Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Maybe the brain is a vestigial organ
Hey, check it out everyone, I’ve posted my book club as a Meetup Group…
http://bookclub.meetup.com/600/But now off to work and then my decidedly non-holistic, fluoride in the water-encouraging dentist, argh…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/26 at 07:38 AMThat kid drummer rocks. That’s unbelievable. I don’t know how he even has the coordination at his age to be able to do that.
Check out this little girl playing the xylophone. (Windows Media)
One woman was never enough for Timmy.
(Ta Da Boom)
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei 10/26 at 08:39 AMHello Expendables...from a damp, chilly NYC.
Cat Lady: Good luck with the book club. Keep us in the loop here. (Maybe it’s time for another group reading project.)
Jeremy: If you and I were alive 100 years ago, we might have made a good Vaudeville team.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/26 at 11:38 AMHi Everyone,
I’m not around much the last little while, but popped in to say I like today’s article. (I remember first hearing about the fishomato development and was shattered by the silence afterwards. (I’ve just been eating the most delicious and sweetest tiny little organic tomatoes I’ve ever had.)
That little Igor’s something else, isn’t he?? Thanks for the link, Mickey.
I’ll have to come back to check out the comment links...maybe I’ll see you later on in the “day”
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 10/26 at 11:46 AMHello Empress.
Here’s (sort of) the story of the day.
Captcha sez: course (but not as in “stay the...")
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/26 at 12:39 PMI’m sure doing such has been labelled a threat to national security by now. (funny though...if he’d not been robbing the elderly; I mean there are plenty who wouldn’t even claim the insurance for a ‘paltry’ $1000)
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 10/26 at 01:13 PMThere’s something so honest about wearing a politician’s mask while robbing someone.
Hey Cat Lady, I just checked your Meet Up page. Nice photo. I see you have 11 members already. I’d say that’s a good Sartre.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/26 at 02:30 PMHere’s another fun fact for you:
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/1024auto.html
Talk about systemic problems.Posted by Brian on from Belly of the Beast 10/26 at 02:52 PMDamn, Brian, that link should go in a time capsule.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/26 at 03:25 PMJames, can I join your Sartre group even though I will most likely never be able to attend any of its meetings? I just want to get to know Edita…
Posted by JOS on from Chicago 10/26 at 04:25 PM‘The New York Times - the propaganda organ of Corporate America’ - you rock again, Mickey!
And thanks for the rest of this as well.It will be a mere 68F again in Daylesford but sunny, so that’s good enough for me. Much better than 86, that’s for certain!
‘Hello’ to all my fellow expendables - I hope you are all as well as can be expected under the circumstances ..
Ciao amici.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 10/26 at 04:54 PMHello Helga. I’d take 68F right now.
JOS: I think you’re gonna make the Cat Lady jealous.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/26 at 05:06 PMOh for crying out loud, you people… Look, I’m the almighty Organizer of the book club, and I’m telling you that it’s about the reading, the reading… don’t make me smack you with a copy of Being and Nothingness, that thing could take anyone down.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/26 at 05:27 PMI’d walk a mile for a Camus…
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/26 at 05:35 PMToo bad he can’t return the favor? Yeah, Camus is a popular choice, I might have to give the people what they want soon, but what would you do for Kierkegaard? He’s my real goal here. I was kinda compromising by even starting off with Sartre like that. Whatever we have to do to prove our brains aren’t vestigial…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/26 at 05:59 PMAs one who regularly rides a bike without a helmet, drinks water from the tap, and laces my coffee with artificial sweetener (Saccharin)-- I guess one might say that I am macho to an extent quite unknown by General Ripper in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.
So why get in a hissyfit about that stuff that comes in little blue packets-- NutraSweet, “Equal”? I bet most everyone here knows enough about the subject-- Equal, aspartame, and Donald Rumsfeld etc. (Stan Goff courageously brought it up the other day-- can’t find the complete post at Truthdig anymore-- why only here? http://tinyurl.com/y24hua)-- But who would want to risk becoming a laughing stock over something so petty when one threshold above, Starbucks are popping up like mushrooms from here to Tian An Men?
I got nominally interested in the subject when I noticed a Google News page plastered with exuberant headlines last Spring announcing that an esteemed panel of the EFSA (http://tinyurl.com/y35vqu) had declared the substance, aspartame safe.
Oddly the chief detractor, Dr. Morando Soffritti, who headed a seven year study at the highly esteemed Ramazzini Foundation was not allowed to speak at the deliberations-- and continues to struggle mightily against the tide of corporate sponsored scientists who were put up to accept the stuff… and against loads of American headlines ringing with endorsements despite our well-known ethnocentrism that tends to sniff at anything that originates from “fur-ners.”
After a good afternoon spent reviewing claims and counterclaims-- I became convinced: that there is something wrong with aspartame and the way it is approved; that Rumsfeld had a hand in its popularity; that Aspartame is BIG $ business; that those little blue packets are symbolic of a disconnect between reason and desire; and that one way to express one’s ritual disapproval of the Bush admin is to boycott the stuff.
At a brunch recently http://tinyurl.com/y3wdey, I produced a packet from my shirt pocket and showed it to Ray McGovern and asked him if it meant anything to him. McGovern, you will recall, courageously confronted Rumsfeld about his lies in Atlanta. No, McGovern knew little more than resume facts about the connection between Equal and the Defense Secretary. You can bet I was embarrassed. Because I had no wish to be clever, I simply dropped the subject after mumbling how Rumsfeld was head of G.D. Searle & Company between Bush I and Bush II.
(McGovern is rightfully, as I am, much more concerned about the possibility that the Neocons are setting their nuclear-tipped sights on Iran.)
Still, I cannot forget the labors of Dr. Soffritti in Bologna, Italy.
And I loathe seeing those little trays plumped with little blue packets of NutraSweet.
As for helmets:
http://tinyurl.com/mxm2pand tap water (see comments):
http://tinyurl.com/yao3ttPosted by Robert B. Livingston on from San Francisco, California 10/26 at 09:21 PMOne more important link:
Peace All!
Posted by Robert B. Livingston on from San Francisco, California 10/26 at 09:29 PMNot sure if you’re serious with that anti-bike helmet article, but I’d be dead right now in all likelihood if not for mine. Loudest sound I’ve ever heard was my helmet hitting the ground while I was wearing it when I got hit by a car in ‘91. But hey, can’t legislate good judgement, I guess. Though I do drink tap water here all the time myself. New York (or at least midtown manhattan) water is the best!
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/27 at 12:00 AMBest to wear a helmet,,, and I really ought to cut out saccharin.
Weary here… peace.
Posted by Robert B. Livingston on from San Francisco, California 10/27 at 12:06 AMAh hear that, and I really need to lay off the diet coke! Especially at this hour. Worse addictions to have, I guess, but not many…
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/27 at 12:41 AM
Next entry: You couldn't even fit a skeleton in these closets
Previous entry: "She makes you love her/She is your master"
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
