GROUND ZER0, New York, New York--June 16, 2003-- Last night my wife and I watched a fascinating portrayal of human evolution titled, "Walking With Cavemen" on the Discovery Channel.  Hosted by Alec Baldwin, the millions of years of human evolution was chronicled.   The beginning of human developed was benchmarked by the bones of a young precursor to modern human beings, a 3.2 million-year-old by the name of Lucy.

       Her scientific name is Australopithecus afernsis, but she is far more than a mere mouthful of syllables.   In fact, her shadow casts long over modern human beings, for even today women are evolving, at least intellectually, at a far faster rate than men.    Projecting current statistics, women will soon dominate the world of "man" from an educational and productive basis.

In a recent study by Northwestern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, a gender gap was found large enough to drive a M-1 Tank through.   It revealed that nearly 2 million more women are attending college than men.    The startling statistics shows a growing trend for men to be falling behind the "productive curve," creating a rash of underachieving males.
       The study revealed that in 1993 there were 123 women to every 100 men in college.  In 2000 that gap rose to 128 for every 100 men.
       The highest difference was among African Americans, with 166 women enrolling in college for every 100 men in 2000, and 130 Hispanic and 126 white women enrolled for every 100 men.
       Completion rates in college is even more startling.   Projecting the number of people who will complete associate's and bachelor's degrees over the next decade, the date indicates women will receive 173 associate's degrees and 142 bachelor's degrees to every 100 obtained by men.
       This brings us back to Lucy around 3.2 million years ago.
       It suggests that men are de-evolving intellectually, virtually throwing in the towel as far as expanding their minds, enhancing their ability to forage and support the family.

      Historically, the man's role in society has been the hunter-protector.   He roamed the wilds with a spear, searching for food, risking his life to protect the village.    If he was killed in his pursuits, the women and children were protected, and another man rose to take his place.
       He was a true Sentinel of Vigilance, standing guard with his life over the safety and security of the Homeland.    It took great Courage, Conviction and a drive to do the Right Actions to protect the Children's Children's Children to tackle a mammoth, or to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a saber-toothed cat.
       But that was his job.  Men were, in the most fundamental terms, expendable.  Women were not.  A number of men could die protecting the village, the clan, the cave and life would go on.  But, if the women died, there would be no children to drive the species up the evolutionary ladder because there would be no children.

       This meant men were forced by their role as a Sentinel of Vigilance to have every nerve, every instinct sharpened not just to survive, but to grow.   If the women and children were unprotected, or unable to acquire nourishment, the clan would die out, as many did.
        In a brilliant production, the Discovery Channel mapped the progress of human development, including showing how one of man's and woman's ancestors wasted 1,000,000 years not advancing their tool making, and finally dying out.

      Then came Lucy, about 3 feet tall, a hominid with long chimp-like arms discovered in 1974 in the badlands at Hadar, Ethiopia.   She was named after a song played every night by the anthropologist Don  Johanson, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
        It took another 3 million years for modern man, Homo erectus, to evolve.   That was 150,000 years ago--not too long considering the earth is over 5 billion years old.  Then, just 50,000 years the creative process began--mankind and womankind began to think as we understand that intellectual process today.   We displayed cognition, the ability to relate not just to survival but to the future.  We began to dream of a world's far better than the one we were struggling in.
       Some call this point the "dawn of civilization."   It could be called the point where the Beast of Terror met the Sentinel of Vigilance, for we began to envision worlds of peace and prosperity rather than tyranny and oppression of daily life.
       It has been about 6 million years since the start of what is termed "human evolution."   Lucy broke the mold between the "beast" and the "human" form after 3 million years.  After a wide range of attempts to evolve, less than 2 million years ago Homo erectus appeared.   We began to walk upright.  Then, 150,000 years ago the first Homo sapiens appeared.
       We were on our way.

     It took thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution launched in the 19th Century when suddenly mechanization sped the ability of humans to produce "things."   The ultimate in creativity was put to work.   Factories began to mass produce clothing, food, and countless "creature comforts" until today, one can go to the "store" and buy just about anything imaginable, from ancient stone clubs on e-bay, to fine foods, to how to make a nuclear weapon on the Internet.
      We can move from one nation to another by car, train, plane in hours.   Information is rocketed in seconds from the far corners of the earth.   We can watch an entire war unfold in our living rooms as we eat McDonald's hamburgers and then a few months later read about a Fat Tax being considered to impose a penalty on our right to eat what we want.

      Our children today grow up in a relatively safe world.  When the Beast of Terror attacks one of them, we hear or see it on radio and television and rally around the child and prosecute the violator as a society.
      When wars are launched we watch the violence and choose to either support or protest it, enjoying a freedom of speech and movement unequalled in history.    We also can watch parts of the world that suffer from the tyranny and oppression where evolution has been stunted by politics or lack of leadership, and we stuff envelopes with money to "adopt" a starving child we see on a television screen in a far-off land.
      We also see the Beast of Terror.
      He hasn't evolved much.
      He's just as basic and fundamental as he was back 3.2 million years ago when he picked up a club and smashed the skull of Lucy.

       He hides in the shadows of human evolution, fangs sharpened over time, primal thirsts to kill and maim and Terrorize unchanged by all the evolutionary achievements of all humans who came before.  The Beast of Terror has only expanded his ability to kill, has multiplied it many with technology, but his goal is the same as it was in the beginning--to rule others with Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.
       His club today is biochemical or nuclear, but its purpose is the same--to smash the Vigilance out of Lucy.  To drive the clan into Caves of Complacency.  

       The educational gap is one more example of the Beast of Terror's efforts to de-evolve the human being.
       The once-Sentinels of Vigilance--the men--are now dumbing themselves down.
       A protector must be sharp, ready, alert if he is to protect the family from the stalking, nefarious nature of the Beast.   The more dull his brain, the less sharp his instincts, the more gravity dragging him to live on the couch next to a bowl of potatoes, the less likely he is to have the Courage, Conviction and take the Right Actions to protect the Children's Children's Children.
       While the current reduction of men going to college is a mere drop in the evolutionary bucket, it demands a red alert.
       Men who give up their role as Sentinels of Vigilance begin that process by becoming "dumb."  The lack of thirst to evolve means that men, for whatever reason, have become Complacent.   When a man doesn't want to be smarter, it means only that he has tossed in the intellectual towel.  He's stopped shadow boxing with himself.  He's given up on his own self-image.  He's stopped climbing the evolutionary ladder.

     There is no doubt that women deserve equality with men on all levels except one.   A woman is not supposed to die for a man.  She is the womb of the future.   Her life becomes the security of the future.  However, a man is supposed to die for a woman, and for the future of the Children, and all the Children's Children's Children.
       A man is expendable.  A woman is not.
      If all the women in the world were gone, there would be no future for our species.
      But, if all the men were dead, and enough women were pregnant, the world could go on.  Our species could survive.
      This brutal but fundamental difference requires--no, demands--that men can't afford to de-evolve.  If they do, they leave the world vulnerable to the Beast of Terror.
      Back 3.2 million years ago, the men let up on their Vigilance.  They let the Beast of Terror smash in Lucy's head.

      If men continue to dumb themselves down, they will swing the door open to the Beast.
      But, if men are smart, they will take the Pledge of Vigilance.  They will become the Sentinels of Vigilance they are supposed to be, and dedicate their lives not to living in Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, but struggle up the evolutionary ladder by sharpening their Courage, Conviction and reinforcing their Right Actions in behalf of the future generations.
     To achieve this means they must be smart, as smart as the women.   Right now, the men of the world are dumbing-down.  They are becoming the Osama bin Laden's, Saddam Hussein's, Kim Jon Il's, or the Great Complacents, the men who sit on the couch and watch the Beast eat their children.
     This needs to stop.
     It can by all men taking the Pledge of Vigilance.   When that happens, the dumbing-down will stop, because the Courage, Conviction and Right Actions necessary to be a Sentinel of Vigilance will take over.  And those Vigilant Skills require smarts.
  

June 15--Fathers Of Vigilance Unite!

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