inkbluesky

practice makes perfect

Drugs found in drinking water

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The trace amounts – measured in parts per million – include everything you can think of from anti-depressants to barbiturates to ibuprofen and birth control pills. The AP contacted one group of California water suppliers and were told that they don’t regularly release information about drug contamination because the public “doesn’t know how to interpret the information”. Don’t tell the peasants that the alien craft have landed they might start asking questions. There probably is no reason, short term anyway to be upset. The medical consequences in these minute amounts probably would have little consequence. Long term is another matter. Drugs can collect over time in organs such as the liver and kidneys. The no one knows how the interaction of so many drugs, even trace amounts might affect someone over their lifetime. Bottled water is not an alternative, because they only test for known toxins, not pharmaceuticals. Better living through chemistry might have become non-optional.

shadow games

I this review of Jacques Tati’s Trafic, It just might make you love your car again Nathan Heller writes,

It’s a cartoonish sendup of the auto industry’s chief selling point—the idea that car ownership makes our lives faster, freer, and more cost-effective. And it’s generally thought to show that Tati, like Godard, was channeling the ennui of his era, spurning car culture and longing for the days when everyone rode bicycles and boated on the Loire. This is a misinterpretation. In fact, Trafic is a movie about finding life and freedom through cars. Tati’s goal was to scrub away banality and revive the American-style thrills that had once drawn France to the road. Video clips at link.

I don’t hate cars now, but I used to love them. A fact that is a real testament to the power and influence of the myths of modern culture. Maybe your parents would talk about the expense and responsibility, but those concerns were vastly over shadowed by the commercials, movies, books and magazines that extolled the freedom and adventure to be had behind the wheel of your own car. Reality has a way of clarifying myths. Car payments didn’t set me free, the endless maintenance didn’t do much for my freedom, the breakdowns nearly ruined my academic life. Car problems and having the right model hurt and helped my personal life. Gas was always money that i felt would have been better off earning interest. I learned that cars are the ball and chain you have to carry for some relative amount of freedom. There is something Faustian about them. If your boss is an assclown from the Plantation school of management your car payments along with the insurance are part of what keeps you from telling him/her where they can stick their “attitude” problems. As the years go by you might forget for hours at a time that your car owns you.