Too many cooks spicing the chemical soup

Obviously, the engineers have advanced our technology to a high level. The system of production and delivery is also obviously very effective, too. So much so that there are exotic materials, microelectronics and highly engineered chemicals in practically everything. And yet, there are still so many questions raised by our technological approach to the environment that when it comes down to what's really happening, it's hard to tell what's actually going on. Monday's Northwest Arkansas Times had an interesting selection of articles that help me illustrate my point. On the editorial page, There were two commentaries on aspartame, the artificial sweetener. One was verifying some reports of dangerous effects of the chemical, and the other was completely debunking those claims, discounting them all as rubbish. If the newsprint had any idea what was printed on it, the contradictions contained there would tear the page right in half. But the paper is happily oblivious and lays there content to let me go through the contortions myself. I consider throwing a little tantrum and tearing the page up, a bit of performance art to express the craziness of it all. (I wonder if that's what cats are doing when they tear up newspapers?) But I calm myself and take a closer look, go through my options. I could flip a coin to decide which one to believe. Hmm...

Heads, drink a diet soda and die, Tails take all the hysterical environmentalists and granola heads and chunk 'em in the land fill.

After all, there are still guys walking around who claim they drank agent orange. I could think like a scientist and try to discredit their studies or find misuse of statistical data. I could use a Ken Starresque technique and try to discredit one of the opinion writers in some way (any adultery or little unmentionables, fellas? huh? huh?). Or I could forget the articles and go with what I'd like to believe. In any case, the two completely contradictory viewpoints sit there, one plus, one minus, adding up to zero, leaving me no wiser than before. More confused, though. I mean, it's horrible of them to put both those articles on the same page, so that the contradiction is so glaringly evident. Couldn't they have the common decency to buffer them with a few pages in between? I start to think the editor was taking perverse pleasure in tormenting the likes of me. Then my more rational side steps up and attempts to explain things so I can move on. "You see, dear boy, the truth here is that this is a very complex situation that combines a lot more things than just a chemical that tickles the sweet buds. We're talking about behavioral patterns, genetics, statistical sampling methods, corporate influence, unknown influences from other sources, and the strange tendency people have for getting an idea in their heads and sticking with it stubbornly until the bitter end. In other words, we just don't know." The expert who has linked the substance to a string of deadly diseases is just as suspect as the corporate spokesperson who makes blanket statements for comforting nervous dieters. A bunch of spin doctors? Then where does truth fit in? "Oh, don't worry about truth, it's still back at the bus stop, couldn't fight its way past the shouting hoards." ... On the following pages were three more articles about chemicals. An inconclusive one about the plant growth regulant Alar, which caused the apple scare. Another about kids huffing all sorts of commonly available solvents and pressurized chemical mixes. And one that surprised me: It was Dear Abbey printing a letter and agreeing with the sender that the marijuana laws were destructive and need to be changed. Listen, if even Dear Abbey says so, I'd say it's time to come to our senses and decriminalize the stuff. This of course, is another issue where people are passionately both for and against. They could argue all day and not get anywhere except mad. How big of a problem are things really, other than the difficulties we create about them? Lots of people seem to want to find some convenient demons to blame everything on, but they just aren't there. Or maybe I should say, anywhere you look for one, you'll find one... Just so you know, I actually do read what I write, and sometimes I think I come off sounding pretty wishy-washy, "C'mon, boy make up your mind, Stand up for your convictions." Only problem is, I was born through a portal, in the fallout of the crumbling reality that was characteristic of the last years of the second millenium AD, a portal that opened out into a realm on the other side of long established fabrications of the order of reality. Into a generation of refugees from the horrors humankind's tortured, competitive, combative past. If you asked a therapist to evaluate humankind as an entity, the conclusion would be that it was a lonely child abandoned by its father and beaten by its mother and was showing the signs of brilliance and chaos characteristic of schizophrenia. All this incessant arguing going on in my mind... Makes me tired. I feel burnt out -> sentinel species -> Geez, no wonder all the kids just want to get high.

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