Wendy Davis. Wow. Agree or disagree with her political stance she has become an overnight icon, a heroine. Alone at the mike for 11 hours in a room full of mostly conservative men she stood her ground for women’s rights. Rowdy crowds, hostile moderator, she spoke on. What courage. What commitment. I am so deeply impressed. I know that the earliest immigrants to this country came here seeking new opportunities and freedom from government oppression. The story of the United States can be told as a story of the ever expanding recognition of human rights. We began with freedom to choose religion or not, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and protest, etc. We also began with the freedom to select our own leaders and authorize our own government. First, African Americans were recognized as humans and not property, and then Black males were given the right to vote. Soon after, women could vote and own property. Now we seek to free all ethnicities, races, genders, orientations and cultures from the values and expectations of what has been a dominant, white male culture. It has been a slow and painful process, but it continues. Wendy Davis takes her place in line behind Rosa Parks, Pete Hernandez, and Susan B. Anthony. It is amazing to me that 2 of the four listed above are from Texas, and that one of the most important cases in the advancement of human rights initiated here in Jackson County. Who would have thought that the advancement of human rights could find fertile soil in Texas?
Three new planets have been discovered that appear to be capable of supporting life. They orbit star Keplar 69 and are in the Goldilocks Zone, not too hot, not too cold to support life. In the past 25 years we have identified 697 planets when before such existence was just hypothetical. We are able now to specifically seek planets that are most earth-like and therefore most capable of spawning or supporting life. Wow. What will be the impact of our discovery of life elsewhere in the universe? I believe but cannot prove that we will discover that life is rare given the size of our universe, but is found in many, many places. Of those places, sentient life is rare, but exists on a scale broader than our own ethnic, racial and culture differences here on earth. For now, we are alone with each other on this small orb. Wish our notion of illegal aliens and illegal immigrants only applied to sentient species from somewhere other than earth.
We have known for some time that about 50 million years ago dolphins and whales evolved from land mammals in the same category as hippos to water-based mammals. What we have recently discovered is the return to land by some dolphins. Wow. Multiple sightings of bottlenose dolphins foraging on land at night have been scientifically recorded in Florida. Dolphins appear unable to remain out of the water for an extended period of time, but are able to leave the water amidst mangrove trees, seek small crabs and urchins to eat, and then return to their fluid habitat. What an amazing planet. What an exciting array of ever changing life we have on earth.
New fights for human rights, new planets capable of life, and new behaviors by other intelligent life forms here all inspire me. The human story has been one of the evolution of our thinking, our ability to abandon old ways and find new ways of viewing problems and issues. Galileo was tried by the Inquisition and found guilty of heresy in 1615 and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. His sin was he argued that the earth orbited the sun, not vice versa, and was found guilty by the religious establishment of the day. We are at risk of doing much the same today, I fear. When our beliefs conflict with what we know, it is a folly for us to entrench ourselves in those beliefs. We must change, adapt, advance and move on, or render ourselves extinct. Those who profit from the status quo will always disagree, fight to maintain both the acceptance of and universal application of their belief systems, and they will all eventually lose.
Celebrate the advancement of human knowledge and thought and discovery. I do.
It is the core mission of my chosen profession.
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