Posted by Michael Haran on Feb 17, 2021
Let’s start things off with a riddle:
The beginning of evolution
Is the end of time and space
The beginning of every end
Is the end to every place
Can you guess the riddle?
Hi, everyone. This is my first weekly post which takes a look the evolution of our species past, present and future. My next post will cover the history of social/cultural evolution and how it has exacerbated the political divide in this country and how we can attempt a fix.
Future posts will explore various topics that are relevant to human advancement as well as our survival on this planet. Topics will be seen through the lens of physical/mental and cultural evolution. The physical/mental, which is explored in this post, considers human evolution through the genetic component and how evolution is being impacted by the human constructs of curiosity, imagination and creativity. Cultural evolution will be examined as it now exists through the evolution of civilization and how it has impacted human relationships and interactions between family and society.
The past four years are a prime example of how civil interruptions can be detrimental to human culture and society’s progress. But on the flip side, one has to question, what is considered progressive evolution and is it always for good or can progress also be evil?
As D.T. Max asked in his April of 2017 National Geographic article “Beyond Human:”
“Are we on the way to redefining how we evolve? Does evolution now mean not just the slow grind of natural selection spreading desirable genes, but also everything that we can do to amplify our powers and the powers of the things we make – a union of genes, culture, and technology?
And if so, where is it taking us?
First the Past
Evolution on planet Earth has never stopped – it is relentless. When the chances of any living thing’s survival can be increased, nature will find ways to mutate to make it happen.
Primates diverged from other mammals about 85 million years ago. A major climate shift happened between 3.0 and 2.5 million years ago marking the onset of Northern Hemisphere glacial period. This period generally coincides with the timing of the origin of the genus Homo which leads us to, Homo Sapien.
The oldest known skeleton of a modern human dates to about 200,000 years ago. Modern humans evolved beginning with primates which lead to the emergence of Homo Sapiens as a distinct species. This process involved the gradual development of traits such as upright walking and language. Modern human language is thought to have begun about 100 thousand years ago and we haven’t shut up since. Humans are thought to have migrated out of Africa about 60 thousand years ago, about 20 thousand years before the Neanderthal species died out. The question of whether the Neanderthal was killed-off or interbred with Homo Sapiens is still a matter of debate. Because modern humans have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA it supports the interbreeding theory. Plus, our Neanderthal relatives can be seen on any given Sunday playing football as NFL lineman.
It was thought that human evolution took millions of years but over the past 3,000 years, many populations have evolved genetic adaptations to their local environments. As humans migrated north their skin lighten to allow the absorption of Vitamin D in the shorter daylight environment. People in Siberia and the high arctic have developed metabolisms that are uniquely adapted to survive extreme cold; the Bajau people of the South Pacific can dive 70 meters and stay underwater for almost 15 minutes because of unusually large, oxygen holding spleens like deep diving seals; people that live in the Hymnals have evolve to flourish in a lower oxygen environment. Three thousand years sounds like a long time but it’s the fastest known adaptation ever to have evolved in humans.
Now the Future
Biological evolution may be unstoppable and more skillful than the genetic evolution humans can initiate with crossbreeding in plants and animals, but how important is it, measured against the adaptations we can devise with our amazing brains? As the futurist Ray Kurzweil said, “We will transcend all of the limitations of our biology. That is what it means to be human – to extend who we are.”
It’s clear that human evolution isn’t over. Surviving to reproductive age is what drives natural selection, the force behind evolutionary change. The big question is, will our technological and scientific innovations impact our evolution?
Modern medicine has allowed longer survival which becomes encoded as part of evolution. Good sanitation, antibiotics and vaccines all make differences between genes less important and modern medical procedures that prevent death all tend to stop natural selection through genes, allowing survival to a reproductive age. Modern medicine also allows genetic drift which makes genetic differences vary randomly within a population because harmful mutations don’t kill people and thus are not eliminated. These modifications are not to genes themselves but to when and how those genes are expressed, the science of which is called Epigenetics. These changes can happen in as short a time frame as one lifetime and be passed on to offspring. For example, human drug addiction has been shown to be pasted to offspring through the sperm and egg in a single generation.
Technology now does much of the same work and does it far faster, bolstering our physical skills, deepening our intellectual range, and allowing us to expand into new and more challenging environments.
A prime example is the new technology called CRISPR-Cas9 which is a procedure to snip out a section of DNA sequence from a gene and put a different one in, quickly and accurately. What used to take researchers years now takes a fraction of the time. No technology has remotely existed before that is as powerful for the manipulation of the human genome. Designing synthetic cells beyond the bounds of evolution (so called “Designer Cells”) is encompassing everything from reengineering pig embryos to make their organs safer for human transplant to trying to fix the genetic defect in human embryos. The moral implications of playing God or creating a Hitler type super-race have to be weighed against the ability to correct natures mistakes by producing disease-free embryos. At this time there is an international moratorium on all therapies for making heritable changes in human genes until they are proved safe and effective. CRISPR is no exception.
Most scientist don’t think the ban will last. Some pointed to the history of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) as a precedent. It was first touted as a medical procedure for otherwise infertile couples. Soon its potential to eradicate devastating genetic diseases was clear. Evolution is not benign and much human suffering has come from nature’s mistakes. As IVF became more familiar, its accepted purpose spread from preventing disease to include the designer cells of sex selection and even choosing desired hair and eye color.
CRISPR is a vastly more powerful technology than IVF, with a far greater risk of abuse. But the moral issues aside, the potential benefits of applying CRISPR to humans are undeniable and many feel that as soon as CRISPR is shown to be safe, ethical questions will recede, just as they did with IVF. There are already 2,300 CRISPR gene therapy trials under way, including for anti-aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
As George Church, a molecular engineer at Harvard and MIT stated, “DNA was left in the dust by cultural evolution. But now it’s catching up.”
Riddle Answer:
The letter E
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Posted by Michael Haran on Feb 12, 2018
By Michael Haran
The following link shows the counties that Trump won in an inter-active format. http://time.com/4587866/donald-trump-election-map/?xid=emailshare The site states, “At present count, Trump snagged 220 counties that voted for President Obama in 2012, while Clinton poached 17 that went for Mitt Romney.” Most of these counties are in the rust-belt swing states. California has 14 Republican Congressional House seats. If seven can be flipped to Democrats that would represent nearly a third of the 24 seats Democrats need to take control of the House. Nationwide, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified 59 Republican-held districts they believe can be won by a Democrat.
As important as taking back the U.S. Congress is it is just as important for the Democrats to fare well in the 36 gubernatorial contests and thousands of state legislative races next year, where Republicans currently hold a 3,034 to 2,317 advantage. The past 10 years have eroded the Democratic base, as fewer ideas are percolating up from the states. Republican gerrymandering has cost at least a dozen House seats and hundreds in state legislatures. State governments also often serve as training grounds to develop candidates for higher office and provide national awareness.
In 1979 the Republicans were in the same boat the Democrats find themselves today. The Democrats controlled all three branches of government and the gloom of the post-Watergate era hung over them like a rural graveyard fog. Then along came Ronald Reagan with his upbeat message. He projected a can-do optimism that was welcomed after a series of economic, military and political shocks, tailoring his conservative message to appeal to the gas station attendant, as well as the wealthy country club set. In 1980, Republicans won a majority in the Senate for the first time in more than 25 years and made major gains in statehouses as well.
Most political party comebacks are marked not by some innovative policy agenda, but by connective messages and powerful personalities like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Trump. It’s not about ideology or 17-point policy prescriptions. “In 2016, the problem was not about an agenda; we had that,” said Paul Begala, a leading Democratic strategist and close associate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. “The problem was message.”
Last month, Democratic congressional leaders put out a “Better Deal” agenda, a familiar litany of proposals like a higher minimum wage, lower drug prices, more job training and less corporate welfare. As stated by Albert R. Hunt in his article “Democrats need a fresh message to win in 2018,” for the Bloomberg View, “Although it does have its uses, bold or innovative it’s not. It’s a good organizing tool for candidates to be more than just anti-Trump,” said Stephanie Cutter, a former deputy campaign manager for Obama and a strategist in the successful 2006 Democratic campaign to win back a majority in the House. A much better slogan would be “LET’S DO IT!” This slogan works on many levels plus it sounds fun and exciting.
What I think would be a great idea, would be to put a number of cargo vans (like the Ford 250 Transit which you can stand up in) on the road in every Republican-held congressional district that has a chance of flipping to the Democrats in 2018. These vans, which will have LET’S DO IT! painted on the sides, should carry a team with the Democratic candidate into these counties and towns and hold a town-hall style BBQ and talk to people about how they feel about jobs, healthcare and education.
This program would target the areas where disenfranchised voters switched to Republican to tell them the truth about Trump (although most know it by now) and, by the time this project is rolled out (in time for the mid-term 2018 elections), Trump the fraud and con artist should have been well-cemented in people’s minds. The message would focus on retraining people to work in the service sector or tech sector since many of the jobs lost are not coming back because they were either replaced by more efficient green energy alternatives or were automated. The United States has the most advanced service economy in the world and there is no reason why people should not take advantage of it. From the commentary patterns that emerge, scripts would be written with enough flexibility to adjust to a particular community’s sentiments. This data could help determine the message on the local, regional, and even national levels.
The message should also be authentic and crafted in a way that avoids issues like abortion, uniformity on transgender soldiers, higher corporate tax rates, lower defense spending and impeaching Trump – all political poison policy proposals that won’t play well in closely-fought battlegrounds that Democrats need to win. The mistakes that Clinton made in saying to the coal country that, “your jobs are not coming back” or to the wealthy Democratic donors, “your taxes will be going up” have to be avoided. These issues may be true but you don’t state the obvious. The same has to be done when referencing Trump. Never state the obvious. Motivating and getting people to engage is a three-step process:
- First, the issue presented requires an emotional response;
- the second phase is reflecting or thinking about the particular phenomenon;
- and the third phase is action
If successful, an authentic message will be sufficiently motivational to get people to engage to help reverse the true ugliness that has been unleashed by this administration.
This program can work on the state and local level too. Although the message would have to include local and regional issues (as Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.”), there will be plenty of Democratic contenders to help field-test the party’s message. The experiment will be successful if it yields messengers who best counter the failings of Trump. Starting at the lowest level of elected officials, like local school boards, candidates must know about governing without appearing to be elitist, who can be dignified as well as approachable, are persuasive in articulating Democratic themes like the dangers of income inequality and wage stagnation, and just might be able to create some local enthusiasm.
Over the past ten years I’ve watched California State Senator Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) come of age. At 19 years old, he was the youngest person ever elected to the town school board. He studies the issues and listens to constituents. He suffers fools graciously and will listen to anyone until one of his aides drags him away. I think Mike has learned many of his campaign sensibilities from successful senior elected officials. If structured correctly, I think this program might have the potential to help hone the skills of the next generation of Democratic leaders.
If there is one lesson learned from the Trump phenomena, it is that people want to be heard; they do not want to be neglected; they do not want to be patronized. If you want their vote, people have to truly feel that they are cared about – even loved. If necessary, this literally has to be accomplished one person at a time. The best elected officials know this instinctively. At a recent Democratic dinner meeting Congressman Jared Huffman (D – San Rafael) was excited at the potential up and coming crop of new Democratic candidates.
I think this is a solid way of getting boots-on-the-ground in contested national, state and local districts to reintroduce the Democratic Party as the working man’s party, an image that got away from us in the 2016 election. So, fire up those burgers and LET’S DO IT!
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Posted by Michael Haran on Jun 4, 2015
With all of this ebb and flow on the Seghesio project I thought I’d check in with one of the most respected local merchants in the community, Will Seppi, general manager of the family owned Costeaux French Bakery in downtown Healdsburg.
Costeaux has been around for some 92 years, first as the French American Bakery, which was owned by Octavia and Ricardo Cassaza. In 1927 the bakery was sold to J. Sarzotti and A. Viari who featured breads, panettone, pasties and grissini (breadsticks). They delivered twice a week to customers in Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys who would pay after the annual harvest.
From 1930 to 1971 the bakery had several different names and owners including Tom Alexander who changed the name to Alexander’s Modern Bakery. In 1959 the bakery was bought by Fred Loupi (still a Healdsburg resident), who changed the name to, what else, Fred’s Bakery. During Fred’s tenure there was a rumor around town of a bakery truck spinning “donuts” on the plaza lawn but Fred doesn’t know anything about that. In 1972, the bakery was bought by Jean and Annie Costeaux from Reims, France and gave the bakery its current name.
In 1981, the Seppi family bought the bakery and kept the name. Karl and Nancy often visited Nancy’s great aunt, Mary Zandrino, who lived on a ranch in west Dry Creek. It was Mary who knew the bakery was for sale and suggested that Karl and Nancy buy it. Karl, who was a golf pro, was taught how to bake bread by Jean Costeaux. Karl didn’t seem to have much of a handicap switching to the bakery business as Costeaux won the only gold medal for bread at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair that first year and they have been winning gold medals, and even national acclaim, ever since.
Costeaux
After graduating from Villanova University and a stint in accounting for a Silicon Valley finance company Will took over the business full time in 2004. He and his three sisters (one of which, Karla, along with her husband Rob Lippincott own the popular Healdsburg Parish Cafe) grew up in Healdsburg where Will still lives with his wife Brandy and their three kids ages 3, 2, and 8 months. Under Will the company has kept growing. They now sell their wide assortment of baked good in not only Sonoma County but also in Mendocino, Napa, Marin and San Francisco. They produce from three to five thousand loaves of bread per day which can go to ten thousand or so with special events. Even though they now have over 85 employees (50/50 retail and production) you can still see Will delivering bread to places like Big Johns.
The bakery and restaurant on Healdsburg Avenue is a beautiful facility reminiscent of a French villa. With an eye on ecology Will recently put in solar panels and to save water he put in a brown colored wood floor instead of tile that needed to be mopped daily, also the crumbs blend in better. Their annual events including Bastille Day (the replica guillotine was made for them by Aristocrat Wood Products and Redwood Auto Body) and Christmas Eve celebrations are a lot of fun and Nancy’s spirited homemade eggnog is very popular. Their in house promotions include a December 24th “secret envelope” where you can win a gift certificate, complimentary bread, desserts or cookies and a “coffee coin” can get you a croissant, cookie or loaf of bread.
Costeaux Interior
But it’s not the in-house promotions that define the Seppi family. When it comes to giving back to the community Will seems to be everywhere. Each year the bakery donates money and products to an astounding 500 community events including Northern County Services, the Healdsburg Senior Center’s Christmas dinner, Redwood Gospel Missions Great Thanksgiving Banquet, FFA and more. They contribute to the KZST Secret Santa Christmas gift program; the Algebra Academy and internship programs at Healdsburg area schools and have sponsored family ESL literacy programs for their employees. And the list goes on and on. The Seppis’ may not be the Triones’ but their philanthropic mind-set sure is.
Costeaux Solar Installation
So what’s Wills’ take on the Seghesio project? He says that Pete Seghesio, like Will grew up in Healdsburg, and loves the town and community and can understand why Pete was a little shocked at any negative reaction to the project. The business will generate jobs and tax revenue and if the meat market does well it will become a popular local venue not unlike Costeaux. As far as the upscale restaurant goes most locals, even though most couldn’t or wouldn’t spend that kind of money on a restaurant meal, thought it was fun having Cyrus’ in town. It’s like the downtown wine tasting rooms; if there is a demand they will stay in business, if not they’re gone.
But one thing is for sure, the Seghesio have and will give back to the community and, like the Seppis’ they are part of the fabric of the Healdsburg community.
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Posted by Michael Haran on Mar 5, 2015
I don’t know if the announcement of Kerrie Lindecker leaving Sonoma West and the Healdsburg Tribune was more shocking to me or more sad. Kerrie is has been the managing editor for over ten years and it never crossed my mind that she would ever leave. Then again she is such a smart and articulate person that I should have realize that someday a quality opportunity would present itself to her.
I had always wanted to try my hand at being a newspaper columnist but knowing the commitment the profession takes I have just too many other interest to make that work so I through I would try commentary because writing commentary is on the writers time frame and not the publication. So I submitted a letter to the editor about a little Christmas tree that would occasionally light up a local vineyard and low and behold Kerrie published it. This was the first time I ever had anything published in a newspaper.
Kerrie and Ryan’s Wedding
From there I went on to writing commentary and Kerrie helped me learn the techniques of developing an interesting story in 800 words or less. I have since written over fifty published commentaries which I archive in my writers blog at MGHReport.com.
I know that over the years many of us in the community have developed our own unique relationships with Karrie. For example, that’s how she got her new position with State Senator Mike McGuire who she has known since his days on the HUSD school board. The following is one of my stories about Kerrie and is from the “Legends and Lies” section of a booklet I wrote on the history of fishing the Healdsburg and Russian River watershed for the Healdsburg Museum:
Making a Deadline
Ryan Landing the steelhead
“One of the joys of living in a small town is that many of the editorials in the local newspaper, stories that would never be allowed in a metropolitan newspaper, are about the interests of the people who work at the paper. A case in point is Healdsburg Tribune’s editor, Kerrie Russell, who often writes about not only her fishing exploits in and around Healdsburg but also her upcoming marriage into a local family of steelhead fishermen. Needing a little more on the feminine side of steelhead fishing, Kerrie was interviewed for this story. It turns out that Kerrie had never caught a steelhead on the Russian River. To propose to her, her fiancé took her to the Smith River where she did catch a steelhead, but still never had on the Russian River. She was informed that this interview was for the upcoming booklet by the Healdsburg Museum for the town’s upcoming steelhead festival and that the deadline for its completion was about a week away. It is not known whether it was Kerrie’s response to a self-induced challenge, or if she is just hardwired to meet a deadline, but she wanted to catch a Russian River steelhead before this booklet had to be completed. Well, lo and behold, a phone call was received that she had, in fact, caught a steelhead while fishing on the river with her fiancé up near Cloverdale. She said that it was a 10 pound wild “buck” that had to be released. She also said that for proof she took photos, but even without photos it would be totally implausible not to believe a member of the press – right?”
Because she will be working out of McGuire’s Santa Rosa office, she says, “I’m not going anywhere,” I’m still going to miss her at the Tribune for my own selfish reasons. When I asked Jim Wood if he had heard the news about Kerrie he replied that Mike McGuire’s a lucky man. So maybe this transition isn’t sad but rather something that should be celebrated as Kerrie moves onward and upward.
Michael Haran Is a Healdsburg resident
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Posted by Michael Haran on Jan 27, 2015
Healdsburg Tribune 1/22/2015
Dr. Jim Wood doesn’t seem like a person who would pursue higher office because he’s not. When asked when he first wanted to go after a second career in politics he replied that he never did and that it’s just one of those things in a person’s life that happens – that it just evolved organically. As he takes his seat he is one of the state’s 28 new members of California’s Assembly.
Jim, who has two brothers, grew up in Orange County and got his degree in biology from U. C. Riverside where he met his wife, Jane. They got married during Jim’s first year of dental school in Loma Linda. Jim’s first practice was in Modesto but he and Jane would visit Sonoma County and they fell in love with the place. In 1987, he put out some feelers and found a dental practice to buy in Cloverdale which Jane managed the entire time they owned the practice. Jim, 54, moved to Healdsburg in 1989, has been married for 31 years, and has one son, Alex, who is a freshman at the University of Santa Clara. He and Jane sold the Cloverdale dental practice in 2013.
Jim’ first foray into politics was on the Cloverdale General Plan Advisory Committee in 1991. In 2002 he served on the Healdsburg Planning Commission and was first elected to the Healdsburg City Council in 2006. As Jim got deeper and deeper into public service he found that he not only liked the challenge of finding solutions to complex problems but also the interaction with the diverse groups of people which comprise local communities. His ability to both reflect on an issue and at the same time concerning himself with the well-being of people probably comes from years of looking into a patient’s mouth to solve a problem. As a dentist, he said, you can’t choose who will walk into your office.
The 2nd Assembly district is nested within the 2nd Senate district but is still one of the largest districts in the state. Extending from the middle of Santa Rosa to the Oregon border the area includes the north half of Sonoma County and all of Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity and Del Norte counties. With about 480,000 people in his district it’s about half the size of Mike McGuire’s Senate district.
Jim sees the biggest challenges (he doesn’t like to call it an agenda) in his district as employment, water, healthcare, education and the environment. Even if the state isn’t going into a historically prolonged drought north coast water management is now seen as a high priority. Jim sees storage and conservation as his prime focal points and not sending more nor-Cal water to southern California at the expense of our fisheries, our fishing industry and agriculture. Accordingly, one of his first appointments was as Vice Chair of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. He is also on the Natural Resources Standing Committee.
California Dental Association
Employment and education are linked in that with the collapse of the logging industry people have to be retrained to work in other industries. To that end the community colleges need to be strengthened to offer more vocational and internet generating careers which is why getting broadband into every nook and cranny of his district is one of his highest priorities. With the Emerald Triangle being smack in the middle of his district the marijuana industry is being looked at closely. Its legalization could bring jobs but that has to be weighed against the damage its cultivation is doing to the environment, the outdoor recreation industries and the adolescent healthcare issues that come with it. But he says nothing substantial is going to happen one way or the other until the feds make a firm decision on the issue.
As the only professional healthcare provider in the Assembly, Jim is especially focused on strengthening healthcare in his district’s many rural communities and, as such, was appointed to the Health Committee. He is also on the Business and Professions Committee because of his experience as a small businesses owner in a regulated industry. He learned the state legislative and political process while working with the California Dental Association in Sacramento.
He feels that the district’s hospitals will have to adopt the Healdsburg Community Hospital’s model of specialization, like stroke care or joint replacement, in association with other facilities like the U.C. Davis Med Center. He also thinks that Obamacare has been reasonably successful but containing costs is still a big challenge and it will probably take ten years until the program is fully effective. It’s ironic that Jim expects to work closely with the Assembly’s Black and Latino caucuses because a lot of rural community issues, such as healthcare and education, are similar to those in the inner cities.
Although they are both highly intelligent and effective Mike McGuire’s personality is more a “force of nature” whereas Jim’s personality seems more contemplative and reflective which is probably comes from his medical training. Whatever, they both are dedicated, have a proven tract recorded of successfully working together and Healdsburg should be proud that we have them and that they are working for us on the bigger picture.
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