Sound familiar?

I have a very interesting collection of friends, acquaintances, cohorts, connections or whatever you want to call them. A result of that is I get a lot of interesting information sent my way. One such source is a Mensa friend of mine, who sends quite a bit of varied articles. One I just received was about politics in Pakistan, not something I'm particularly interested in, but as a good headline is supposed to do, it pulled me in to read it.
The article is titled Tribes of Terror and the author is Stanley Kurtz for the Claremont Institute. What's this got to do with your interest in Kenpo or the arts in general? I'm going to paste a few of his lines here and all you have to do is think about them in the context of the Kenpo family as it exists after the passing of Ed Parker.
"Traditionally existing outside the police powers of the state, Middle Eastern tribes keep order through a complex balance of power between these ever-fusing and -dividing ancestral groups. (Anthropologists call such tribes "segmentary lineages.")
Ed Parker didn't exercise a police power but he did keep firm control of the IKKA. Some might argue that he did exercise police power, but you guys can hash that out. But it's the second part of the sentence that struck me where he says "Ever-fusing and - dividing" in reference to groups. Doesn't that sound like so many of the Kenpo groups you know of? If you interact with other martial artists you'll hear a story like ours as well. And if you are aware at all of history and current events you know that human beings just do this sort of thing all the time.
Lineage is important for lots of reasons. Who your lineage is aligned with, if any, may or may not be. Getting into a contest about whose art or association is better is like two kids arguing about whose daddy can beat whose. So when I read the occasional blurb sent my way regarding who is now part of an alliance, it really doesn't affect my life. I don't read most of the karate gossip I get, and rarely see the websites like kenpotalk, etc. By the way, I really liked the "segmentary lineages" line. Now we have a term for those who change from instructor to instructor. Just what we needed in Kenpo, another term.
I don't see the fusing and dividing of the various Kenpo groups as really being a factor. Can't do anything about it anyway, although there seems to be a person or two out there who think they can and they make themselves the policeman. I have more important (to me) things to do. I'm sure you do, too.