First of all, I need to apologize to everybody for there not being a post for November 9th. I wrote it, attached a really gross picture, posted it and linked it to facebook. Now, it’s not there. I see two possibilities. A) I screwed up. It was late, I was tired and it happens. B) There is internet censorship going on. This is most likely paranoia on my part. Even though the post was about an incident in which Barbara Bush showed teenage George a fetus in a jar, the result of the miscarriage of his potential baby sister. Even though I referred to George Bush as a mentally challenged psychopathic war monger. Heck, people refer to him as that all the time, it’s nothing but the plain truth. My treatment of the incident was nowhere near as harsh as Wonkette’s, and I doubt that my 20 or so readers are enough for the Internet Overlords to worry themselves about. So, it’s probably A and I apologize.
Now, on to today’s blog topic. My good friend Maggie posted a link to a magazine article (don’t recall which mag, didn’t read the article,
Spreading Civilization
lamestream media, blah, blah, blah) which asks the question, “Did alcohol fuel the spread of civilization?” That got me thinking.
Certainly, alcoholic beverages have been around since the dawn of civilization and even before, because apes and even elephants have been observed savoring the joys of the chemical imbalance induced by rotten fruit. The only reason prostitution is called the world’s oldest profession is because it took a few centuries for some cleverclogs to figure out that he could charge for alcohol. Lots of people probably had the idea before that, but they were just drunk.
Also, if somebody has a space to fill in a weekly magazine and a deadline, they could make the case. You could also make the case that climate, war, religion, available food products, sex or a couple of other different factors determined the shape of modern civilization. Everything played a part. Happened concurrently is not the same thing as caused.
I remember an argument I once had with a Christian friend, who eventually became a minister. I said that the church was guilty of book burning and inhibiting the spread of civilization. He said that the church spread literacy because for centuries, they were the only ones who taught it. Monks copied books, and before Gutenberg all books needed to be copied by hand. It’s an argument that’s impossible to resolve. We cannot know if literacy would have advanced quicker or more slowly without the church, because that’s not the way it happened.
So, has alcohol fueled the spread of civilization? It has certainly had an effect, but whether civilization would have advanced quicker or more slowly without it is impossible to say. Because that’s not the way it happened. Anyway, some magazine writer got to fill his space and we got a new excuse to discuss the joys of alcohol.
Cheers!
www.gurukalehuru.com 
yes, I tried to comment on the “Fetus in a Jar” and could not. The TV news on MSNBC covered this sick story, also commenting that this incident in the life of teenage GW Bush probably warped him for life….trauma close to Momma….type thing. Facebook or someone very well could have censored this now that the greedy Right wing-nuts are back in power…Facebook, California, Reagan Country…all that. They want to cut taxes on people making over $1,000,000. a year…even though most Republicans are not…talk about self-inflicted wounds. Oh well. As for alcohol and literacy, etc….I think the ancient Indian and Persian, Babylonians, Egyptian, and Greek cultures were already doing a good job of writing and education long before ‘the church’ stepped in….even preserving scientific writings and ancient Greek writings from the destruction of the church and dark ages….I think… As the Bible says, “The Wise men came from the East….” The Christians and Jews have had their day/centuries, let us care for the ‘East’ and yes, the Muslims, who have largely been shunned, abused and ignored. “Violence is the language of those who have no voice”…. or whose voice is greeted with a mass exodus at the United Nations when it is heard….
Hi, Jean Thanks for trying, and thanks for letting me know.
I was pretty sure I’d posted it, just quite surprised that anybody would censor it especially after it was all over the media, he brought the subject up himself, and it’s in his book.