Inspiration: the briefest tirade against systemic corruption with other parts of the conversation previously referencing the agony of Mexico between the slave wages of the “maquiladora” and the brutality of the narcotics and other trafficking business.

I’ve just spent an hour struggling to deliver the answer, the prescription, that magic elixir in thought that would derail the wicked and cleanse the land with decency in law and the power to maintain the best conditions for economic, physical, political, psychological, and spiritual well being for all The People.

Naturally, I thought of the Communists of South Africa.

http://ewn.co.za/2017/11/18/mapaila-zuma-has-sold-out-the-country (Manyathela, Clement.  “Mapiala: Zuma has sold out the country.”  Eyewitness News (late 2017).

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Jacob Zuma had taken millions in British development support to build for himself a compound fit for a king, and in the way of similar autocrats / malignant narcissists, he had developed renown for favors to family and friends. His latest turn was toward the Black Nationalism made so clearly successful (I kid about that) by Robert Mugabe next door in Zimbabwe.

For reasons I cannot explain, but perhaps today’s SA Communist Party will, Zuma’s corruption was found, alas, unappealing by those who were supposed to love him most of all.

My best hope for Mexico will be that the possession of conscience and empathy prove evolutionary even in the worst of gangsters, and that some forms of evil diminish because the criminals in the boardrooms and out on the streets may lose the respect of their children while also finding societies, somewhere, that for all their money and power won’t have them.

If I could time travel back in history, I would have liked to have spent an afternoon fly fishing with Andrew Carnegie and then a couple of hours over scotch AFTER he had given up his position and turned to philanthropy.

I would not have liked to have spent any time with Mr. Frick.

In what must be the weirdest way of the web and Facebook, this wonderfully supportive piece for evolutionary improvement in “self-awareness, social awareness” and moral sense arrived on my desktop:

Arnhart, Larry.  “Von Economo Nuerons: The Neural Basis for Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, and the Moral Sense?”  Darwinian Conservatism, December 14, 2017.

Spindle neurons are also called von Economo neurons (VENs), because Constantin von Economo provided the first comprehensive description of these neurons in 1925 (Seeley et al. 2012). It was not until the end of the 20th century, however, that comparative neurologists began to study VENs as special neurons that might be part of what explains the evolutionary uniqueness of the human mind.

VENs appear in the brains of only a few species. They are present in gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans, although in numbers smaller than for humans. They are also found in the brains of whales, dolphins, and elephants. Thus, VENs are associated with species that have large brains, which suggests the possibility that VENs facilitate speedy communication of neural signals over neural networks scattered over large brains. VENs are also associated with species that have complex social lives and that show mirror self-awareness (recognizing themselves in mirrors).

BackChannels natural interest: the cultivation of empathy in our species and concomitant possession of conscience and related good will and good spirit.

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