a premise I've had in my back pocket for the past few months - that human response to trauma is an evolved trait. But, the response doesn't confer benefits on the individual. It functions on the group level as a response to status shifts, humiliation, tribal warfare. Anyways, the flip side of the trauma idea would be an evolutionary explanation for the female orgasm with more teeth than 'girls just wanna have fun'. Something about the idea reminds me scarily of Rousseau's Emile - in which men were selfish individualist wealth maximizers, and women function on a communal level. Oh well.

I haven't really thought out the supporting ideas too much. But I'd mention that the trauma reaction is a response to subjugation through war and rape, and that on the group level, there is a strategic benefit for individuals to endlessly loop in hyperdefensive, non-functioning self-destruct mode. Devil's in the details with that one - really my main disagreement with the scientests in the NYTimes article is that they pointlessly limit evolutionary pressures to one-on-one interactions.

That brings me to the broader debate about evolution. This week, its Intelligent Design vs. Darwin in Kansas. Five months ago it struck a little closer to home, Cobb County (down the street) vs. Ken Miller (from my alma mater). And ten years ago, feminist epistimology vs. evolutionary biologists. I can't find a good link to sum up that debate. OK, thats not true - just the more I look for one, the more I realize I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

But moving right along, my synthesis? A couple points. One, Reason's interview with Paul Seabright kind of resonates on the fundamental approach I'd prefer - key sentence being, "our environment is as much each other as it is a particular natural ecology, and that component of our environment, the social component, has changed spectacularly in the last ten millennia."

Two, I like the Darwin vs. ID debate. I have this optimistic faith in speech such that even poor, faithless dialogue is good, and the attempt to engage on a shared platform of 'scientific'ish-speak is, well, worthwhile.

And by the way, Three: I don't see the big disconnect between science and genesis, probably because I do see the big disconnect between the sign and the signified. Kidding. But really, I've been reading Genesis and knowing a smattering of Big Bang theory, evolution, just seems to make for a richer read. Its what I bring to it.

Donkey Rising

I browse the headlines of the NYTimes most-emailed articles every day. Along with everything else on my blogroll. Its sick, but I've been desperately seeking an environment of like-minded others lately. Been listening to Air America for long, 12 hour days - even the hideous Mike Malloy and that South American chick whom I hate.

Also been stalking the staff of Suck. Where are the Sucksters now? Where they've always been: Reason, LA Weekly, Wonkette, The Baffler, and of course, blogging their little hearts out. Mr. Myxtlpk (sp) is on the O'Reilly show today, defending his comparison of Hanoi Jane and Ben Franklin. I asked Myxtlpk to pretty-please to be a smarmy, obnoxios prick. Gonna have to leave work early (11PM) to catch that.

Air America's been playing this Scot MP giving a real Braveheart speech to the Senate Foreign Relations committee over and over and over again. Who is the Scot MP?

None other than the pro-Baathist, implicated in oil-for food, George "Until Jerusalem" Galloway. 'until Jerusalem' as in:

In 1994 Mr Galloway stood before Saddam Hussein and said: "Your excellency, Mr President, I greet you in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq ... I greet you too in the name of the Palestinian people ... I thought the president would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam. Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem." (The Times, January 20 1994.)

Stygius has the caveats right:

A real demagogue, Galloway is no doubt having a lot of fun hamming it up in front of the committee. Any minimally skilled British MP can run circles around most American counterparts. I hope I can see video of it at some point.

Galloway does sound like he is having fun.

Anyways, not sure what I'm doing seeking out partisan liberal hacks and old dot.com personalities. I have a vague sense that I miss the obnoxious, vicious, cynical person I used to be. I've been too damn nice lately, tip-toeing around. Whats up with that? Must be a Southern phenomena, and not the Flannery O'Connor sort.

In other news

- well, that just about sums it up. Really. I'm grammer checking and its fricken weird, I've sworn off relationship blogging, and yet all the main tropes I'm juggling with come out regardless, in the guise of ideas. Parker's Back, Genesis, Rousseau, my sharp politically-conscious tongue. I'm hungry. I'm gonna go get my car towed, feed my cats, and then find myself some dinner.

- Ms. Bling