’19 A To Z Challenge – L

 

 

 

 

 

 

And superstition rears its ugly head again. Closed-minded tribalism makes too many of humanity fear anything different. Destroy it! Destroy it! It is the Devil’s work! 😯

This post takes for its theme, the word

LANUGO

Noun; a coat of delicate, downy hairs, especially that with which the human fetus or a newborn infant is covered.

A few times (far too few), Bible-thumping Christian Fundamentalists have changed their minds about LGBT+, when they realized that their child was gay, but not evil and sinful. One Southern Methodist preacher had three of his four children (two sons, and his daughter) go gay on him.

It is regrettable that extreme cases of lanugos are not more common. It might educate the evolution-denying, Young Earth Creationists, to have a baby that looked like a Bonobo pop out. It would clearly show that we are related to monkeys – although the monkeys might object.

While the occasional baby has a thick enough coat of fur to look like a chimp, it falls off within days, or a week, leaving a pink, squalling, naked ape. While not afflicted with an actual lanugo, my son’s enate Italian heritage gave him considerable heavy body hair at birth – arms, legs, shoulders, back. He looked like a miniature, stereotypical Guido. He had a full head of black hair the day he was born. Old wives’ tales say that it causes the mother heartburn. He got his first haircut at age three months.

I’m not sure, even in today’s society, what reaction a lanugo baby might receive from narrow-minded ‘Good Christian’ parents. Another similar religiously-connected word is

Caul

Noun; a part of the amnion sometimes covering the head of a child at birth.

It’s merely a bit of internal tissue, but superstitious peasants used to believe that it was a sign that the baby was owned or possessed by Satan. Such children were strangled, smothered, drowned, or stabbed at birth, or even worse, exposed to the elements to die, like the Athenians used to do.

The Christian portion of the world is getting better – moving forward into the discoveries of how the Universe works, but the Evangelicals don’t understand why large portions of the population – Good Christians, as well as Atheists – want to maintain separation of Church and State, and prevent being dragged back into the Dark Ages of superstition.

Now, if only we could get the Islamic portion to do the same.

Sorry if this was a bit of a downer. Comedy next Monday – bring your biggest smile.