From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #100 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, March 31 2001 Volume 10 : Number 100 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [QuailEbiax!] Rock-n-Feg Toilet, Part 2 [hbrandt ] more about "Shut Up, Little Man!" [hbrandt ] The Clean (no Robyn) [Ben ] Nick Cave live right now! [Ken Weingold ] Re: fluorocarbons [Eb ] Re: The Clean (no Robyn) [Ken Weingold ] Shut Up, Little Ex-Girlfriend [Eb ] Re: [QuailEbiax!] Rock-n-Feg Toilet, Part 2 [Ken Weingold ] Re: fluorocarbons [Aaron Mandel ] let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change [Eb ] Re: Shut Up, Little Ex-Girlfriend [Ken Weingold ] Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change [recount chocula ] Re: just like Brian Wilson did [recount chocula ] best...digests...ever ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] tapermaniax [recount chocula ] Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change [Ken Ostrander ] Re: Boston [recount chocula ] Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change [Ken Weingold ] Re: From your friendly neighborhood data-collector [Bayard ] Kurt Bloch [Ken Weingold ] hey, wait a minute... ["Russ Reynolds" ] RE: toxicobiobadstuffology (was something about God concepts and burning plastics) [Capuchin Subject: Re: [QuailEbiax!] Rock-n-Feg Toilet, Part 2 Quail: > >During this nocturnal trip, Eddie also played a most unusual CD, a > >recording of two men arguing -- a weirdly dysfunctional couple composed of > >a gnarly redneck homophobe and his evil-tempered gay roommate. Apparently > >it was made by two other guys who lived next door to them, and hooked a > >microphone up to the paper-thin walls. Jason: > > Is Eddie still torturing his passengers with this? > I'm still not completely convinced that the recording is "real." It's real, alright. I believe what you're referring to is Eddie Lee Sausage and the recordings of his next door neighbors Peter and Raymond. There's even a (yes, you guessed it) comicbook version called "Shut Up, Little Man!" out on Oblivion Books (available thru Seattle's Fantagraphics). /hal ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 13:50:40 -0500 From: "Yudt.Matthew" Subject: RE: toxicobiobadstuffology > From: Viv Lyon > > > > These things are EXTREMELY damaging to individual organisms in > SMALL > > > quantities. So yes, one religious group in Pennsylania is doing > > > serious > > > physical damage. Far worse than, say, keeping a child in the > > > basement and > > > beating it daily. > > > > > NO FUCKING WAY. To any of this statement, in fact, no fucking > way. > > First of all, there are safe exposure limits - like it or not! To > > just about everything, too. People who are so anti-technology > need to > > realize this. You can oppose the use of technology (chemical > > synthesis) on moral grounds, or oppose the capatilistic principles > > upon whcih the industry is run, whatever, but you are mistaken > when > > you think every damned synthetic chemical is bad! There are > hundreds > > of NATURALLY OCCURING compounds which are far more carcinogenic > and > > toxic than those you mentioned - and we're only beginning to find > out > > about these. > > But carcinogenicity is only one awful side-effect of wantonly > distributed > chemicals. There's also neurotoxicity, and much more scary are the > effects > of hormone disrupting chemicals (such as are found in most common > pesticides). These are the ones that are dangerous in extremely tiny > amounts, leading to sterility in birds and alligators, and in > hormonal > imbalances in humans that impair physical and mental development. > There's a book called Silent Spring (I'm sure you've heard of it- > rather > ground-breaking stuff) that elucidates the propoerties and dangers > of > these hormone disrupting and mimicking chemicals. > > I find it difficult to believe that someone with your background > would be > unaware of these factors, and assume it must just be an oversight. > > Vivien > I haven't read that yet - but I may just go change that this weekend - Rachael Carson, I've heard its a good book. I used to work on estrogen receptors and am a molecular endocrinologist, so I am certainly aware of these factors and issues. Your right-on with everything you said - I agree. I really only focused on the carcinogenecity issues because of the false claims by Jeme in the previous post. However, my statement is accurate - there are naturally occuring compounds with neurotoxicity and even hormone disruptors. The hormone disruptors fall into a tricky class. They are particularly alarming because they are potent at such small levels - - because unlike most carcinogens or toxic compounds, these chemicals bind specific protein receptors (with very high affinity) in the body and disrupt their normal function. However the more we learn the worse the story can get. I have found out that even low levels of stress (social or environmental) to a pregnant woman can have drastic effects in programming the fetal brain for a lifetime. Again, I do not wish to sound like some pro-industry, anti-environmentalist types. Not at all. However, what I do see is the spread of misinformation and selective use of scientific data on both sides of these issues. Particularly with Jeme. I mean he made some claim about antimony tribromide which turns out to be completely unfounded. Furthermore, he said "Burning PET (polyethylene teraphthalate), for example (to pick a very common plastic), leaves in the ash and sends into the air a fair amount of antimony tribromide" Now I didn't bring it up earlier, but the compound polyethylene terephthalate doesn't even CONTAIN antimony OR bromide. ??? Perhaps an oversight on his part. These are important issues, which effect everyone's lives in both positive (jobs, technologies) and negative (pollution, waste) ways. One needs to be objective and put aside underlying agenda's when discussing these problems. As a scientist, I LOVE discussing these things with non-scientists - I find I learn just as much valuable information (whether a fact itself or just the way someone with a diff. background questions and approaches these issues). I am certainly on your side, but feel that the 'passionate' spread of misinformation, and the arrogance attached to it, are very detrimental to the cause. I don't think this type of extremism is valuable - and it will certainly not convince the ignorant to change. One can have strong opinions on the moral issues surrounding the use of technology, or the eco-politics of our society, but science is a bit different. Many of these issues can be tested, and that is really what science (research) is all about. Whether we like it or not, these issues are here to stay. Our use of technology is not going to go backwards. These are issues for scientists and non-scientists to discuss, like we are doing. There are reasonable limits to the use of synthetic chemicals. We need to constantly determine and evaluate them. There are also reasonalbe alternatives and we need to constanty research what these are and make efforts to use them. It's quite a fun time to be a scientist... Cheers, Matt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 11:55:35 -0700 From: hbrandt Subject: more about "Shut Up, Little Man!" http://members.aol.com/leesausage/shut_up.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 14:23:54 -0500 From: Ben Subject: The Clean (no Robyn) I recently heard some MP3's of this old group The Clean on Napster (shhh...) but I can't find any of their CD's for sale on any of the major online places. Can anyone with ultra-hip taste point me to where I could order any of their CD's? Thanx! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 14:24:51 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Nick Cave live right now! In case anyone is on: http://www.kcrw.com/smil/video.ram - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 11:55:50 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: fluorocarbons Ben: >I recently heard some MP3's of this old group The Clean on >Napster (shhh...) but I can't find any of their CD's for sale on >any of the major online places. Can anyone with ultra-hip taste >point me to where I could order any of their CD's? Thanx! http://flyingnun.co.nz/bands/Clean/clean.html (find the mail-order page from there...) You're probably out of luck as far as buying US versions (as you already discovered), so you'll have to either bite for import prices or wait to find something secondhand. Compilation is *definitely* the first one to get - -- I was lucky enough to find a German issue for $8 at a record swap a few years ago. Quail: >Woj, by the way, lives in a roomy palace with every wall devoted to >images of Tori, KaTe, or Xena the Warrior Princess. Despite the fact >that a single heterosexual male couldn't possibly account for all the >meticulously labeled tapes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" that filled >the shelves Quail, your posts have been giving me nightmares all week. Cut it out! Jason: >Is Eddie still torturing his passengers with this? Just a quick reminder that you can all thank *me* for this torture, since Eddie learned about the "Shut Up Little Man" tapes from me. ;) Eb, who wishes he had a copy of that Clean/Oddities collection ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:06:08 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: The Clean (no Robyn) On Fri, Mar 30, 2001, Ben wrote: > I recently heard some MP3's of this old group The Clean on > Napster (shhh...) but I can't find any of their CD's for sale on > any of the major online places. Can anyone with ultra-hip taste > point me to where I could order any of their CD's? Thanx! GEMM was always a good resource for hard to find stuff: - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 12:16:52 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Shut Up, Little Ex-Girlfriend http://psychoexgirlfriend.com/voicemails.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:35:44 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: [QuailEbiax!] Rock-n-Feg Toilet, Part 2 On Fri, Mar 30, 2001, The Great Quail wrote: > http://www.w-rabbit.com/dumbstuff/feg2001 ) Nice shirt, Quail. Hawkwind. I saw them at Wetlands in around 1990 or 1991. Were you there? I was really hoping for them to do Motorhead, but of course no go. I wonder if they ever did it live without Lemmy (or even WITH Lemmy for that matter). > Eddie and Bayard then handed Morris and Matthew the Wish List -- a > list of songs we would like to see played. To our pleasant surprise, > they really looked the list over, commenting on each one. (Though > some were dismissed as "Andy's songs," which didn't invite further > speculation.) While Morris thought that a cover of "Rock Lobster" > would be a lot of fun, they immediately nixed "Ballad of a Thin Man," > though they said they've been playing "It Takes A Lot to Laugh, It > Takes a Train to Cry" during sound checks. "The Asking Tree" and "Way > Way Hep uh Hole" were somewhat favorably received; though "Positive > Vibrations" was dismissed. It seems Robyn doesn't like the song. > Though he claimed to like the song himself, Morris said "Robyn wrote > it when he was in a bad place, and no one seems to see that the song > was meant as just the reverse." And Matthew's response was to laugh > incredulously and say, "You mean you really *like* that song?" For > some reason, they avoided further discussion of "I've Got the Hots," > saying they played it at the beginning, but dropped it. No one requested The Book of Love? :) So where do who-all live around Brooklyn? I live in Park Slope and must have seen you miscreants at various shows, New York AND Boston. Incidentally, I have to move out of my place in May. Anyone who knows of anything around please let me know! - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:35:42 -0500 From: "ross taylor" Subject: [QuailEbiax!] Rock-n-Feg Toilet, Part 2 >From: The Great Quail >I couldn't point out Jonathan Richman in a >police line-up.) He's the tall one w/ his shirt unbuttoned who looks like a dark-haired Harpo Marx. Does anyone know if Hitchcock & Richman ever met, or even mentioned each other? They're both pioneering 60s-oriented combiners of punk & folk who always have something to say between songs. Their forms of humor are almost diametrically opposite, & if I knew why or how better to describe that, other than that Robyn is "surreal," I would know more about humor. I'm going to make a tape w/ "The Can Opener" & "I Eat With Gusto -- Damn! You Bet!" back to back on it. In the past week--Dylan humor, Band of Susans, Bonzos, Shriekback--I've come to the right place. Ross Taylor "I'll walk farther and I'll pay more I want you to put back that corner store" J. Richman Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 12:38:25 -0800 (PST) From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: Shut Up, Little Ex-Girlfriend On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Eb wrote: >http://psychoexgirlfriend.com/voicemails.html Oh my God! I think I dated that woman from '93 to '96! That was too much deja vu for it to be funny. Cheers! - -g- "There is a thin line between love and nausea." - --King Jaffe Joffer, "Coming to America" )+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+( ) ) Glen Uber // uberg at sonic dot net // Santa Rosa, California ) )+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+()+( ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:43:31 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: fluorocarbons On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Eb wrote: > http://flyingnun.co.nz/bands/Clean/clean.html (find the mail-order page > from there...) > > You're probably out of luck as far as buying US versions (as you already > discovered), so you'll have to either bite for import prices or wait to > find something secondhand. Actually, the NZ dollar is so weak that, even with shipping charges, "import prices" come to about what you'd pay at the corner store if they stocked the Flying Nun catalogue. While you're there, you might want the Verlaines' "Juvenilia", too. a ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 12:48:48 -0700 From: Eb Subject: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change Checking the Knitting Factory website right now (http://www.knittingfactory.com/kfla/calendar/index.cfm) -- I'm surprised at how expensive the local Soft Boys show is! I thought most Knitting Factory shows were in the $10-$12 range, but this one's $23? Are the tickets extra-pricey, all around the country? Eb ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:47:49 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: Shut Up, Little Ex-Girlfriend On Fri, Mar 30, 2001, Glen Uber wrote: > On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Eb wrote: > > >http://psychoexgirlfriend.com/voicemails.html > > Oh my God! I think I dated that woman from '93 to '96! That was too much > deja vu for it to be funny. So then go have some fun with the annoying Pepsi girl: . - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:57:05 -0500 From: recount chocula Subject: Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change when we last left our heroes, Eb exclaimed: >Checking the Knitting Factory website right now >(http://www.knittingfactory.com/kfla/calendar/index.cfm) -- I'm surprised >at how expensive the local Soft Boys show is! I thought most Knitting >Factory shows were in the $10-$12 range, but this one's $23? most of the shows are running $18-20, which isn't too atypical for the places they have been playing on the east coast. the cheapest has been maxwell's which, at $15, is about twice as much as most maxwell's shows cost. woj ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:02:10 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: just like Brian Wilson did http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010330/01/ent-music-wilson-tribute ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:18:58 -0500 From: recount chocula Subject: Re: just like Brian Wilson did >http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010330/01/ent-music-wilson-tribute a brian wilson tribute with cindy lee berryhill? geez. +w n.p. psychoex ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 13:31:17 -0800 From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: best...digests...ever Some great guitar tips (thanks, everyone!) and entertaining on-the-road accounts. I'm really enjoying reading lately (which is not a change, but... you know what I mean). I can't wait to see a bunch of you next weekend. I'll be fresh from my kyu exam and ready for action. Incidentally, on the guitar front...I took lessons for about a year or two with two different instructors. After a certain point, I ran into the problem that I wanted to learn to play Cure songs and such and my guitar teacher thought it would be good for me to learn Randy Rhoads licks. We had a fundamental divergence of taste and I realized I was going to be happier learning my favorite songs on my own. So I'm not too keen to go back to a teacher, unless I get to the point where I'm decent and just need to learn new techniques or something. Drew - -- Andrew D. Simchik, drew at stormgreen dot com http://www.stormgreen.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:41:37 -0500 From: recount chocula Subject: tapermaniax after repeated prodding by bayard ;), i've gone ahead and created a mailing list for robyn/soft boys taper/trader discussion. the list is tapermaniax@smoe.org. it's emphasis is more taping than trading. that is, tapermaniax is not supposed to supplant the existing forums for finding people to trade shows with. it's really more of a central coordination point for those who record shows so things like "who's recording this show?", "who's got the best recording?", "can i get board access at the such-and-such theater?", and "who wants to organize this tree?" can get hashed out. we decided a separate list would be best not because this sort of thing would irritate fegmaniax subscribers but because there are tapers who want to be plugged in who are not interested in subscribing to the main list. non-tapers are, of course, welcome to join, but i sincerely hope news of any recordings/trees/etc will be posted on fegmaniax and fegmaniax-announce as well, so there shouldn't be a need to join tapermaniax solely to not miss anything. to join, send a note to majordomo@smoe.org which says subscribe tapermaniax or, if you'd prefer the digest version subscribe tapermaniax-digest you'll have to confirm your subscription with majordomo. if you have any problems, just let me know. woj ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:52:41 -0500 From: Ken Ostrander Subject: Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change >Are the tickets extra-pricey, all around the country? they certainly aren't cheap; but, contrary to rumors, the boys rawk! shell out the extra change for a great show or be content to listen to the mp3's and weep. by the by, i got a chance to watch the video from monday night and i must say that it is fantastic. my friends were blown away. there were problems transfering it to vhs; but i will keep trying... ken "livin' just enough for the cit-ayyy" the kenster np loveless my bloody valentine ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 13:54:14 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: I offered her guitar lessons in return for scorn... on 3/30/01 1:31 PM, Andrew D. Simchik at drew@stormgreen.com wrote: > Incidentally, on the guitar front...I took lessons for about a year or two > with two different instructors. Just to bring Dylan back into the thread: The wife of a guy my wife used to work for took guitar lessons from Dylan in NY during the early '60s. Just thought I'd share. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:56:48 -0500 From: recount chocula Subject: Re: just like Brian Wilson did when we last left our heroes, recount chocula exclaimed: >>http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010330/01/ent-music-wilson-tribute > >a brian wilson tribute with cindy lee berryhill? geez. er, without, i meant. +w ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:54:47 -0500 From: recount chocula Subject: Re: Boston when we last left our heroes, Johnathan Vail exclaimed: >I did have one disturbing observation to make. From where I was >standing, slightly stage right about 3 corpses from the front, there >was a yellowish gel light directly behind Robyn. This would be fine >but it summoned into view a large clump of otherwise invisible neck >hair that protruded an inch or two away from our hero's neck. Anyone >else notice this or am I the only one? missed the spurious hair growth, but i can't imagine that it would be as visually disturbing as the bright blue spotlight/yellow backlight combination which nearly caused my eyes to crawl out of their sockets trying to focus. (or maybe my eyes were still recuperating from the bridget riley exhibition at the dia center .) woj ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 17:01:49 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change On Fri, Mar 30, 2001, Ken Ostrander wrote: > by the by, i got a chance to watch the video from monday night and i must say > that it is fantastic. my friends were blown away. there were problems > transfering it to vhs; but i will keep trying... What format is it on? If it's DV, maybe we need to get a DV tree going? :) - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:28:17 -0700 From: hbrandt Subject: Re: let's talk about the Soft Boys for a change Ken Ostrander wrote: > shell out > the extra change for a great show or be content to listen to the mp3's and > weep. Don't rub it in-! /hal, wishing I was in Chicago ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:41:55 -0600 From: "JH3" Subject: From your friendly neighborhood data-collector Fegs: The so-called Asking Tree is now up-to-date through March 26, gig-wise. As always, I'd like to thank Mr. Eddie Tews and Bayard for providing setlists... And as always, the stuff is located here: http://www.jh3.com/robyn/base By the way, would it be easier to remember if I made it "www.jh3.com/askingtree"? Or just "www.jh3.com/ask"? Eventually I'll add some sort of QuickQuery[TM] that shows you the last month's worth of gigs with one click, so y'all won't have to enter the dates each time. I do think of everything eventually, but "eventually" can take a while. About these reviews folks have been posting: Does anybody object to having their review(s) included on our detail pages for these gigs? I've been crediting them to people with just their last names and the first letters of their first names only, as in [J. Hedges], but I'm wondering if even this is being too presumptuous. I should probably ask for permission before adding reviews from the list, but I'm just too lazy... So if anyone objects, just let me know, OK? And if you see yours in there and want it removed, let me know that too. If anyone posted reviews of the Toronto, Detroit, or Newark, DE shows, I must have deleted them! Also, one question: Why is it always listed as "Rock *and/or* Roll Toilet"? Is that how they're introducing the song? And why would someone want to throw perfectly good rocks or dinner rolls into the toilet? The rocks would just mess up your septic system, and as for the rolls, I guess they'd decompose, but why not just let the birds have them, if they're stale? (I'm digressing, aren't I?) So far we have three new tunes added from the current US tour: Sudden Town, Pulse Of My Heart, and My Mind Is Connected To Your Dreams... In case anyone is keeping track other than myself, that brings the total to 886 tunes total (performed and/or recorded), 578 of which are original Hitchcock compositions. And once this tour is finished, Robyn will have appeared at 1,063 known gigs, with several missing ones still to be added, if Morris Windsor comes through for Eddie with the details. Apparently I, too, am a geek. John "funny, I don't look like one" Hedges ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 18:00:13 -0500 (EST) From: Bayard Subject: Re: From your friendly neighborhood data-collector > The so-called Asking Tree is now up-to-date through > March 26, gig-wise. One quick note: there are still a few mistakes that have yet to be corrected; I had a few days to enter all of last year's data, and it was not enough time to make all the adjustments. But most all of the gigs and setlists I got should be in. For canonical and-as-close-to-100%-accurate- info-as-possible, see feedthefish.org. I'll be doing another data update when this tour is finished, unless JH3 would care to do the honors. > If anyone posted reviews of the Toronto, Detroit, or Newark, > DE shows, I must have deleted them! That was actually Bernstein who played in Newark, Delaware, not the Boys. Sorry for the corn-fusion. Hopefully people will recover from last nights and the night before's gigs, and post about them... I did see that they played Train round the bend... > Apparently I, too, am a geek. testify. =b ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 19:05:36 -0500 From: recount chocula Subject: Largo 11-APR-2001 >Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 15:34:12 -0800 (PST) >From: Griffith Davies >Subject: Largo 11-APR-2001 >To: woj > >woj, > >I apologize if this is old news, but according to the >outgoing message for the infamous Largo, "Robyn >Softboy" is scheduled to perform there on 11-APR-2001. > >Largo is located at 432 N. Fairfax Avenue between >Melrose Avenue and Beverly Boulevard. >Call 323-852-1073 for details, and to make >reservations. > >griffith > >PS - I've been out of the world of RH since last >November (work, school, etc). I haven't even read a >digest since then. Say hello to the group for me, and >I might see some of the list on the 10th or 11th. > >===== >--------------------------------------------------------- >Griffith Davies >hbrtv219@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 19:51:01 -0500 From: Ken Weingold Subject: Kurt Bloch That is the guitarist of YFF, right? Damn, I just realized whom he looks like. Dim from A Clockwork Orange. It's almost uncanny. - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 22:00:38 -0800 From: "Russ Reynolds" Subject: hey, wait a minute... > Someone (not a feg, i think) This made me think. If a Hitchcock fan who is not a listmember is not considered a feg, then the assumption is that only we listmembers ARE fegs. And since we are fegmaniacs, does that make us all narcissists? - -rUss. Soft Boys in 7 days. Baseball in 3. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 23:41:48 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: toxicobiobadstuffology (was something about God concepts and burning plastics) On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Yudt.Matthew wrote: > I think you are mistaken. Trivalent antimony compounds are indeed > nasty stuff, but mainly because of their corrosive nature. There is > little (no) evidence for (human or rodent) carcinogenicity of this > compound. I said in my original post that I didn't do any specific research or double-checking of my facts and was just winging it off the top of my head from recalled information. Now, as for the fact of antimony tri- and oxybromides causing cancer, I am almost 100% sure that I am recalling my source correctly on this one. It is possible that I'm misremembering and also possible that my source is incorrect. However, to protect my source from being disparaged due to my misremembering, I will wait to double-check before I say anything more. > I guess the point is that for the vast majority of chemicals (all?), a > low enough exposure limit can be established to avoid environmental or > health hazards. This is where my earlier discussion of technological and biological cycles comes into play. There are things the natural world can accept, incorporate, break down, use to feed other processes, et cetera and things that it can't. It is simply not true that we can utterly avoid environmental and health hazards by simply dumping little bits at a time into the natural world. There are substances that we create which simply cannot be incorporated into those systems. Even if the substance being injected into the system is completely stable (i.e. won't leach chemical components, residues, what have you into the system over time), it's filler that doesn't belong and disrupts the natural commingling of things. "Limited exposure" doesn't scale over time. Limited exposure every day for a million years is a whole lot of exposure. We are too arrogant in assuming that we know how these things will interact with the balance of nature over time. The natural world is a complex system, in the mathematical sense. People in the sciences often forget what this means. It means that we cannot predict, control, or measure to an explicit enough degree our long-term effects on that system. And "long-term" in this sense isn't a geological or even biological "long-term". We can't even predict the weather seven days out, let alone the Ph of inland lake over twenty years. > I also want to comment on the "cancer bomb" remark. I don't know why > someone would do such a thing. Probably for personal economic profit... or to "save face". That's why we do almost all of our horrible things these days. > After all, cancer is essentially a disease of aging, Tell that to the dozens of grade-schoolers with brain cancer around Hanford, Washington... or the extra-ordinarily high (rationally speaking) number of children that grew up on the same land as their parents' store/gas station who had leukemia and breast cancers. Have you ever SEEN a "cancer map" of the United States of America? This is a chart that has colored areas indicating incidences of certain cancers per capita for a region. The highest ratios are around industrial areas and waste treatment facilities. How can you say that it's a disease of aging? > and any effect of the bomb would have to take one or more generations > to work. OK, how about the former View-Master plant in Tigard, Oregon, USA that had so poorly handled its waste water (though completely legally... according to this rule of "acceptable exposure") that the ground water in the area was giving diseases to PETS (hardly the sorts of creatures to live in a neighborhood for generations). > I think the best cancer bomb may have already been used - nuclear > weapons and radioactive fallout. However, I would rank dioxin and > benzo(a)pyrene high on my list - but I'm not a toxicologist. Again, pesticides and gasoline. > I'm not sure what you mean by technological vs biological handling, > but probably has to do with how these compounds are degraded. I > mostly agree with you, and therefore support recycling, reducing and > reusing plastic (and other) products. However... The concept of "degrading" a substance isn't a natural one. There are substances and they transmute as they follow certain cycles. Pick a particular collection at a particular time and place... let's say an apple. It's an apple for a while. Then it's on the ground and maybe part of it's eaten by a large, roving animal. The rest of it stays and is consumed by smaller creatures of the earth (insects, bacteria, fungi) and each of these creatures produces something from the parts that it consumes. Those things that are produced are sometimes immediate castings, which are a mixture of parts the creature had asimilated long before and used in the assimilation of new stuff and part is the stuff recently consumed that couldn't be immediately used. The other part gets assimilated into the consuming organism and it forks and branches all over. But there's not really degradation because there's not really any idea of permanence of form... this is an artifical construct, permanence. As one put it, "eliminate the concept of waste". In the natural world, there is no output of any process that is not the input to another process to transmute that output. The natural biological world creates nothing that it does not have an immediate mechanism for destroying and re-incorporating. So we can draw lines between the things we create. We can say "this thing is of a natural biological origin" (say, cotton) and "this thing is of a technologically synthetic process" (say, polyester). It is our responsibility to see that each of the substances we create has an equally needy process that REQUIRES that substance as input in exactly the proportion that we create it (over time, of course). Let those things which come from the natural world go back to it and keep those things that we create in our synthetic, technological world in it. This goes so far beyond the modern concept of "recycling" as to make the latter seem ridiculously backward and damaging. > > These things are EXTREMELY damaging to individual organisms in SMALL > > quantities. So yes, one religious group in Pennsylania is doing > > serious physical damage. Far worse than, say, keeping a child in the > > basement and beating it daily. > > > NO FUCKING WAY. To any of this statement, in fact, no fucking way. Hooboy, let's dig in. > First of all, there are safe exposure limits - like it or not! To > just about everything, too. People who are so anti-technology need to > realize this. You can oppose the use of technology (chemical > synthesis) on moral grounds, or oppose the capatilistic principles > upon whcih the industry is run, whatever, but you are mistaken when > you think every damned synthetic chemical is bad! Every synthetic chemical is bad to try to incorporate into the natural biological world. That's what I'm saying. There simply aren't natural processes to handle the synthetics we're throwing into those systems. And the attempts by those systems to incorporate the barrage of synthetics is, over time, destroying the natural biological systems. See the fish in England that are largely sterile or multisexed (there's a better word for this that I can't quite recall) due to the build-up of synthetic estrogen in their systems from trying to incorporate the waste of humans taking birth control pills. The natural world simply cannot cope with what we're throwing at it. I'm not saying STOP PRODUCING SYNTHETICS. Goodness, no. We NEED synthetics. We don't HAVE the biological natural resources to sustain the kind of world we need (food and clothing for all people, shelter, etc.), so we have to turn to our brilliant capacity for technology. And we are AMAZING at solving problems with our technology. However, we are VERY BAD at recognizing our mistakes and correcting them. And our mistake is commingling our technological synthetics with biological organics. > There are hundreds of NATURALLY OCCURING compounds which are far more > carcinogenic and toxic than those you mentioned - and we're only > beginning to find out about these. Absolutely. And nature has a way of handling each one so as not to get too out of control. No creature has come along and destroyed all other life in its biological effluence. It simply cannot happen. The systems are built around effluence becoming influence instantly. It comes out of one process and immediately becomes raw material for the next process. And because the processes themselves are not really atomic (except for the process of dying, which seems to be a kind of on/off thing, at least in the "higher" organisms), there's no real divider that says one process has ended and another begins. It's a continuum of change. To date, technological processes have not grown to mirror this. Technological processes are largely considered atomic (they either happen completely successfully or "fail") because there are specific PRODUCTS coming from these processes. And those products are considered FINISHED and are not the input for the next process or series of processes. But I've gone on and on about that... The point: While it is true that there are natural, biological substances just as harmful as SOME synthetic, technological substances that we classify as harmful, natural systems use these substances in their processes and always transition the substance to a new and different state. Our technological processes do not guarantee this transition nor do our technologically synthesized substances incorporate into the biological processes seamlessly. Therefore, we should modify our technological processes to emulate the VERY successful biological ones and avoid the arrogance of mixing the two. > And, I hope you were kidding about the kid beating - but I'm afraid > you weren't, in this context. You think child abuse doesn't have > social consequences? You don't think these social consequences are > far more destructive to our race and our planet than burning a few > kilograms of plastic? Come 'on, man. I didn't think you were that > extreme. One kid, in a basement. I would certainy rather they kept one kid in the basement and beat him weekly than held plastic burnings on alternate Sundays. No, I'm not kidding. Now, hopefully this kid, who would be so warped and damaged both physically and psychologically from the ritualistic destruction of his physical and mental being, wouldn't ever have to rejoin real society... and people have a demonstrated ability to identify the "other" and treat a person differently than they treat all other people to the point of not considering the "other" human at all. So the social impact would be negligible, in such a contrived situation. But the few kilograms of burning plastic are being released into the world and impacting all kinds of organisms and systems that simply aren't designed to handle it. We, as a society, are designed to handle fucked-up people and situations. I'm talking about the difference between the things you can deal with and the things you can't... and we can't deal with burning plastic in the open. > Yes, there are compounds which can linger for centuries and there are > those that can concentrate in certain regions or food chains. Too > this we agree. And we should do what we can to do eliminate that risk > and exposure. We can also agree that we have very little understanding of which substances these are and why and we have no real way of measuring combinations of substances and their long-term effects on natural systems. In fact, we "expose" the natural world to so many synthetic substances, that merely LISTING every probable combination of chemical exposures would take YEARS... and that doesn't even count analysis of which naturally occuring substances might provide a catalyst to make the situation more or less active. There's an easy solution: separate the biological and the technological. > I have access to lots of government and nongov't databases, if you are > interested. Either you were confused about the SbBr3 or you need new > references (or the government does?) It could be either. As I said, I'm nearly positive my source showed I was correct, but I'm going to leave it on the floor until I can prove or disprove the statement. I certainly don't expect you to PROVE that it DOESN'T cause cancer because you simply can't prove a negative like that. However, understand that this natural burden of proof is exactly how the destructive elements of humanity justify their destruction. Those who would be cautious must PROVE there is damage, while those that would risk it all for the chance at a little more are given free reign. I'm not suggesting we play the coward and hide under our covers doing nothing for fear it will disrupt the natural order. I'm merely suggesting that we ALL consider the situations that arise simply from this logical truth. > No typo. Ignorance can/should be forgiven. Its the misuse and > corrupt use of knowledge that makes me angry. I guess purposeful > ignorance is just as bad too. It is our responsibility as reasoning creatures capable of forethought and gathering knowledge to become informed and consider our actions carefully before moving forward with irreversible plans. Acting without taking such consideration is irresponsibility. Taking such consideration, finding reason to not act, and acting anyway is willfull neglect and reprehensible. "Oh, I didn't KNOW I wasn't supposed to dump house paint on your mom... I thought it would be fun." Is that ignorance, arrogance, irresponsibility or all three? "Whoops, you mean I CAN'T change my boat's oil while floating in the river? I didn't KNOW that!" Do we simply forgive the ignorance? "You mean to say that the kids died because I left the mayonaisse in the minivan all afternoon last august? HUH! Paint me silver and call me Sally!" Oh, it's ok... you're forgiven for being ignorant. > Do you get as mad at traffic jams? (Far more pollutioon there!) Not just traffic jams, every belching, gurgling Victorian piece of shit automobile that I see, sir. > And also - next time you THINK you are throwing away harmless > vegetable matter - realize that vegetables have toxins too! How else > do you think they fight off natural predators (insects). I'll look > for that list of natural carcinogens, if you're interested. Some are > pretty surprising. Absolutely... and we natural organisms do what we can to avoid those substances which we do not have a natural ability to incorporate and process. Viv, if I may speak toward her biology without permission for a moment, can't deal with some of the stuff in cow's milk. In general, she avoids it. Me, on the other hand, I've got biological processes to take advantage of those same substances to nourish my body. Fancy that. > Only by using polluting computers and other electronic devices : ) Really? I can't spread information without using computers and other electronic devices? Shit... and I thought I spoke to a group of people just this morning (thus replicating my words in multiple storage arrays and disseminating them through a network of human interaction). I guess I'm wrong. > Taken to its end, the "infinite" supply of information would consume > our planets resources much sooner. It is a practical infinity. It is a potential infinity. We would not literally infinitely reproduce all information, but build a system wherein all information is readily accessible as if it were locally stored. I don't know EVERYTHING about, say, baking... but if I lived in a diverse community of bakers, I could find all the information I could ever want. There is enough information on baking in this world to keep any individual so inclind working hard to consume for the rest of his life. > I would like that - to talk to you. This techno/bio cycle sounds > interesting. Your passion is inspiring, and although we disagree and > can argue details and larger philosophies, keep in mind - I'm on your > side. Well, you're not on my side if you're recommending to anyone that we should mix our ill-considered technological synthetics into biological organic systems. That's just a no-no. [And the next mail, specifically refering to Vivien's suggestion that Matt consider endocrine disruptors and other neurotoxins and read Silent Spring] > I haven't read that yet - but I may just go change that this weekend - > Rachael Carson, I've heard its a good book. Yeah, it's kind of a wake-up-call and eye-opener... as well as several other cliches. > However the more we learn the worse the story can get. Never was a better argument made for protecting the world from a thing, hmmm? "We don't really understand it, and it looks like it's worse than we think." > I have found out that even low levels of stress (social or > environmental) to a pregnant woman can have drastic effects in > programming the fetal brain for a lifetime. I'd love to hear about this sometime... the nature of the experiments, the reason for them, the believed practical application of the knowledge, as well as the results. > Again, I do not wish to sound like some pro-industry, > anti-environmentalist types. Not at all. However, what I do see is > the spread of misinformation and selective use of scientific data on > both sides of these issues. Particularly with Jeme. I mean he made > some claim about antimony tribromide which turns out to be completely > unfounded. Ahem. I wouldn't go that far. I claimed particularly that I didn't double-check any particular references for information in that post and I didn't make anything up. It's certainly a mischaracterization to say that I just invented the whole idea that antimony tribromide is carcinogenic. > Now I didn't bring it up earlier, but the compound polyethylene > terephthalate doesn't even CONTAIN antimony OR bromide. ??? Perhaps > an oversight on his part. No, antimony tri- and oxybromide are catalytic agents on the copolymerization process that creates PET. There are easily measured quantities of those substances in all consumer grade PET. This is a translation from japanese, so deal with the poor grammar. "...they had identified to remain several % concentration of antimony (this compound which has strong toxicity) and vanadium compound in incinerated ashes of PET. (Reference; Akira Furuhasi, PLASTICS, Vol49, No3, 1998, Japan) These compounds are the catalysts in the PET polymerization." > These are important issues, which effect everyone's lives in both > positive (jobs, technologies) and negative (pollution, waste) ways. Understand that isolating synthetics from organics and developing processes for complete synthetic "life-cycles" will increase the amount and quality of our technologies and implementing those processes in addtion to regular "product" manufacturing will increase the number of jobs. Pollution and waste are not "necessary evils". You can say that the good things justify the bad things, but that's simply not true when the bad things are unnecessary. A Silly Dialogue Me: "Hey, can you stop hitting me in the head every time the sun shines?" You: "But the sun is SHINING! It's BEAUTIFUL! I think it's WORTH a little head beating!" Me: "But, you see, you can stop beating me on the head and the sun will still shine. In fact, it'll shine on more of my head because your fist will be out of the way." You: "Oh, you're such a utopist. This is the way I've been doing things ever since the sun came out. It'd be almost impossible to turn it around now." > One needs to be objective and put aside underlying agenda's when > discussing these problems. And what are these underlying agenda? Protection of our life-sustaining environment? Respect for other living things and processes beyond our comprehension? These are part and parcel with consideration of how we treat the things we make. Everything goes somewhere. You can't consider how you're going to make a thing without considering how you're going to take it apart when it's no longer useful. > As a scientist, I LOVE discussing these things with non-scientists - I > find I learn just as much valuable information (whether a fact itself > or just the way someone with a diff. background questions and > approaches these issues). There are three things that make you a scientist: your trade, your training, or your philosophy. On what grounds do you say I'm not a scientist? I'm not a chemist, that's true. But why would you say I'm a non-scientist? Just curious. > I am certainly on your side, but feel that the 'passionate' spread of > misinformation, and the arrogance attached to it, are very detrimental > to the cause. I don't think this type of extremism is valuable - and > it will certainly not convince the ignorant to change. I'm not spreading misinformation. With the possible exception of a misremembered fact (possible, I stress), everything I said is absolutely true. Have you heard of the Archimedes Principle? Do you know the Laws of Thermodynamics? All environmentalism is based on these two ideas. > One can have strong opinions on the moral issues surrounding the use > of technology, or the eco-politics of our society, but science is a > bit different. Many of these issues can be tested, and that is really > what science (research) is all about. Understand, again, that natural systems are Complex... in the mathematical sense. You cannot gain meaningful information from experimentation within them. You can deduce "rules of thumb" for the major components, but the minor compents all tend toward strange attraction, that is to say that no matter how well you measure and how carefully you control the experiment, there's something you left out and a tiny change beyond the degree of accuracy of your instruments now can yield a wildly different result in the future. Arrogance is thinking we CAN take everything into account and we CAN control a complex system and our predictions are strong enough to support the fate of the world. > Whether we like it or not, these issues are here to stay. Our use of > technology is not going to go backwards. Well, I certainly didn't suggest anything of the sort. In fact, I'm calling for a leap forward in technology. > These are issues for scientists and non-scientists to discuss, like we > are doing. Again with the assumptions. Do go on. > There are reasonable limits to the use of synthetic chemicals. I'll go you one further. Synthetics are VITAL to the survival of humanity. > We need to constantly determine and evaluate them. There are also > reasonalbe alternatives and we need to constanty research what these > are and make efforts to use them. It's quite a fun time to be a > scientist... First, I'd say the synthetic IS the alternative. We should do what we can to incorporate the natural into our lives. We are, after all, biological ourselves. But the strain our population and habits would place on the nature systems are too great a burden and so we have our technological solutions. Our greatest mistake, however, is mistaking the biological for the technological... for assuming that we can have as much understanding and control of a wetland as a laboratory. Our technology needs to be a closed system, self-sustaining. We need to close the open ends of the technological systems: stop creating waste and dumping it into the open systems of nature and stop extracting resources from nature to feed our technologies. The output of every process should be the input of another process ad infinitum. Three generations of recycling doesn't cut it... nor does twelve or six hundred... it must go on forever without expulsion or intake. That is the challenge of the future. And it is a good time to be a scientist. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #100 ********************************