Sunday, July 19, 2009

Tractor Pulling and the Y Chromosome


Yesterday evening when the cloudy rainy skies of the day finally cleared and one could take a lovely twilight walk, across the street from us the tractor pulling contests started... It is bad enough to have the shattering noises they make to disrupt the evening, but the smell of the

petro fuels filling the air is enough to drive you back inside and shut windows and doors. I

look upon this type of even as being mainly of interest to men, tho I am sure there are some

women who like to watch it and even participate in it. It seems to be one of power over things

that human like to practice. So here they are - first off using vehicles that have been specially

built with huge amounts of money and resources; here they are burning huge amounts of

fuel to go a few feet pulling heavy weights just to prove they can or actually that their machine

can and thus thinking this makes them more powerful and better than others. And this is the

it has been for way back in history. Before tractors it was horse pulling contests in which many

times horses were very abused to allow their owner to prove he had the better team and thus

was the better man... unfortunately after some of these contests he no longer had the better

team, or even a good team at all as he had over extended them and ruined their muscles and

pulling abilities. Makes no sense.... and I got to thinking this can even date back to the story

of Macha, a goddess of the ancient Irish, who ran a race against a horse drawn chariot while she was heavily pregnant with twins. Her human husband wagered that she could beat the team of horses and she did win the race but ended giving birth at the finish line of the race

and cursed her human husband for his selfishness in not considering her condition. This

is story about something that occurred at the Lughnassa time of the year and so even into these

days we continue to wager on events like this at this time of the year. This myth/story was

to teach us that however important it seems to look well in front of others, the safety and

happiness of one's own loved ones is the most significant value. Does this relate to the

tractor pulls that go on every summer around the country? Yes, it can because how much money and time and effort are put into the competition machines used in these pulls that

could be better invested in the happiness and safety of those who are related to the owner

of the pulling machines. I guess I am stretching it a bit far there - but I am sure that often

families have to go without somethings in order to provide the funds to build and compete

with these machines. Also there is the environmental foot print they make. Let's don't

even go there this morning.


And the Y Chromosome - where does this fit in regard the initial subject of tractor pulling??

Well, the Y Chromosome is what creates the male species... those bragging, swaggering men

who support tractor pulls and such. There was an interesting article online yesterday about

this fragile Y Chromosome that creates the male species... and here is a link to it:



Since according to many sources the beginnings of life on this earth was entirely female and the male aspects came along later in order to make a possible land reproductive species, could these changes occurring in the Y chromosome be signaling that maybe a 'new' type of male species that would be not be necessarily be brimming with testosterone. Not sure and the article itself can make a decision on this one way or the other but it does give one something

to ponder over.
Sobeit


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