12 February 2007
The Y Chromosome
It was not a good weekend, and there is snow on the way. A tractor-trailer overturned on the Beltway Saturday morning, and 165,000 eggs were broken, leaving a yellow river of yolk around the Capital.
Yesterday, on the anniversary of the bombing of a major Shia shrine, and the advent of the command of a new American Commander in Iraq, there is a non-binding resolution on the floor of the Senate, which repudiates the whole adventure, though practically it means nothing.
Most of the people involved in those activities are male. The Dixie Chicks swept the Grammies last night, not that I watched it, and they are mostly female. I think they garnered the prestigious award for best album on the strength of their anti-war politics, since my understanding is that no one listened to the music anymore.
The Dixies are mostly female, according to the news summaries.
There are bombs exploding in Baghdad, in the minute of the moment of silence for the dead of last year, and maybe forty dead this morning, adding to the misery to be remembered next year on this day. Mostly male again, if my guess is correct.
I'm male, too, so this all had a certain relevance. I was up this morning anyway, waiting to hear what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was going to reveal in his speech yesterday. There were 100,000 people in the Azadi Square- mostly male- waiting to hear the good news he said he would reveal last week.
He stopped short of announcing the return of the Hidden Imam, another guy, which caused some relief on all sides, since that means the end of time is at hand. I have a lot to do this week, which is why I was concerned.
He didn't have anything to say about the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, which was another disappointment. The President was forced back to the same platitudes he uses for slow news days, railing at the international sanctions and vowing that Iran would never give up its right to enrich uranium, which under no circumstances would be used for anything but good works.
He also denied that he was providing top-quality shaped-charge explosives to the assortment of insurgents in Iraq, the ones that can penetrate the armor of the American vehicles. He didn't mention anything about providing Russian man-portable rockets as well, which have had good success in bringing down helicopters.
He was plainly lying, but there is so much to lie about, here and there, that it is hardly remarkable.
I have heard that newly announced Presidential candidate Barak Obama is a known cigarette smoker, puffing on as many as two packs of Marlboro Reds a day. I have heard no denial about the matter, and I assume he must be trying to quit. Better now than when he is elected and has access to the launch code for the nuclear arsenal.
The case against Mr. Obama seems to have come down to his middle name, his penchant for tobacco, and his lack of experience. There are many who say that all three contribute to his resume, particularly the part about only having only two years of service in the Senate. He has not been there long enough to have learned the same bad habits as the rest of the candidates.
As to the smoking thing, he is fairly young, and if elected, will wind up spending a lot of time on the porch in the Rose Garden outside the Oval Office. The less time at the desk, the better, in my view. Non-smoking chief executives would probably be at the desk tinkering with the constitution.
I have always been looking for the philosophical principle that unifies all this static that passes for news; broken eggs, shaped charges, pop music and politics.
I may have found it in an article in a magazine I subscribe to that I read for the articles. It is sort of like The Atlantic, only it has pictures of women in it, which I assiduously avoid.
There was a fascinating article about the Y Chromosome in it, and the future of the gene that produces men. You know how it works. Two “X” chromosomes and you get a baby girl. An “A” and a “Y” and you get a baby boy. Intense research has led to the conclusion that the “Y” chromosome is the weak sister of reproduction, and according to some geneticists, is in the process of going away.
Several mammals, including the Armenian mole vole and the Scandinavian wood lemming, have shown that a species can survive without a male chromosome, leading to the proposition that the “The rodents are leading us into a new era of Y-less existence.”
Columnist Maureen Dowd makes the case the centerpiece of her book “Are Men Necessary?”
It is a tough call for the feisty Texas columnist, but she concludes that we are, though clearly should be more decorative.
According to the article, “Men and women both inherit an X from their mother, the Y doesn't do much except make testicles, and women's second X is thought to be largely inactive, so biologists have long insisted that the genders are not much different”
As it turns out, it is not true. Results of research conducted in 2005 suggest there may be as many as 300 active genes in the “dormant” female X. The conclusion was startling, and led me to a minor epiphany. Combined with the fact that the “Y” has more genes than previously thought, this means men differ more from women genetically than humans do from chimps.
It also means men and women are hundreds of times further apart than any two of the human races. Thus, a white man is closer genetically to any of his male brothers in the world than he is to his wife. What is more, gender differences previously thought to be hormonal may actually be genetic.
No wonder we have a hard time talking. I am not sure, given the situation, that Maureen Dowd was right.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com