“Think of the plots of the James Bond films, the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones films. In such movies, it’s quite obvious who the bad guys are. Caricatures of evil, they are ruthless, maniacal, without remorse, and so they must be stopped by any means necessary. We are meant to feel that it is okay—even, to tell the truth, pleasurable—to see violence inflicted upon them. Because the villains like to hurt people, it’s okay to hurt them. Because they like to kill people, it’s okay to kill them. After all, they are evil, and evil must be destroyed.”
“What is this kind of story teaching us? That if you really want to hurt someone, it is important to demonize them first—in other words, fit them into your good-versus-evil story. That is why truth is the first casualty of all wars.”
“This past Sunday I conducted a culinary experiment which provoked strong reactions on a couple of forums, and I feel I should write it up here as not a great deal of info about this exists online. Amanita muscaria, the familiar, iconic bright red fly agaric mushroom, is classified as ‘poisonous’ in most field guides. It contains two alkaloids, muscimol and ibotenic acid, which can be toxic at sufficient doses and produce a range of effects at modest doses (not to be confused with psychoactive mushrooms of the psilocybe variety). It has a widespread history of shamanic and medicinal use for its intoxicating properties, is popular among some contemporary psychonauts and appears in a lot of debatable anthropology.”
“The battle over health care focuses on access to insurance, or tempests like the one that erupted over new mammogram guidelines.”
“But what about broader public health challenges? What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air — or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the surge in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we impose upon ourselves?”