INTERESTING TIMES

"The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol. In a community lacking pure-water supplies, the closest thing to "pure" fluid was alcohol. Whatever health risks were posed by beer (and later wine) in the early days of agrarian settlements were more than offset by alcohol's antibacterial properties. Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties. Many genetically minded historians believe that the confluence of urban living and the discovery of alcohol created a massive selection pressure on the genes of all humans who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Alcohol, after all, is a deadly poison and notoriously addictive. To digest large quantities of it, you need to be able to boost production of enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases, a trait regulated by a set of genes on chromosome four in human DNA. Many early agrarians lacked that trait, and thus were genetically incapable of "holding their liquor." Consequently, many of them died childless at an early age, either from alcohol abuse or from waterborne diseases. Over generations, the gene pool of the first farmers became increasingly dominated by individuals who could drink beer on a regular basis. Most of the world population today is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol. (The same is true of lactose tolerance, which went from a rare genetic trait to the mainstream among descendants of the herders, thanks to domestication of livestock.) The descendants of hunter gatherers--like many Native Americans or Australian Aborigines--were never forced through this genetic bottleneck, and so today they show disproportionate rates of alcoholism. The chronic drinking problem in Native American populations has been blamed on everything from the weak "Indian constitution" to the humiliating abuses of the U.S. reservation system. But their alcohol intolerance most likely has another explanation: their ancestors didn't live in towns."
--Steven Johnson, in The Ghost Map, pages 103-4.

Ran it K-1 self support July 7-10, 2012
Self support notes elsewhere
2 beers in the bow of my embudo balanced the trim
None of us knew the run: Bruce, Jim, Ken, David, me
We scouted all the V's, took conservative lines
Read and ran most IV's, some needed scouting, can't trust the notes you know

Flows 3.3 at launch, 3.1 at takeout, felt medium for the riverbed, est: 3,000 CFS
Technical big water: granite boulders and powerful clear water, gradient 42fpm
3 nights to vinegar was leisurely, in camp by 2 every day
campfires at night, fire rings present in 2/3 campsites
burned on rocks by water when no ring
90-100F hot weather, oven-hot winds, wandering t-storms last day/night
River temp cool but enjoyably swimmable
( more notes )

http://www.newstime.co.za/Health/Dutch_Centre_Gets_Alcoholics_Off_Booze_A_Draught_At_A_Time/8602/
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ggAP_w12eS4TKljcvODgivEW7ZbA
http://guyism.com/2010/08/dutch-rehab-helps-alcoholics-by-letting-them-continue-to-drink-beer.html

The object is to keep their blood alcohol steady and their stress level low to avoid binge drinking. In this situation alcoholic patients are more likely to be amenable to consultations with doctors, psychologists, etc. Dr Mate would approve. Alcoholics are people too.

Open since last October, Centrum (Centre) Maliebaan in the central Dutch city of Amersfoort allows its residents to drink up to five litres of beer on the premises every day, with an hour between each 500 ml (half-quart) serving.

ASIDE: According to a recent Gallup poll 67% of US adults drink alcohol. This is a slight increase from last year and the highest fraction of the last 25 years. Beer is most popular.

FAMILY: Gentianaceae
MORE SPECIES: Gentiana calycosa is native to the PNW. Varieties found all over the planet.
COMMON NAMES: bitter root, bitterwort, gall weed, gentiana, gentianae radix, pale gentian, stemless gentian, yellow gentian, wild gentian, quin jiao
( more )

Shakti got her bell off this morning. She's feeling friskier than she has in some time, and was trying to jump up onto the kitchen counter while I was making my smoothie. After she got it off, she played with it for a long time, and now she is hiding under the denim carpet, waiting to pounce on something, anything!
( Sunday Morning )