How Many Are Deaf to Covid-19?

 

At the Ear Doctor's Office

As a voice crying in the wilderness, I went half deaf myself.

There is no need to panic or reimpose the initial lock-downs and masking. It is more than prudent to follow the current guidelines regarding Covid-19 prevention along with so many other communicable diseases:

1. Follow the consensus recommendations of serious medical professionals, scientific experts, common sense, and even the religious leaders of my particular preference and get vaccinated with necessary boosters.

DNA 2: The Y-DNA Test

It's likely that I have a Y Chromosome as it's been working for me so far.

Frustrated by the imprecision of the Ancestry.com test, as good as it is. And with more people taking it the better it gets. I still need some info on my direct paternal line. That's what I've been researching and we have that one illegitimate birth. We have circumstantial evidence for the father, but it would be nice to pin it down.

There's also the question as to whether we can pin down the medieval Vaughans who were sufficiently wealthy and of the gentry with even a few knighted to sire significant offspring legitimate, illegitimate, and otherwise. I mean, everybody in the Glasbury/Talgarth area of Breconshire are probably related anyway. The most likely multiple-great-grandsires are those who had the monetary means and power to get away with it.

And then there's the tantalizing mystery of ancient origins. My son's test from 23-and-Me said his Y Chromosome "looked like" it came from Irish strongmen, one of whom we know established the Kingdom of Breichniog that become Brecknock then Breconshire.

So, I ordered a detailed Y-Chromosome test from Family Tree DNA. It's the mid-range test as the top-of-the-line seems to be for establishing a common father with a male sibling, My brother and I already accept what our parents told us.

The kit comes in a smaller package than the Ancestry.com test.

The scribbles are my poor attempt with "Paint" to redact my personal identifiers

Hiraeth 2016: Dydd 12--Seeking the Welsh in Oxford (and the Cotswolds)

Once more over the Severn Crossing, we headed to the nearby Cotswolds. The first stop was some little church I'm going to need help with in remembering the location (all I had to do is Google "hobbit door church in the Cotswolds"). It is in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire at St. Edward's Church.

Very Tolkienesque or C.S.Lewisy

Exist Light! And Light Was.

Gods "exist" in the entrance rotunda of the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California

The King James Version is much too polite and complicated in its syntax. I have always preferred the phrase in Portuguese, "Haja luz!" E houve luz." And I worked it out in Welsh class last night:

"Byddwch golau!" Ac oedd golau.

"'Be light!' And light was."

I have no idea in what language He (They? We?) spoke the command when light was born. In our current state, we seem to have a little difficulty in expressing the concept.

Science Student of the Month

My wife just finished this narrative for an 8th Grade Hispanic student. This is the real America.

[I have edited only to remove the names for obvious privacy concerns.]

Student of the Month Recognition Letter 

Dear X_____,

I am pleased to nominate you as a Mueller Park Junior High School student of the month for the month of JANUARY, 2017. I have enjoyed having you in 8^th Science this year. As I considered all the amazing students I have, your name surfaced as the one I should select. You are a wonderful student with a cheerful smile and a positive attitude. You work hard to complete assignments. One quality you have that stands out the most is your kind and generous disposition. Let me briefly explain what I admire.

Book Report: The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An Exploration, by Keith Ray

My life-long love of archaeology begin in First Grade when I saw photos of the horrifying casts of human forms from Pompeii. It related directly as we lived in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, an undead volcano like Vesuvius. Later, I was fascinated by all things Egyptian and saw King Tut's Treasure Exhibition in Seattle. And Heinrich Schliemann found his golden treasure, while not quite at the right level for King Priam's hoard, it was gold nonetheless.



In 1969, our Scout Troop hiked the Pacific Beaches of Olympic National Park. As the service project to qualify for our fifty-miler, we helped shovel out some of the settling ponds at an archaeological site at Cape Alava. Prompted by my dad, I asked Dr. Daugherty of Washington State University what it would take to become an archaeologist. He said I should take a lot of Science classes.

Crap. Seventh Grade Science was a joke. How many ways can you measure the effects of hydrochloric acid on sea shells (AKA Calcium)? We did experiment with it on several other substances; desks, linoleum, each other. Sadly, while I continued to read ancient history, I never became an archaeologist.



There was one other thing that bothered me. Egypt, Troy, and even Cape Alava were fascinating but I wanted to find out about where my own ancient people came from. Well, that day has arrived!

Keith Ray's The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An Exploration, (Logaston Press, Almely, Hereforshire, UK 2015) came through Amazon! It was only 20 bucks. And while I haven't read it all in one sitting, I have begun to devour and already have several discoveries in the home turf of my ancestors:

I experience, therefore, I am.

Only one essay in and I'm already hooked.

I'm still not enough of an intellectual to understand the Great Thinkers that well. I understand a little. And I've read a bit of Kierkegaard (see here and here). So when I pick up this book by a Mormon intellectual attempting to explain Faith and Science from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist or ecologist, and he starts going all Kierkegaardian on me, yeah, I can relate.

Science AND Religion

Absolutely compatible!

That may be enough to challenge plenty of belief systems. But my daughter, faithful LDS, great Mom, and Jr. High Science Teacher, explains it all so well in this newspaper article from the Salt Lake Tribune:

More DNA Analysis - The Celtic Will Out

Found it.

Yes, you can download and upload the raw DNA data from ancestry and use on other sites. The easiest appears to be gedmatch.com, a "crowd-sourcing" site that needs our financial along with DNA contributions. It's all still very confusing and I still haven't figured out how to look at my Y Chromosome which I seriously need for Welsh connections.

But I found my American Indian percentage! Or at least one of the versions. There are several ways to look at DNA on the Gedwatch site. It scares me to begin to understand them cuz of a little knowledge and stranger-danger, etc. One of the analyses gave me:

Amerindian

0.22%

Utah Schools and Science Standards

Guest Post:

From my daughter who is a Junior High Biology Teacher and a Davis District Science Administrator (sorry, I forget her exact title, but she was the Science Mentor for her Mom when her Mom went back to teaching Jr. High Physical Science).

For whatever reason, public school Science remains controversial in Utah and many other parts of the country. This email message may help clarify the purpose of Utah Science Standards:
     
Hi L ______,

I'm happy to answer your questions.

1. With the myriad of standards that are available for states to use, how did Utah decide on using the NGSS [Next Generation Science Standards]?

Faith & Evidence

The Coma Galaxy Cluster , NASA photo

Without coming to any definitive resolution, I engaged in an interesting discussion of Faith & Evidence with a good friend and my oldest daughter. The friend is close in age to my daughter and they are mutual friends. I'm glad I can call my daughter my friend as well - and my friend is like a son. That's what happens when you're bishop.

The discussion resulted from the last post on the Book of  Mormon and a book that may or may not have influenced Joseph. The participants have granted me permission to share the dialogue here:

Mitt Romney at the Science Fair

I really, really wanted to like Mitt Romney. I did like his dad whom I believed to be a man of conviction. George Romney was one of the last Republicans to support the Civil Rights movement when the party's ideology was switching driven by Nixon's “Southern Strategy”  (Nixon canvassed the Southern vote with a veiled appeal to white voters using phrases like “law-and-order” to counter the push from Democrats to support civil rights). Mitt, like his father, was a great moderate Republican Governor and I fully supported Romneycare.

Yesterday I read something from a Republican that made a lot of sense in explaining Romney’s recent loss. Representative Pete Sessions explained:

“Mitt Romney appeared like a kid who showed up for his science project and the teacher said, ‘Explain it,’ and Mitt couldn’t do it. His ‘dad,’ Paul Ryan, explained it to him, but Mitt didn’t get it. … That’s why we lost the last election.”

Jupiter, Moon Are Alright Tonight

My children, their spouses, and wife who are much more science-oriented than I said that this was an important astronomical event and for me to go take a picture. So, there it is. The moon and just above and slightly right is supposedly Jupiter. My little, digital, pocket Canon seems to have picked it up.

Election Post-Mortem 2012 (by Faith, nothing wavering)

A few days have passed, so it's time to share a few thoughts, and my thoughts alone, about what happened. And as I promised, no gloating. (At least I'll try really, really hard.)

Electoral College Map 2012

And here's another version from the University of Michigan (h/t HF & PB) with the geography contorted to represent population of states: