"The Race is Not Always to the Swift"

I think Jesus said that, and I'm sure I'm quoting him out of context, but it makes for a catchy title.

I don't know if I'm in favor of abolishing the term "race" or not, but I don't think you can have it both ways. I don't see how you can use it to determine if everybody's getting their fair share and then turn around and claim that it doesn't mean anything. I'm not saying that we should keep race because animals are divided into breeds, I'm just saying that it seems to mean about the same thing. You have all these creatures that are of the same species, but they have genetic characteristics that can be used to distinguish one group from another. In the case of humans, they certainly should be all equal under the law, but to say that they are all indistinguishable from each other isn't quite honest. If there were no differences between them, there would be no need of laws saying that you can't treat them differently.

As far as animals of the same species that hate each other, wolves and coyotes immediately come to mind, although there are exceptions. For some time now, wolf-coyote hybrids have been turning up in the north eastern U.S. and south eastern Canada. I saw a TV show about it awhile back, and I didn't take notes, but I seem to remember it went something like this: Using DNA or something, wildlife biologists have traced this particular breed to one Canadian national park. Wolves have lived there since forever, but their population is cut off from other wolf populations that have survived farther west and north, so their genetic diversity is limited. Some decades ago, coyotes began to establish themselves in the park, as they have in many eastern locations where they never were originally. Perhaps because of the limited breeding opportunities enjoyed by the wolves, some of them began to fraternize with the coyotes, eventually establishing a hybrid breed that has now become so numerous that they can breed with each other and reproduce their own kind. In recent years these hybrids have expanded their range beyond the park boundaries, and are showing up in suburban areas all over the East. They have the coyotes' ability to adapt to all kinds of habitats and live among human populations without making too much of a nuisance of themselves, but they are larger than regular coyotes and thus more dangerous to humans. There has been at least one confirmed case of a pack of hybrids killing an adult human, which is something that  regular coyotes would never attempt.

Now that I think of it, wolves don't just kill coyotes, they also will fight to the death with other wolves from a different pack. There used to be three wolf packs on Isle Royale, a national park in Lake Superior until, some years ago, the two larger packs ganged up on the smallest pack and totally exterminated them. Last I heard, there was only one pack left on Isle Royale, and it was not doing too well. Biologists believe that they are suffering from a lack of genetic diversity, and have proposed bringing in some new wolves from the outside. This would be contrary to their long standing policy of non-intervention at the park, so they're not so sure they want to do it.

I have heard of Alan Turing, but I don't remember the part about him being gay, unless he was that British guy that was in the news awhile back. The story sounds similar, so maybe that was him. After all these years, the British government issued some kind of formal apology about it, which is why it was in the news. I do remember reading a biography of Jack London that told of some comments he once made to some friends of his. He didn't actually admit that he did anything like that, but people didn't brag about stuff like that in those days. London had been in prison once, and had spent some time at sea in his younger days. Based on this experience, he said that homosexuality was more common than one might think. He said that human sexuality was a powerful force and, if it couldn't find one way to express itself, it would surely find another. So yeah, I suppose this stuff has been around since forever, but that still doesn't mean I have to vote for it.