Fire
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On the toothy origins of our inner fire.
With one weird trick, morganucodon kept our kind from being killed by saprophytic fungi.
ancestor worship, ancient fossils, biology, blight, chewing, Chicago, climate change, cooking, decline of reptiles, dinosaur, dinosaurs, Emily Monosson, evolution, fall of dinosaurs, Fire, fire myths, first mammal, fossils, fungal epidemics, fungal infections, fungal pandemics, fungi, global warming, inner fire, mass extinction, mastication, metabolism, morganucodon, nature, proto-mammal, protomammal, rise of mammals, saprophytic fungi, science, Steve Brussate, teeth, The Field Museum, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, tooth, warm blood, warm bloodedness, wildlife
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On ‘The Theft of Fire.’
Stories are powerful things. A world in which workers are brought into a country as farmhands is very different from one in which barbaric kidnappers torture their victims to extract labor. A world in which death panels ration healthcare is different from one in which taxpayers preferentially fund effective medical care. You’ll feel better about…
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On food and willing sacrifice.
Perhaps nothing really wants to be eaten, but in our world, nothing can survive without sacrifice from its parts.
Agni, apoptosis, autotrophs, cancer, consumption, David Shulman, ejaculate, ejaculation, Fire, food, fruit, Ganges, Genesis, gestation, gift, gift economics, God, heterotrophs, Hindu mythology, Hinduism, immolation, King James, libertarian, libertarianism, masturbation, mythology, Onan, Onanism, paterogenesis, reproduction, Robert Goldman, sacrifice, Sally Sutherland Goldman, Sati, semen, sexuality, Shiva, Sita, suicide, tragedy of the commons, unilateral reproduction, Valmiki, Vedic mythology
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On bread.
Bread is pretty amazing. But it shouldn’t be anybody’s *only* therapeutic resource.
A Note of Caution Regarding Sentencing Reform, Adam, Attica, Blood in the Water, bread, bread craft, bread sculpture, cardboard piano, chess set made of bread, cooked food, Demetrius Cunningham, depression, deprivation, ear gauge, Eden, Emily Wilson, Eve, expulsion from Eden, Fire, Freedom Riders, Heather Ann Thompson, Hell is a Very Small Place, history of incarceration, Homer, How to Create Madness in Prison, human mortality, incarceration, jail, jail food, jail meals, jail poetry, Laestrygonia, mass incarceration, netsuke, nothing works, Odysseus, poetry, prison, prison education, prison poetry, prison reform, rehab, rehabilitation, Robert Martinson, Solidarity under Close Confinement, suicide, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, Terry Kupers, The Odyssey, therapy, tree of knowledge of good and evil, tree of life, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, wasted ingenuity, What Works, Yahweh, yeast, yeasted bread
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On fire myths and the origin of knowledge
EDIT 5/4/2018: a finished essay based on this research was published here. If you’re writing about conflicts between religious and scientific worldviews, there is absolutely no reason why you’d be forced to write about fire. But, c’mon… fire is cool. Eventually you probably would. While researching myths about the origin of fire, I realized that…
Frank Brown Cloud 