A Charm of Humans?

I set out to write a piece on optimism and hope for the New Year. In the piece I would propose that by universal effort we make 13 a lucky number. The critical word here is 'universal', defined as pertaining to all or the whole. By that definition, it would take us all to make 2013 a lucky year.

Often we use the words 'we' or 'us' in a partisan sense, meaning those allied to us or congruous with our thoughts or objectives. But for the effort on the scale I propose to succeed, it must be truly universal.

There are relatively few words that describe the entirety of the human race. Our species seldom acts in a universal, all inclusive capacity toward a unified objective. Size and distance are factors, of course. But in a shrinking world, must that always be so? Perhaps not.

Humans are after all social animals. We like to gather. We have names for our social selves. When several of us are gathered together we are a group, or perhaps a crowd. Or we could be a throng or a bunch. On certain days we might be a congregation, or sometimes a rabble, on lesser days a posse. We even borrow terms from other species to refer to ourselves in the plural; a swarm, a herd, a pack. There are more names for humans in groups than when alone.

But we are not the only social animals. Other animals congregate too, within their species. We've heard that birds of a feather flock together. And so do sheep...flock, that is. But not goats, they are a tribe or a trip or a herd, as are cattle and buffalo, at least until they run away and become a stampede. Porpoises are also a herd, or they can be a school, or a pod. Whales can be a pod, and they can also be a school and a herd, and a gam and a float and a run and a troop and shoal and a mob. Kangaroos are a mob but have been known to be a court and a troop. And yes, a group of baboons is also called a troop. Some call a large group of baboons a congress; I'll leave that to you to decide. But chimpanzees are also a troupe, and they can be a barrel, a cartload, a community, or a tribe. Gorillas can be a troop too, or a band. Notice that with monkeys we have come full circle to humans, who can be troops, tribes, cartloads, communities and yes, a congress.

It seems all creatures band together by species, at least on occasion, and become an entity. Crows become a murder, a group of crocodiles a bask or a float, a group of doves a dule, eagles a convocation, falcons a cast, finches a charm, larks an exaltation, ferrets a business, goldfish a troubling, greyhounds a leash, lions a pride, leopards a leap, owls a parliament, peacocks an ostentation, rattlesnakes a rhumba, squirrels a dray, turtledoves a pitying…well, you get my drift.

I wondered if there is any creature so independent that it lacks a term for it as a group?  I remembered that when it is difficult to move things as a unit, we say it is like herding cats. Aha! Maybe that most independent of creatures is the exception. But no. It seems there is actually more than one name for a group of cats. They are called a clowder or a clutter or a glaring. Even cats in the wild when gathered together have a name, a dowt or a destruction. Apparently all creatures, the birds of the air, the denizens of the deep, the beasts of the field are social enough to have a name as a group.  Contrary to what we might like to think, humans are not the only social animal or even the most social of animals.

And so I suggest we consider some new names for humans when gathered together. We have named other groups of animals for the characteristics we have assigned them. Perhaps if we called a large gathering of humans by a truly fine name we might eventually grow into it. How wonderful for a mob of humans to be known as a Charm, like the finch, or an Exaltation, like the lark. What if we called gathered humans a Loving or a Fairness? Or maybe a Good? I think its worth a try.

Richard Gamble launches eBook

Richard Gamble launches eBook. Read all about it in the Santa Ynez Valley News.

Cliffs

We've been hearing a lot about cliffs lately. That's good. We need cliffs, otherwise life is too mundane. As a culture, we always manage to have a cliff or two down the road. We like to have precipitous cliffs that are just around the corner as well as distant cliffs that we can worry about from time to time.

Today two precipitous cliffs loom, the Mayan End-Of-Days Cliff and the Fiscal Cliff. It is interesting to note that if we fall off the former we won't need to worry about the latter. The Mayan Cliff has us scheduled for departure this Friday, December 21st. Some people are very worried about that. In fact, some are so worried they talk of committing suicide before that day to avoid it, a sort of a sub-cliff to the main cliff. I guess one cliff isn't enough for some people.

But if we survive the Mayan Cliff, we can all worry about the Fiscal Cliff which is due to arrive with the New Year. And every once in a while we can think about the Global Warming Cliff and worry about that.

Our last cliff of any size was the Y2K Cliff at the turn of the century. People worried that computer systems would malfunction when the year ratcheted around to 1/1/2000, that missile systems would go off, bank vaults would open, trains would crash into one another, and so on. None of that happened. But it wasn't long before the doomsayers adjusted the prophecies forward another five years. We needed to have a cliff.

Marq De Villiers wrote a book titled The End. In it he points out that our culture has adopted doomsday as a state of mind, that nowadays we don't turn a hair at the thought of an asteroid strike or a nuclear winter. Just another cliff. He writes of all the natural close calls our earth has survived already, the crashing and churning and smacking and burning of our globe from forces beyond and within. He speaks of the hazards to come. We are unlikely to run out of cliffs any time soon.
He writes of the need to come together politically as a global community to prevent approaching cliffs when we can and plan for those cliffs we cannot avoid.

But this is unlikely to happen, because we are fascinated by cliffs. We are mesmerized by them like a bird transfixed by the gaze of a cobra. We want to walk to the edge and look over it.

I believe we will survive the Mayan Cliff and the Fiscal Cliff. And many other cliffs to come. But we are a vulnerable species. As de Villiers points out, the planet will still be here after the ice melts and water rises and the violent storms wreak their havoc and life will survive as well, in some form. Just not our form.

I Saw A Bobcat Today

I saw a bobcat today. Not while jogging, when I tend to have such encounters, but while driving a stretch of road I take to buy groceries, a distance of about thirteen miles. The terrain here is long sweeps of grassland with occasional groves of live oak. I saw the bobcat from the window of my jeep as I drove along. At first I thought it was a house cat, for the distance deceived. I slowed and looked close and could then see the distinctive markings and ear shape of the lynx rufus. It was intent upon its quarry, crouched, tense, foreleg muscles bulging, ready to pounce. It never saw me, such was its focus.

Most of my enjoyment of California's Central Coast where I now live is from sharing the region with plentiful wildlife. I have encountered most of it on my runs; a gray fox, all kinds of deer from bucks to fawns, coyotes (including one I came face to face with at a distance of fifteen feet, startling us both), eagles and hawks, vultures, a ring-tailed cat, and near misses with bears and mountain lions.

The creatures in this area of California do not seem accustomed to runners. They are unprepared when I suddenly come upon them, padding up on light feet. I've nearly stepped on snakes and tarantulas. The cattle that line the fences gape at me in astonishment as I pass, their mouths hanging open exposing mouthfuls of grass.

I am told that the population of mountain lions in California is actually increasing. The cats have been driven west from other habitats where their existence has been challenged. In California, it is against the law to kill one (it is not against the law for one of them to kill us). And I wouldn't have it any other way. I was greatly saddened when a cat with which I shared a particular trail, each of us knowing of the presence of the other but going about our own business, became roadkill on the El Camino Real. But I know that another will likely move into the region.

I fear intoxicated drivers and illegal marijuana growers and deer hunters much more than the animals. It is with the former that my closest calls have come while jogging.

This all suggests to me that there is a balance in nature, a balance experienced by the other animals but not by humans. We've lost interest in maintaining the balance. We believe that we do not need nature, we believe that the existence of flora and fauna depends upon us, and not we it. We are saddened when a species dies out, or the ice pack which has stood for hundreds of thousands of years melts away. But then we pick up our coffee and flip to the next page of our newspaper.

It will be interesting to see if we can manage to live without nature. We are well on the road toward finding out.

 

Learning & the Brain

Another Learning & The Brain Conference looms (the 34th) in San Francisco this February. It will convene at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill and is totally worth the price. I first attended the Boston Conferences in the Fall of 2006. At that time, there was a disconnect between scientific research into how the brain learns and those trusted with actually educating it. Fairly recent advances in brain scan techniques had scientists collecting data at a rigorous clip.  All long standing educational concepts were under review. While some traditional teaching methodologies were validated many were turned on their collective ears.  The scientists doing the research suddenly found themselves with an abundance of data critical to education methodology and no means to apply it.  Yet those charged with educating our children often had very little knowledge of the human brain, its growth and capabilities.
     In 2006 the presenters at the conference were predominantly research scientists and college professors/researchers at the research end of the spectrum. The attendees at the conference were largely fellow scientists and researchers, or people from the medical profession, or special education teachers. But very few middle to high school educators were in attendance, those front line classroom teachers who need this data and its implications the most. Presenters expressed a common concern, the need for educators to work closely with scientists to understand how best to apply the new, critical data to education practices. There was a general call to teachers to partner up.
     At that conference in 2006, my first,  my interest in learning more about the brain was sparked. I soon realized that some basic assumptions in our current educational systems, particularly public education, were flawed and desperately needed to change. In fact, some truly basic assumptions, ranging from academic and athletic scheduling to classroom construction and numbers, homework assigning, school starting times, and so on.  Since that time I've written articles on the subject, presented posters, and generally tried to stimulate interest from those responsible for current education practices.
   When I received the promotion pamphlet for Learning & the Brain this year, I was happy to see that the balance of topics for scientists and educators is much more even. Such fascinating subjects as the role of maturation, parents and training on memory, the effects of parental nurturing on child brain structure, mood and learning, and why every brain is wired differently and implications for education.
   Wow. And that's just the beginning. As I read title after title I realized that few forums or places on earth can offer such a wealth of material on education and neuroscience.
   Yes, the $569 price is steep. I can't afford it. I must limit myself to attending every couple of years. But when I go, I fill entire notebooks. And the accompanying spiral bound book containing the research that backs the presentations is almost worth the price by itself. If you've got the dough, go.