Epigenetics

The Royal family have again expanded. I am sure that the family is pleased with the new arrival and rightly so. Parents and grandparents will be proud and happy to have this new addition and no doubt there will be siblings to follow. Good luck to all of them.

It has been interesting to follow the reactions of the public this week and yet again the total gullibility of the populace has been demonstrated on a vast scale.  First there was the lead up to the "event" with people almost holding their breath whilst standing on the streets for days hoping that they might catch a glimpse of a royal minion carrying a piece of paper, and then the jubilation following the announcement.  I doubt if many people took a step back and thought about what they were doing, why should they? The programming has been going on for millennia  and is continued quite happily by the media of today.  People must behave like sheep and do what the powers that be wish them to do, otherwise we will have anarchy.  Royalty has always subjugated the population and have remained unchallenged today despite their lack of any real power, and supported by the church the masses have been herded through all the appropriate fences and kept in check.

Epigenetics is a fascinating new science, that studies the influence of environment and experience on genetic make up. It was once thought that our genes are inherited in a fixed form and that we were simply the slaves of our biology.  Now it appears that genes can be switched on and off by external and internal factors.  For example, we may carry genes that give a propensity for a particular disease or condition. These genes may be switched off but life events may be able to switch them on.
It is possible that centuries of forelock tugging and bowing and scraping, being threatened with hell and damnation and seeing others tortured and even executed for having minds of their own, has triggered a gene complex that ensures compliance in the bulk of people.

The new baby has been greeted as if he was the new Messiah; and there is a significant proportion of people that firmly believe that the Royals were appointed by some divinity; yet the only impact that this child will have on their lives other than media hype, will be further drain on the public purse.  The child will have no life of its own, however privileged it is. It will want for nothing and yet it will miss out on what it is like to be human and will simply observe the flock from afar, unable to run with it.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixmNZQH0NjU

Dulce et decorum est

I just got back from a holiday in the Somme valley.  It is a strange place to take a holiday as the area is largely agricultural, but an interest in the first world war drew me there.  The house that we rented was built before the terrible events of the early twentieth century, its walls thick and its heating inefficient and the inclement weather meant that it was warmer outside than in.  We took books of course and when not touring the battlefields and cemeteries, I read about the events and the horrific experiences of some of those who survived.

The carnage, we all know, was beyond belief, hundreds of thousands of young men from all nations were mown down in their prime and their lives torn away from them.  Even more German lives were lost than those of commonwealth and American soldiers and the landscape of the Somme will be a permanent reminder of the effectiveness of propaganda as well as man's fundamental indifference to his fellow man.

The fields are green and lush everywhere and smeared liberally with swathes of poppies that look like bright bloodstains.  There are more than a thousand military cemeteries in that area alone and white headstones stand out from the perfectly manicured lawns like young teeth. So many headstones bear the anonymity of an unidentified victim and other monuments list the thousands who were never accounted for.  Remains are still being discovered nearly a hundred years on and those remains are given due respect and interred along with the rest.

History tells us that these young men willingly volunteered and laid down their lives in a war to end wars. Did they have any choice?  The politicians decided the events of the war, they instructed the generals who in turn sent their men to their deaths.  Enlisting was not an option for many men, it was either that or being branded a coward or a traitor. The propaganda enticed women to treat non combatants as lower forms of life and those in uniform as heroes. It would have been so hard not to volunteer. 

I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of dead and the destruction of so many towns and villages in a relatively small area of France. The progress made in 1916 was minimal and it would appear that the Somme's main objective was to take pressure off Ypres, and in that sense it was a success. 

We found one small German cemetery. That in itself was very moving, the youth of that country were also decimated and they too had no choice but to kill and be killed.  Jewish and non Jewish soldiers were interred alongside each other a poignant reminder that the only lessons learned from the so called Great War were more efficient ways to kill each other, and each war passes on that lesson and no other.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4) 
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12) 
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13) 
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918