Animal crackers

OK, so there are no crackers, but here are three intriguing tidbits about animals. The first two I gathered from a mail list devoted to archaeology and ancient Near Eastern studies. The third I picked up from a David Stratton sermon illustration at Woodhaven Baptist Church, near Cary NC.

Uncredited photo from BBCHorses: if you're a horse lover, there's news that equine companions may have been domesticated earlier than previously thought, in the middle of an Arabian desert that once was a lush river valley. Around 300 stone objects found in the Al Magar area of the Arabian peninsula include several carved horse-shaped objects bearing lines that look like primitive harnesses. The finds date from about 9,000 years ago, about 3,000 years earlier than evidence for horse domestication found in Kazakhstan.

We've all heard of the famed Arabian horses: now it appears that horses and humans have been companions in the area for longer than we knew.

Dogs: It's long been shown that dogs evolved from wolves, and archaeological evidence suggests they were first domesticated in Europe and the Middle East as much as 14,000 years ago. Scientists who study such things have been puzzled, though, because genetic markers born by contemporary dogs show that most of them can be traced to an early canine population in Southeast Asia. Recent research published in a journal called Molecular Biology and Evolution suggests that farmers who pushed south of the Yangtze River some 6,000-9,000 years ago were accompanied by their dogs. Once distanced from their lupine ancestors who remained in the north, the Southeast Asian dogs developed a distinct doggy DNA that was less wolfish, and gave rise to most of the dog breeds we know today.

So, even if your dog's family name suggests an origin in Scotland, France, or Norway, chances are its ancestors did a long tour of duty in Southeast Asia.

from Wikimedia CommonsSnakes and Mice: On a more contemporary note, the Air Force will soon be bombing one of its own bases with dead mice. That's right: after World War II, ships arriving in Guam accidentally introduced the brown tree snake, which has no local predators and rapidly took over the island, nearly wiping out the entire population of jungle birds. The snake is only slightly venemous and not much of a threat to humans, but has become a major pest and an obvious menace to the ecosystem.

Enter the Air Force: thousands of dead but deadly mice will soon be dropped from helicopters over more than 100 acres of America's Andersen Air Force base in a controlled experiment to see how effective they are in killing the snakes. The mice will tied to streamers designed to get hung in the trees, their little bodies packed with acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, which is poisonous to the serpents. If the million-dollar air assault proves successful, look for the program to be expanded, much to the chagrin of mice and snakes alike.

The book of Genesis asserts that God instructed humans to "have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28). That's one command, for good or ill, we appear to have taken seriously.

Bless his key pickin' Baptist heart

It's always nice to learn something new about someone, even after they've left this world.

I can remember when pianist Van Cliburn, then a young man, won the inaugural Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, back in 1958. It was big news at the time. In the midst of the Cold War, when neighbors were building fallout shelters, the notion of an American becoming not only famous but popular in Russia seemed as unlikely as Lady Gaga becoming the next pope today. 

Cliburn could have basked in adulation, but kept a relatively low profile, avoiding grandiosity and speaking of himself as a "servant" who sought to bring beautiful music to people.

I always wondered if "Van Cliburn" was his real name, mainly because it sounded more like a last name in the vein of "Gerhard von Rad" or "James Van Allen," and he was most commonly referred to as "Van Cliburn," rather than just "Cliburn." It turns out that his given name was Havey Lavan Cliburn, Jr., so I suppose "Lavan" was shortened to "Van" and he really did use it as a first name.

I don't recall ever wondering about his faith before Cliburn died, but was gratified to learn that he was a lifelong and faithful Baptist, most recently a longtime member of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, and a generous contributor to music programs there.

I'm grateful for Cliburn's contributions in many ways: we could use more quiet servants who bring beautiful music to the world.

Don't curse cursive

My students, who sometimes struggle to read the comments on their marked up writing assignments, can tell you that my penmanship is nothing to brag about. I've always blamed my lack of a fine flowing hand on the fact that we southpaws have to push the pen rather than pull it gently across the page.

Or, in my case and a few others I've seen, to rotate the left hand 90 degrees and write from the top rather than the bottom -- smudging everything already written in the process.

Even though my handwriting is less than stellar, I know how to do it, and I know how to read it. I think that's important. You may have noticed, however, that fewer and fewer students are learning to write in cursive. North Carolina recently became one of 45 states that have implemented something called the "Common Core" standards for language arts and mathematics. Amazingly, cursive writing is not included in the curriculum.

How can the ability to sign one's name with something other than block letters not be part of a basic body of knowledge and skills that educated people should have? I love educators, but I have to believe the decision to eliminate cursive handwriting from the curriculum deserves an F.

Some educators argue that society has gone so digital and we spend so much time at keyboards that we don't need cursive. Others argue that it helps students learn spelling and common letter patterns while concentrating harder in the process of writing. It certainly teaches fine motor skills.

In North Carolina, Representative Pat Hurley, a Republican from Asheboro, has introduced a bill that would require cursive writing to be taught in elementary schools. I'm not usually in favor of legislators telling educators what to do, but I have some sympathy for this measure.

From the standpoint of practicality and function, perhaps cursive isn't the most important thing to be teaching, but I think its value goes beyond that. For one thing, do we want a generation of children who can't read letters or cards from a favorite aunt or grandparent? Do we want them to be incapable of studying historical documents written in cursive?

Writing in cursive is akin to the arts -- it has a subjective appeal that in some ways seems more civilized than a series of hastily scribbled block letters. My signature may not be as neat or distinctive as John Hancock's, but when a contract or document calls for me to print my name on one line and sign on another, that's what I do. I believe our children should be able to do the same.

Sweet success

I have some small reputation among friends for trying new foods and enjoying different tastes. One of my favorite dishes is a type of Korean barbecue called bulgogi -- very thinly sliced beef in a sweet soy and sesame sauce that has a flavor all of its own. Koreans have a very different idea of what constitutes barbecue, but bulgogi is terrific.

Unfortunately, there are zero Korean restaurants in my neighborhood. There are some in Raleigh and Durham, but when going out to the theater or symphony, "let's try Korean barbecue" is not an auspicious way to begin a date.

So, this weekend I decided to try making it myself. I sorted through several online recipes and discovered the dish wasn't as complicated or filled with exotic ingredients as I had thought it would be: the hardest part was toasting the sesame seeds without burning them and slicing the beef very thinly -- and it doesn't really have to be "paper thin," as the recipe calls for -- the main thing is to cut across the grain.

My son liked the dish so well that he asked for it twice in two days, and both times it disappeared before I could take a picture of it.

Trying something new, especially with some modicum of success, is always rewarding.

Bulgogi days are here again!

Eggy faces

How low can Congress go, at least in the category of job approval? An average of seven different polls taken during the past month showed that only 15.6 percent of Americans approve of the job our law-makers are doing, while a resounding 78.7 percent disapprove -- a resounding discrepancy.

Before throwing too many stones, however, we need to remember that we elected the same people we're criticizing. Many of our senators and representatives were put in office precisely because they positioned themselves as die-hard party ideologues who signed pledges or promised to take an inflexible stand on issues like taxes or spending cuts.

If we intentionally elect intractable defenders of pet positions, how can we expect them to work together in a system that by nature calls for cooperation and compromise? It's like trying to plunge a toilet with a hammer, and the whole mess over Congress' self-imposed sequestration crisis is going to stink up the place until some of those hammers either undergo a radical conversion or get sent back to the toolshed and replaced with more appropriate implements.

It's not as if there are no cooperative options available: Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairmen of the biartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, continue to promote what seems like a reasonable course, but to little avail.

I continue to hope and pray for a miraculous spirit of collaboration to exorcise the demons of obduracy and get Congress on a cooperative path before running into March 1's broad-axed budget butchering, but time is growing short.

With the aroma from Capitol Hill smelling more and more like a barnyard, perhaps related metaphors are not out of place: when mulish and pig-headed people play chicken, they all end up with egg on their faces, and the country's future is put out to pasture.

Something to think about when the next elections come around ...