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Well this is probably a bit of a hijack; but since the discussion has turned to vision/dreams, I feel compelled to relate my own. The following is a true story;
I was walking down an alley to the convenience store(it may have been a 7/11). I heard someone behind me shout "Get him Scrappy!"; "Get him!". When I turned and looked, a medium sized Pit Bull was charging full speed straight at me! He launched himself into the sir and purely out of instinct I gave him my arm. Sometimes a good offense is the best defense, so I lifted him up and bit into the top of Scrappy's head as hard as I could.
A strange sensation came over me as my teeth seemed to sink deeply into his skull. Instead of being rock hard, it seemed very soft and very dry.
It was then that I awakened, drenched with sweat, and found I had my pillow clamped tightly in my mouth!
I think it's pretty obvious what this means........
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Back on topic - the idea that Polynesians crossed the Pacific 9,000 years ago as the ancestors of Kennewick man is absurd on its face. The chronology of the migration of Pacific Island people is very well established through archeology - proto-Polynesians only arrived in Fiji and Samoa about 3500-3000 years ago, and didn't reach Hawaii and Rapa Nui until about 1000 years ago.
What it does possibly suggest is that the ancestors of Austronesian peoples were formerly widespread on mainland Asia, and that the people who colonized the Americas included both them and others who formed to dominant part of what we now call Native Americans. That would not be unsurprising, since the closest linguistic relatives of Polynesians, Micronesians, and other islanders are the aboriginal "hill people" of Taiwan, who presumably once had relatives that lived on the mainland but were driven extinct by the expansion of the Chinese, Turkic, and other peoples.
Of course, the other side is that it may be completely bogus. Consider how different the Taiwanese hill people look from Hawaiians, after a separation of only about 5000 years. Making a comparison between someone from 9000 years ago and a modern people, based solely on skeletal features, is likewise bound to not be very accurate. A little better than phrenology perhaps, but not much.
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Also, DNA is not as accurate as we would like to think. When the human genome was discovered scientists thought all kinds of illnesses wold be found to be genetic and would be solved. It didn't really work out that way. In fact there was a blind DNA test done by the Atlanta Journal Constitution that had to do with looking for race and ethnicity via DNA. Race was found to be dependent on a small fraction of a fraction of genetic information and ethnic information was misleading, or surprising, depending on how you want to interpret it. Many people who were sure their genetics were purely caucasian or nordic would find that their genes described them as african or native american and vice versa. I can't find the article any longer since I read it about 8 years ago but this Radiolab piece does a good job of making the same point.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/91654-race...r-does-it/
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i have come across some interesting scientific reading challenging the notion of the existence of meaningful definitions of "race" as well. also, one should not confuse culture with "race".
regardless, ...where "race", pride, identity issues, anger, insecurities, etc cross paths, i find some very ugly polarization is bound to present itself in hurtful ways, reading between the lines or not. personally, i find any regard to race takes a far backseat to other real qualitative characteristics. in fact, i find it completely irrelevant to personal relations. what's the point, anyway? and with ethnic backgrounds of friends and family in Hawaii so mixed up... how you going to function with an attitude fixated on race? graciously with aloha? not even.
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Wait a minute Snorkel, not only have you hijacked this thread, and, by the way, hijacked my dream, but you maimed my beloved dog Scrappy! You know good and well why I had to sic him on you. Now he's so terrified he won't come out from under the lani; he won't even chase the feral cats that are eating his food. He's under there right now, and won't let me take off the halo the vet put on after she did the bone graft. Snorkel, you might be a nice guy in real life, but in dream time you're just plain vicious. Stay the hell out of my dream, and pick on animals your own size.
Un Mojado Sin Licencia
Un Mojado Sin Licencia
