The World Is a Very Big Place

[mallorys_camera]

Samir has been teasing me with pictures of Timgad on FB: Patrizia –Your Favorite Distination.

(No, I’m not going to embarrass him by correcting his spelling in public.)

Summer did not get the Christmas token I sent to her in China.

The world is a very big place.

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Other than that, I’m putting in my time with the Scut Factory, desultorily working simultaneously on the novel and the art installation, worrying about RTT, and brooding on my own irrelevance.

Of course, it’s not just me who’s irrelevant; you’re probably irrelevant, too. The world is a very big place.

Comments

[robby]

I have the Y chromosome haplotype that links me to the Berbers. It's not uncommon in European men, and some genealogy sites trace it to Roman times.

[mallorys_camera]

Imazighen. They call themselves Imazighen. :-)

"Berber" is actually a pejorative that was invented in the 19th century and derives from the same root as "barbarian." :-)

[robby]

Here's the little explanation that came with my DNA results:

You share a paternal-line ancestor with men who migrated to Spain more than 1,300 years ago.
Many members of your haplogroup have been found in Spain. There are several possible explanations for your haplogroup’s presence in this area. One possibility is that Berber troops belonging to E-V257 were migrating during the Islamic expansion into the Iberian Peninsula in 711 AD. A second possibility is that North African people were migrating to the Iberian Peninsula before the founding of Islam, perhaps driven by Roman and Phoenician commerce that involved Northwest Africa and Iberia.