our common links:
‘Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.’
John F. Kennedy , ‘A Strategy of Peace’ speech, American University, June 10, 1963
‘The DNA sequence in your genes is on average 99.9% identical to ANY other human being’
Dr Aaron Shafer, Stanford University, March 17, 2006
Cs137 (Cesium 137) from Fukushima Daiichi, dispersal during the first 80 days from 11.3.11:
earth: an animated map of global wind, weather and ocean conditions:
I131 (radioactive Iodine) dispersed across the entire northern hemisphere by 7 April 2011
http://openarchive.enea.it/bitstream/handle/10840/4952/1-s2.0-S1352231014004555-main.pdf?sequence=1
more maps showing radioactive contamination from Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl here.
Butterfly Effect:
‘If a single flap of a butterfly’s wings can be instrumental in generating a tornado, so also can all the previous and subsequent flaps of its wings, as can the flaps of the wings of millions of other butterflies, not to mention the activities of innumerable more powerful creatures, including our own species.’
‘If the flap of a butterfly’s wings can be instrumental in generating a tornado, it can equally well be instrumental in preventing a tornado.’
Edward Lorenz, ‘Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?’, paper presented at the Global Atmospheric Research Program Conference, Boston, December 1972
Out of Africa:
One of our oldest bipedal hominin ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis, e.g. ‘Lucy’, lived in eastern Africa about 3.8 and 3.0 million years ago.
According to the ‘Recent African Origin model’ modern humans began to migrate from Africa between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spreading_homo_sapiens_la.svg
According to Shi et al. the first wave of human migration into Japan occurred more than 30,000 years ago, via Tibet: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2605740/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2687770/figure/F1/
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Mitakuye Oyasin (All Are Related) is a phrase from the Lakota language. It reflects the world view of Interconnectedness held by the Lakota people.
The phrase itself, and the underlying belief of interconnectedness with all creation, is a part of many Yankton Sioux prayers, and is found in use among Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people.
Translations and themes
The phrase translates as “all my relatives,” “we are all related,” or “all my relations.” It is a prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life: other people, animals, birds, insects, trees and plants, and even rocks, rivers, mountains and valleys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitakuye_Oyasin
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‘Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term … It is an idea from the Southern African region which means literally “human-ness,” and is often translated as “humanity toward others,” but is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity”‘.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy)
‘7 Seconds’, by Youssou N’Dour featuring Neneh Cherry
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The song is trilingual: N’Dour sings in Wolof, a West African language, and French (plus singing chorus in English), and Cherry sings in English.
‘”7 Seconds” tells about first seven seconds in the life of a newborn, arguably unaware of problems in the world.’ Neneh Cherry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Seconds_(song)
SENATOR JOHN F. KENNEDY RE NUCLEAR FALLOUT:
excerpt from ‘Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at Wisconsin Association of Student Councils, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 2, 1960’
‘It is true that the amount of radiation created by bomb tests so far offers no serious threat to the well-being or existence of mankind as a whole. But it is also true that there is no amount of radiation so small that it has no ill effects at all on anybody. There is actually no such thing as a minimum permissible dose. Perhaps we are talking about only a very small number of individual tragedies – the number of atomic age children with cancer, the new victims of leukemia, the damage to skin tissues here and reproductive systems there – perhaps these are too small to measure with statistics. But they nevertheless loom very large indeed in human and moral terms.
Radiation, in its simplest terms – figuratively, literally and chemically – is poison. Nuclear explosions in the atmosphere are slowly but progressively poisoning our air, our earth, our water and our food. And it falls, let us remember, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, on all peoples of all lands, regardless of their political ideology, their way of life, their religion or the color of their skin. Beneath this bombardment of radiation which man has created, all men are indeed equal.
Perhaps the ill effects and the dangers of fall-out from bomb tests can be regarded today, in statistical terms, as minimal. But let us remember that there is still much that we do not know – and that too often in the past we have minimized the perils and shrugged aside these dangers, only to find that our estimates were faulty and that new knowledge inevitably increased our appreciation of these dangers.’
red kimono 
