Or, what would you like as a name?

....Swift's Modest Proposal was satire, not a fact, something that hasn't been pointed out yet.

What I'd heard (some years ago) was that cigarettes helped to soften the blow of phenothiazine-based drugs (Thorazine, Stelazine, etc.) that are commonly given to schizophrenics. These drugs work by removing L-dopa from the brain, and depressing the forebrain, thus making the subject more tractable and easy to deal with in institutional situations (the so-called chemical straitjacket, lobotomy in a pill, etc.) Marketed to doctors as "insulin for schizophrenics", they, indeed seem to work for a while: the subject becomes peaceful, and nearly unemotional, easily suggestible, and with few thoughts of their own. Higher cognition becomes more difficult: it's not unusual for someone on these drugs to go from, say, playing classical piano to watching, with interest, "Dancing with the Stars".

However, a few months later, side effects usually begin to occur: tics and twitches, a ravenous appetite, which coupled with the disinclination to move, quickly produces extreme obesity (and ironically Type 2 diabetes), and a pernicious apathy that slowly extends itself to jobs, appearance, other people and life itself. Worse, trying to get off these drugs means that psychotic symptoms reoccur, even worse than before, as the body's L-dopa production often has increased to unnatural levels. While it's true that some patients can function, and sometimes quite well, under these circumstances, the truth is that most of them do not, and the simple equation Psychotic - (L-dopa) = Normal simply does not hold up.

What nicotine, and to some extent, alcohol does is to increase L-dopa to a slight degree, but not as much as simply going without the drugs, and it does so fairly quickly. Part of the problem with the neuroleptics is that brain hormone production and consumption varies from moment to moment -- what would be "too much", say, waiting for a bus, would be "not enough" dancing at a lively party, brainstorming a new product, or trying to organize housework.

Without getting all Tom Cruise on you, I don't think that they're using the right angle.

...have already weighed in on this subject. Stephan Hawking is a man who is not the world's greatest physicist, nor is he doing any work now that is in any way in the forefront. Mostly what he is is a motor neuron disease survivor. If he were to die tomorrow, it would be a tragedy, but not in the way that he had great work in the future. He would have had significant work towards unifying quantum mechanics and relativity theory, at least thirty years ago, a beautiful family, and a wonderful face on what is often a very hard disease. I long to kiss that cheek. But I don't deny that flesh has had its day in about it's fortieth year. Let the world's embraces be felt. But he is not a Homo Novis.

Actually, both Protestants and Catholics were pretty good at burning, hanging, and otherwise spoiling each others' day during the Reformation (which is when most witch hunts occurred), since the greatest number of hunts were in Continental Europe, along fault lines that reached through France and Germany. Modern-day Wiccans are not a good historical source, since, like Fundamentalist Christians, they're notorious for rewriting history to suit their own witch-fulfilling fantasies....

eeps! The true link

Clearly this is in direct contradiction to the Tarvunty, and should be stopped, lest a holy jihad erupt! tarvuism.org