Since the 40th anniversary of the death of MLK was 4 days ago, this is a little late, but I just found it tonight. This is, of course, a cover of the U2 song, but John Legend does it such elegant justice. He really is just amazing. Let me know what y’all think.
Erin Blonshine is in remission!!! Yes, you read that right! Now, click here and read all about it!
You can’t imagine how horrible Alzheimer’s is. I’m watching my grandmother right now – she’s sneaking some cereal that she hides in the drawer thinking that I can’t see her.
She’s standing right in front of me.
When she looks up and sees me, she shoves the bowl back in the drawer and walks off like nothing happened. If you think cereal in the drawer is weird, how about this – drinking sickly sweet creamer straight from the bottle. We go through about 2 bottles a week. The doctor says yeah, it’s gross, but it doesn’t hurt her, so if she’s happy let her go on with it.
She’s pretty lucid when she’s at home, which is most of the time. However, if you take her out of the house for more than a day (ex. spending the night at my parent’s) she’s just all kinds of confused.
I went to my cousin’s funeral a few weeks ago. It snowed that weekend and my grandmother didn’t know where she was. She was sure she was at home, and even more convinced that someone had stolen her recycling bin. My poor mom had to practically wrestle her down to keep her from traipsing out in the snow to look for it. There are several large planters around my mother’s swimming pool. Memaw saw that and said THERE IT IS, not bothering to notice the swimming pool we’ve never had sitting behind it.
Alzheimer’s is unfair. Not just for the poor soul who loses their memory, identity and ability to take care of themselves, but for the family who has to watch it all go down. Having said that, the biggest blessing of my life has been living here these 5 years. Beyond the blessing of caring for Memaw, spending time with her and helping her with things like getting dressed, fixing her hair and making her coffee when she forgets how, I’ve found a church home that is priceless, a real relationship with the Lord and an appreciation for family that you just don’t have until you’ve walked through hell with them. I know who’s real and who’s not, who’ll stand by you and who won’t and, like a mom, I’ve learned that you’ll touch things you never thought you would touch in a million years. You do for family.
Memaw’s moving into a nursing home in the coming weeks. On one hand I’m ready, excited to live my own life on my own schedule. On the other hand I’m completely broken-hearted. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just the change. Maybe it’s because things have finally come to this. I know that after a week she’ll be completely at home (Lord, let it be). I know that the nursing home will be able to take care of her like I never could. I know that she’ll be safe and fed and that they’ll keep her occupied and amused as much as she can be.
But what do I do?
It seems like a simple answer – whatever I want. But to be honest, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m keeping busy with Bible studies these days. I know that God’s doing a work in me and that He’s refining me and that I never have to worry because He’s got it all worked out (thank You, Father), but there’s always those moments where you just don’t know what your purpose is anymore. I know now that my purpose is shifting. I’m not meant to be a caretaker anymore, but what AM I meant to be? I wish I knew.
I’m really not an unhappy person. I’m really quite sunny and optomistic. I have faith and trust in my great God. He’s seen me through many a trial, and this time will be no different. I’m just a bit lonely. Boyfriend is gone, Grandmother’s departure is imminent…I’m here all by myself. Oh it’s not like I don’t have friends, or the most precious family in the world to keep me company, I’m just not used to existing day to day by myself. It’s an adjustment that is exciting and terrifying all at once.
So this post doesn’t really have a beginning a middle or an end. I would so not pass English class with this one, but it’s just some stuff that’s on my mind.
Keep us in your prayers, if you would. We need ‘em.
Fossils challenge old evoluton theory By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Wed Aug 8, 5:57 PM ET
WASHINGTON – Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved.
The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows that two species of early human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man’s early evolution — that one of those species evolved from the other.
And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man.
The old theory is that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became human, Homo sapiens. But Leakey’s find suggests those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years. She and her research colleagues report the discovery in a paper published in Thursday’s journal Nature.
The paper is based on fossilized bones found in 2000. The complete skull of Homo erectus was found within walking distance of an upper jaw of Homo habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis, researchers said.
It’s the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter, said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London.
The two species lived near each other, but probably didn’t interact, each having its own “ecological niche,” Spoor said. Homo habilis was likely more vegetarian while Homo erectus ate some meat, he said. Like chimps and apes, “they’d just avoid each other, they don’t feel comfortable in each other’s company,” he said.
There remains some still-undiscovered common ancestor that probably lived 2 million to 3 million years ago, a time that has not left much fossil record, Spoor said.
Overall what it paints for human evolution is a “chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us,” Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.
That old evolutionary cartoon, while popular with the general public, is just too simple and keeps getting revised, said Bill Kimbel, who praised the latest findings. He is science director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and wasn’t part of the Leakey team.
“The more we know, the more complex the story gets,” he said. Scientists used to think Homo sapiens evolved from Neanderthals, he said. But now we know that both species lived during the same time period and that we did not come from Neanderthals.
Now a similar discovery applies further back in time.
Susan Anton, a New York University anthropologist and co-author of the Leakey work, said she expects anti-evolution proponents to seize on the new research, but said it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory.
“This is not questioning the idea at all of evolution; it is refining some of the specific points,” Anton said. “This is a great example of what science does and religion doesn’t do. It’s a continous self-testing process.”
For the past few years there has been growing doubt and debate about whether Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus. One of the major proponents of the more linear, or ladder-like evolution that this evidence weakens, called Leakey’s findings important, but he wasn’t ready to concede defeat.
Dr. Bernard Wood, a surgeon-turned-professor of human origins at George Washington University, said in an e-mail Wednesday that “this is only a skirmish in the protracted ‘war’ between the people who like a bushy interpretation and those who like a more ladder-like interpretation of early human evolution.”
Leakey’s team spent seven years analyzing the fossils before announcing it was time to redraw the family tree — and rethink other ideas about human evolutionary history. That’s especially true of most immediate ancestor, Homo erectus.
Because the Homo erectus skull Leakey recovered was much smaller than others, scientists had to first prove that it was erectus and not another species nor a genetic freak. The jaw, probably from an 18- or 19-year-old female, was adult and showed no signs of malformation or genetic mutations, Spoor said. The scientists also know it isn’t Homo habilis from several distinct features on the jaw.
That caused researchers to re-examine the 30 other erectus skulls they have and the dozens of partial fossils. They realized that the females of that species are much smaller than the males — something different from modern man, but similar to other animals, said Anton. Scientists hadn’t looked carefully enough before to see that there was a distinct difference in males and females.
Difference in size between males and females seem to be related to monogamy, the researchers said. Primates that have same-sized males and females, such as gibbons, tend to be more monogamous. Species that are not monogamous, such as gorillas and baboons, have much bigger males.
This suggests that our ancestor Homo erectus reproduced with multiple partners.
The Homo habilis jaw was dated at 1.44 million years ago. That is the youngest ever found from a species that scientists originally figured died off somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million years ago, Spoor said. It enabled scientists to say that Homo erectus and Homo habilis lived at the same time.
I ran across this artist recently.
Christopher David Ryan. I think his art is so beautiful.
I love how he can blend graphics with photos and it’s not jarring.
A lot of times text can ruin a piece, but it’s so complementary, the way he uses it.
Enjoy.
