Pantagruelion http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp Notes upon the final four chapters of Rabelais’s Third Book of Pantagruel Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:31:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 420, cannabis, illegality, and the cost of prohibition http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/23/420-cannabis-illegality-and-the-cost-of-prohibition/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/23/420-cannabis-illegality-and-the-cost-of-prohibition/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:30:42 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=570 Continue reading →]]> OUPblog: “So why have marijuana prohibition? It’s not quite clear. Many claim that prohibition developed to limit harm. You know, laws that will protect us from ourselves. Data from the last 5,000 years suggest that the harm is not dramatic. … Despite cries that marijuana will make folks psychotic, the rates of schizophrenia are pretty much the same across countries and eras with dramatically different laws.… Tales of amotivational syndrome and cannabis-induced violence have finally decreased dramatically.… The idea that prohibition is around to limit harm seems a bit odd when we think about all the potentially harmful things that are legal. “

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/23/420-cannabis-illegality-and-the-cost-of-prohibition/feed/ 0 Let’s Be Blunt: It’s Time to End the Drug War http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/23/lets-be-blunt-its-time-to-end-the-drug-war/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/23/lets-be-blunt-its-time-to-end-the-drug-war/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:15:20 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=565 Continue reading →]]> Forbes: “April 20 is the counter-culture ‘holiday’ on which lots and lots of people come together to advocate marijuana legalization (or just get high). Should drugs—especially marijuana—be legal? The answer is ‘yes.’ Immediately. Without hesitation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 seized in a civil asset forfeiture. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure. It’s high time to end prohibition. Even if you aren’t willing to go whole-hog and legalize all drugs, at the very least we should legalize marijuana.

“The more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are drug industry revenues. So, more effective prohibition means that drug sellers have more money to buy guns, pay bribes, fund the dealers, and even research and develop new technologies in drug delivery (like crack cocaine). It’s hard to beat an enemy that gets stronger the more you strike against him or her.”

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/23/lets-be-blunt-its-time-to-end-the-drug-war/feed/ 0 Pot helps student athletes perform at high level http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/19/pot-helps-student-athletes-perform-at-high-level/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/19/pot-helps-student-athletes-perform-at-high-level/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:32:06 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=562 Boing Boing:
The Oregon Ducks won the Rose Bowl. This article says about half the team was smoking marijuana.

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/19/pot-helps-student-athletes-perform-at-high-level/feed/ 0 Proto-Surrealist Flying Machines http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/17/proto-surrealist-flying-machines/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/17/proto-surrealist-flying-machines/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:59:22 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=559 Continue reading →]]> photo

JF Ptak Science Books

J.J. Grandville, a small collection of flying machines that appears in his Un Autre Monde, published 1844. 

In what he gives to thee, this Paradise
And thy faire Eve; Heav'n is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:
Think onely what concernes thee and thy being;
Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there [ 175 ]
Live, in what state, condition or degree,
Contented that thus farr hath been reveal'd
Not of Earth onely but of highest Heav'n.

Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 8 (The Argument), line 175 ff

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/17/proto-surrealist-flying-machines/feed/ 0 The Ship of Fools, In Praise of Folly, and Intelligent Dischord http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/17/the-ship-of-fools-in-praise-of-folly-and-intelligent-dischord/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/17/the-ship-of-fools-in-praise-of-folly-and-intelligent-dischord/#comments Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:03:15 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=552 Continue reading →]]> Burgkmair ship

Ptak Science Books: ” Brant, Erasmus, and Geiler, 1497-1515

“It is evidently the earliest depiction of a fully-rigged and outfitted ship, with great and accurate detail, far beyond what had been published in the previous 50 or so years of movable type printing.”

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/04/17/the-ship-of-fools-in-praise-of-folly-and-intelligent-dischord/feed/ 0 The French Disease http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/03/22/the-french-disease/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/03/22/the-french-disease/#comments Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:22:35 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=548 Continue reading →]]> Comparative Literature:This essay considers cultural translation and exchange between England and France from the publication of Randle Cotgrave’s important Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611) to Madeleine de Scudéry’s Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus (1649–1653) to the Soame/Dryden translation of Boileau’s L’art poétique (1683). It considers translations of various genres, including the poetic epistle, verse drama, and the newly fashionable romance in the context of complex shifts in Anglo-French relations.” Comparative Literature, 2012. Volume 64, Number 1: 33-48 [Access via subscription or pay for view]

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/03/22/the-french-disease/feed/ 0 On Antique Waves and Dropping Your Hat in Them http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/02/22/on-antique-waves-and-dropping-your-hat-in-them/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/02/22/on-antique-waves-and-dropping-your-hat-in-them/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:22:11 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=544 Continue reading →]]> Livy ship

Ptak Science Books: “Titus Livius (59 BCE-17 ACE), better known to the English-speaking world as Livy, was a superior among superiors of Roman historians, writing on the history of his city and country.  His work, Romische Historie…, published in Mainz by Johann Schoeffler 1450 years later in 1514, was one of the most beautifully illustrated books ever produced in that city.”

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/02/22/on-antique-waves-and-dropping-your-hat-in-them/feed/ 0 Cannabis in a collection of medical and herbal texts http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/02/14/cucumber-and-cannabis-in-a-collection-of-medical-and-herbal-texts/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/02/14/cucumber-and-cannabis-in-a-collection-of-medical-and-herbal-texts/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:16:31 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=536 British Library: Date: 1195. This manuscript lists herbs and other plants, animals, and birds, and their medicinal uses [Sloane MS 1975].

Canabe

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/02/14/cucumber-and-cannabis-in-a-collection-of-medical-and-herbal-texts/feed/ 0 Imagines Deorum, Qui Ab Antiquis Colebantur http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/01/28/imagines-deorum-qui-ab-antiquis-colebantur/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/01/28/imagines-deorum-qui-ab-antiquis-colebantur/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:37:27 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=531 Uni Mannheim: Cartari, Vincenzo (1531 – nach 1571), Imagines Deorum, Qui Ab Antiquis Colebantur: In quibus simulacra, ritus, caerimoniae, magnaq[ue] ex parte veterum religio explicatur…

Cartari209

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/01/28/imagines-deorum-qui-ab-antiquis-colebantur/feed/ 0 Smoking hush-hush pipe of love http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/01/04/smoking-hush-hush-pipe-of-love/ http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/01/04/smoking-hush-hush-pipe-of-love/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:45:39 +0000 Swany http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/?p=525 Continue reading →]]> Clay pipe

Russian Times: “‘The heart is the language of the lover.’ That’s according to the inscription on the mouthpiece of a pipe probably used for smoking hashish and dating back to the Ottoman period which has been discovered in an archaeological excavation in Israel.

“‘Clay pipes of this kind were very common in the Ottoman period (16th-19th centuries CE), were mostly used for smoking tobacco, and some were even used to smoke hashish,’ Shahar Puni of the Israel Antiquities Authority explained. ]The Ottoman authorities tried to combat this practice but failed when it became clear that smoking was firmly entrenched in all levels of society,” he said.’”

]]> http://www.pantagruelion.com/p/wp/2012/01/04/smoking-hush-hush-pipe-of-love/feed/ 0