Kenniwick Man! Now the corpse has to be turned over to the Native American tribes that claim him as an ancestor. It might surprise a couple of my friends that i think that it’s total bullshit. I side with science on this one. If someone asked me if they dug up my grandparents to dissect them them and genetically test them, it would not bother me. As for the argument that I come from a different culture, and have to respect a culture alien to mine, what about human sacrifice? A lot of human cultures indulged in that practice. I have no right to say it doesn’t bother me, or try to stop it? Yes, I would wind up imposing my own values on someone else. I’m not thrilled about that, as it opens all kinds of nonsensical philosophical debates, but that’s my gut feeling. After all, as things stand, it’s not absolutely proven that Kennewick Man is absolutely these tribes ancestor. He may even have been an ancestor for a rival tribe that was exterminated by genocide by the tribes now claiming him. Could we put these contemporary tribes on trial for those crimes? Yes, that’s pure, insane speculation, but so is the judgement that wound up declaring that Kennewick Man is a Native American, just because he died here more than 500 years ago. By that same notion, those Norsemen who settled Greenland and possibly further south, are Native Americans. Curious ruling. 9000 years old, and people want to stick him right back in the ground… and i suspect it has very little to do with reverance.
Listening to Clinic “Internal Wrangler” at the moment. Yep, it’s another album bought at Spiller’s in Cardiff! Manic, nervous energy! Nerdy, nervous bastards who bounce around snapping rubber bands at each other, who may take notice of you at any moment and stab a ball point ben into your throat to practice the technique of an emergency tracheotomy! They have a troop of howling gibbons from the infectious disease lab implanted with bionics and singing backup! And all of this is performed on a streetcar with its bells clanging as it crashes down the hill! Yeah, i like these guys a lot.