Letters to the Editor
masaccio
Published Letters: 222 Editor's Choice: 16
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Prehistoric sites in the Dorgogne/Vezere' valley
[Read the article: Destination: Southwestern France]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just returned from a week in this region. We rented an apartment in the beautiful village of Limeuil (sp?), at the confluence of the two rivers. I learned for the first time that some strawberries taste of lavender, that fresh asparagus requires little cooking, and that pate' isn't just for the rich.
The caves are spectacular. Perhaps the most beautiful is the Font de Gaume. Unlike Lascaux, this cave was never sealed off, so it was not too seriously affected by the green disease and the white disease which nearly ruined Lascaux when it was opened after 14,000 years. The Font de Gaume is sealed off now, but there are tours, some in English; and it may have to be closed eventually.
The cave sits in a cliff overlooking a lovely valley. The people probably lived in "Abri", hollowed out spaces in the high rock formations. One is about a kilometer from the cave. You can easily imagine our ancestors in those formations, looking out over verdant valleys filled with small game, asparagus, walnuts, and a river teeming with fish, and think of the relatively easy life they could have had there, no need to work that hard and plenty of food and shelter. At least between ice ages.
There is a small but impressive museum of perhistory in Les Eyzies. It has a large number of points, video demonstrations of flint knapping, and some information about Neanderthal, who lived in the valley before the Cro-Magnon came. One of the first Neanderthal finds is nearby, and the Abri at nearby St. Christophe Laroque shows how they might have lived.
Not to mention the food again!
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Searching for Armageddon
[Read the article: The neocons' next war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One of the major problems facing the nation is that the President is in thrall to his fundamentalist base. Many of them believe that this war presages the end times. There is a growing group of preachers who have drunk the Kool-Aid on this. Here is one discussion: http://www.alternet.org/story/39748/
The Rapture Index is nearly at this year's high, and the proprietor of the site is oh so ready:
"Scoffing is a prime signal of where we must be on God’s prophetic timeline. While we do not want global war, or regional war, or any other kind of war, we must proclaim that God’s Word says it is coming. We can do nothing to stop what God has plainly prophesied will occur. He is omniscient, and cannot lie."
http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html
Since the President is aligned with these people, the Neocons can feed him anything and he will believe it. I confess to a tinge of fear.
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It's always about Joe
[Read the article: Lieberman wins!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't it?
The thing that turns me off about Lieberman is that his wife is a lobbyist for Big Pharma. That's just sleazy. Thank heaven Lamont is a good candidate, the kind I would love to be able to vote for in my state.
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Exactly
[Read the article: A message from Connecticut to national Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here] -
How frightened do we have to be?
[Read the article: Politicizing the terrorist plot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, the next time, it will be someone whose shirt has fine lines of C-4, and we will have to travel naked.
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Celebrities no, Politicians YES
[Read the article: Head in the stars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Put me in the category of people who couldn't care less about the people Dunn calls celebrities. They are utterly irrelevant to my life or anyone else's. I assume that people talk about them the same way we talk about the weather or sports, as a time-filler that creates minimal social intimacy.
Now politicians, on the other hand, have a huge impact on all of us, but very few people can carry on any conversation about any of them.
Is this a profound social insight or what?
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Freud talks about the "oceanic feeling"
[Read the article: The joys of life without God]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]which is kind of like the supernatural awe that the author and commenters talk about, in Civilization and Its Discontents (1929). The book is remarkably prescient in several ways, including a statement that intoxicants work because they mimic some natural thing in the body.
Freud suggests attributing the oceanic feeling to our earliest infant days, when we were unable to distinguish the boundaries between our selves and the rest of the cosmos. He says that maybe this sense of the consmos continues to exist,even after we mature and find our boundaries.
There is also a description of a possible reason for religion, that it fulfills the need for security and safety in a difficult world, and what better image than an all-powerful father whom we can placate and find protection. He has other reasons, of course.
He points out that many people will never be able to give up belief, for a number of different reasons, some of which he discusses.
I am sure I do not do his arguments justice. They are easy to follow, and what I have described is in just the first two essays in a small book.
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Richard Rorty
[Read the article: The joys of life without God]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]would ask this question: in the absence of evidence, what purpose is served by belief? People do not believe in a vacuum. If there is no evidence, why bother with the effort of belief? What problem does it solve?
Rorty would also point out that not all problems are deserving of an answer. It is better just to ignore them.
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Medical research on cannabinoids
[Read the article: In bed with Big Pharma]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Besides the well-known anecdotes about cannabinoids, it is interesting to note that the receptors for the active ingredient of marijuana are located in the spinal column and the thalamus. See, this article:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/16/20/6601
The opiate receptors are higher in the brain. Opiates are central nervous system depressants, which explains why they are used in palliative care of terminal patients. Cannabinoids (there are more than 30 of them) do not depress the central nervous system, so the pain relief does not have nearly as many side effects, such as constipation, addiction, and depressed breathing.
This is a really big deal for many people who are unable to use opiates for any of various reasons. Typically of this administration, they have seriously cut funding even on fundamental research on these chemicals.