Shrimp
Posted: March 27, 2019 Filed under: food Leave a comment
New Orleans heaved a collective sigh of relief when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that Gulf seafood was safe to eat. The sigh was premature. The FDA made its assessment using the model of a 176-pound adult who ate, for example, just four shrimp per week. Yes 75% of women in the United States weigh less than this, as do nearly all children. Gulf residents also generally consume a far larger and more diverse seafood diet than the one considered by the FDA…
from this incredible atlas of New Orleans.
Suttree
Posted: March 27, 2019 Filed under: America Since 1945, books, cormac, writing Leave a comment
Moving stuff around in my house I found the handwritten list of words I had to look up from Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy, and their definitions.
Trull: a prostitute or a trollop.
Tellurian: an inhabitant of Earth.
Feels like I used to have a lot more spare time.
Suttree is set along the river in Knoxville, TN.
If you think Suttree might be for you, try the first sentence:
Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.
Highlights for Children
Posted: March 26, 2019 Filed under: books Leave a comment
On the suggestion of Neomarxisme I got a copy of this book, which he said was a pretty readable roundup of the big theories in anthropology and a history of the field. I love that kinda book. I bought a used copy, which the seller noted was somewhat highlighted. I enjoy books that are a little marked up, feels fun and human. But the previous reader really went nuts!
TAUGHT
Marijuana and psychosis
Posted: March 26, 2019 Filed under: America Since 1945, business, coffee Leave a comment
This was in today’s Economist newsletter, and I’ve seen it elsewhere too. Scary! But then again, what is the definition of psychosis?
Isn’t getting your thought and emotions so impaired that you lose contact with external reality the point of high THC content marijuana? Is this a feature not a bug? External reality can be rough.
The study, in The Lancet, used the ICD-10 Criteria (F20-33), so schizophrenia and manic/bipolar episodes. The study compared people hospitalized for that kind of thing versus a control general population. Here’s how the study worked:
We included patients aged 18–64 years who presented to psychiatric services in 11 sites across Europe and Brazil with first-episode psychosis and recruited controls representative of the local populations.
Then this part:
We applied adjusted logistic regression models to the data to estimate which patterns of cannabis use carried the highest odds for psychotic disorder. Using Europe-wide and national data on the expected concentration of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the different types of cannabis available across the sites, we divided the types of cannabis used by participants into two categories: low potency (THC <10%) and high potency (THC ≥10%). Assuming causality, we calculated the population attributable fractions (PAFs) for the patterns of cannabis use associated with the highest odds of psychosis and the correlation between such patterns and the incidence rates for psychotic disorder across the study sites.
“expected” and “assuming” are two words that do a lot of work here, but I don’t have time to read the whole study, I have to write cartoons.
In my neighborhood the most booming new shops sell either marijuana or cold brew coffee. Personally I wonder if drinking huge amounts of highly caffeinated cold brew might be more crazy-making than marijuana.
There is certainly ample psychosis in Los Angeles, so much so that it might be necessary to induce mild psychosis just so you can understand what’s going on with everybody. The chicken and egg, correlation and causation on psychosis / drug use is a tough one to unravel, as the study’s authors acknowledge. The study also notes that patients presenting with psychosis were more likely to have smoked ten or more cigarettes a day.
Cornel West and Peter Thiel
Posted: March 25, 2019 Filed under: America Since 1945 Leave a comment
This isn’t content for everybody but watching Cornel West and Peter Thiel in convo is appealing to me.
Had a class with Professor Unger and what I most remember is him describing an infantilization he was perceiving among young people. Perhaps old people always think that the next crop of young people is infantile.
Same
Posted: March 9, 2019 Filed under: music Leave a commentLost Horizons is the second studio album from the British electronic duo Lemon Jelly, released on 7 October 2002. Released by XL Recordings and produced by Nick Franglen, the album generated two charting singles in the UK, “Space Walk” and “Nice Weather for Ducks”; the latter has often been called the album’s stand-out track. The album, which is built around a mix of organic instrumentation and idiosyncratic samples, was met with largely positive reviews by music critics, although it was somewhat criticised due to its near-constant mellowness.
Alien Space Helmet Discovered in Joshua Tree National Park!
Posted: March 6, 2019 Filed under: desert 5 Comments
Theories that aliens of about two feet in height have visited Earth in spacecrafts have long been considered serious, but now at last there is proof.
Helmet experts were reluctant to say much about what materials the helmet is made of or where it came from, beyond confirming that it is an alien space helmet. 
Whether the helmet is ancient or recent is unknown at this time, and specialists discourage speculation until we gather more evidence. For now we can only say it is a space alien helmet.
Helytimes 