Who Says You Can't Go Home Again?

A couple days ago, the NY Times ran this piece on how black Americans are increasingly using advances in DNA testing to trace family lineages all the way back to Africa where specific regions and tribes of origin – to an extent - can be identified. The technique is far from refined at this point, but apparently it beats the hell out of spending twelve years of your life in musty library stacks reviewing plantation records and ship manifests, or wandering through the wilds of Africa in search of people “who kinda look like you.” Now, for the price of a couple hundred dollars, and a slight loss of tissue between your cheek and gum, you can establish a connection to the motherland.

In typically earnest NY Times fashion, the article details the benefits and limitations of the procedure, as well as the fairly predictable feelings it inspires in its participants: pride and relief at filling in the missing piece of their heritage, anger and remorse over the treatment of their ancestors, and so on. Out of all this, the most interesting anecdote, to my way of thinking, is the following:

“One African-American, upon confirming a match with a white man whose ancestors had owned his, told him he owed reparations and could start by paying for the test, said Bennett Greenspan, chief executive of Family Tree DNA, which offers tests for $129 and up.”

I can only imagine what the reaction was when the man answered the phone and the guy at the other end told him he owed reparations. But the fact that he added, “you can start by paying for the test” is priceless. Man (reaching for checkbook) “Of course. Will that be 129 bucks in 1855 dollars or 129 bucks in 2005 dollars? Oh, and by any chance do you accept Confederate money?”

I say screw the $129 bucks for DNA testing. Tonight I’m going to scan the white pages for anyone with the last name “Flint” and ring the number:

Me: “Hello, is this the Flint residence”?

Them: (with reticence): “Um, yes, it is.”

Me: “Are you white?”

Them: “What!?”

Me: “Sir, are you white, by any chance?”

Them: “Yes, I’m white!”

Me: “You owe me reparations and you can start by paying for this phone call.”

With 140 years of interest, I should be living high on the hog. I wonder what 40 acres and a mule goes for in San Francisco these days.

Doctor Hannibal Goes to Hanover

An enterprising young business student at Dartmouth has introduced a health food offering for the cannibalistically inclined. Human flavored tofu – hufu - doesn’t sound especially appetizing, but it is fat free and just 100 calories per serving. So it’s got that going for it.

Tough to know if hufu lives up to its billing, though. Friend of the Blog (FOB) Kameron suggests the only way to tell if the stuff is legit is to feed it to carnivorous animals and see if they devour it like an 8-piece of Popeye’s chicken. Maybe, but human-flavored or not, it’s still tofu. And I’m not sure we want to train captive animals to appreciate the taste of human flesh any more than they already do.

The hidden gem of this story is the celebrity angle, which may be apocryphal, but since it’s in my interest to believe it’s true, I’ll present it as fact. Besides, if you can’t trust America’s oldest college newspaper - not to be confused with America' Oldest College Daily - whom can you trust? As they wrote about inventor Mark Nuckols:

“He also claims that the name "hufu" was actually coined by actress and model Milla Jovovich. Several years ago, a business associate was discussing Nuckols' idea, then called "hofu," with a friend on a Eurostar train going from London to Paris. Jovovich, intrigued, allegedly turned around to join in the conversation, commenting, "'Hofu' sounds like 'c*ck' -- you should call it 'hufu.'"

"As far as I can speculate, she meant 'ho food,'" Nuckols said. "She's a supermodel -- she doesn't have to make sense."

Apparently Jovovich’s publicist did not respond to requests for comment.

Spaced Out Travels

I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve come to realize that I find the space shuttle vaguely depressing. Perhaps its because it reminds me of the years when I would watch each take-off breathlessly, back when each launch seemed so improbable, yet full of possibility. Now that I’m old(er) and jaded, the only feeling I get is relief when one doesn’t blow up.

People are a hard group to satisfy; even sending something into orbit can seem old hat after a while. And you wonder why so many couples get divorced. That said, it is still a bit of a marvel that the behemoth gets off the ground, malfunctions and all. Like when Discovery took off this morning with its tailpipe dragging. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1709928,00.html

Can you imagine? I mean, drivers go batshit when a piece of their bumper falls off. Wonder what it feels like to be trailing debris from the fuel tank as you hurtle into space. The closest I ever came is when I was winding through the mountains of Western Virginia on the way to a country wedding with my friends Kameron and Chinh.

Kam was behind the wheel as we approached one particularly sharp curve. As he accelerated into the turn he asked - rhetorically – “Do you think I can make it?” Uhh, no. Not that we had a chance to respond as he took out a sign and rolled the car over an embankment, down a hill and onto a golf course.

Apollo 13 material it isn’t, but the thought of dying on the way to your friends’ wedding tends to get the blood rushing. Anyway, when the car came to a stop, part of the front end was stripped bare, revealing the innards and a steady stream of fluid that was watering the green. We made the wedding, though. And the car was insured. Who insures the space shuttle?