bon vivant, !@#$ *occasionally paid* political strategist. etc.
Los Angeles, CA, rural MS
Joined June 2009
- Tweets315K
- Following1.9K
- Followers26.4K
- Likes559K
'Survivor' on a budget
No joke one of the best rock songs of 1988. A week doesn't go by that I don't think about this:
youtube.com/watch?v=h__l_HLl…
Michael Pollan reveals how the introduction of caffeine completely changed human history and consciousness.
"Before caffeine, it was a very different world and a very different consciousness. People were drunk a lot of the time, buzzed almost all of the time because it was safer than water"
"Water was really how you got diseases. If you fermented things, even low alcohol, it killed a lot of the microbes. So people, even kids, drank hard cider for breakfast"
"Tea, chocolate, and coffee all arrive in the same decade in England, and things start to change... no one ate or drank boiling water or hot beverages before"
"Boiling it made it much safer. This gave this incredible public health boost to these places, and then you have the drug that fosters a kind of more linear, rational, focused way of thinking"
"People in the 1600s started writing about it saying, 'Wow, we have this new civil and sober drink that we can use.' And that, I think, makes possible things like the Industrial Revolution"
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The clip repeats the myth that pre-caffeine people were mostly drunk because water was unsafe. Historians and medieval sources show water was commonly drunk from wells/springs while weak ale provided nutrition/calories, not a substitute for bad water.
leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-gr…
slate.com/human-interest…
fakehistoryhunter.net/2026/02/02/dri…
Dennis Herring retweeted
“What is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”
~Sen. Robert F. Kennedy
nytimes.com/2026/10/27/us/rf…
Hey @RobGeorge, in Maine is firewood a wedge issue?
Dennis Herring retweeted
A GREAT movie. Matt Damon and Christian Bale turn in remarkable performances, like in this scene.
“You’re welcome” 🤣
Dennis Herring retweeted
Jeff Daniels says Jack Nicholson told him on his first day of Terms of Endearment that film is not Broadway, and that is why he shows up ready on take one
"He said, what have you done?"
"And he said, well, this ain't Broadway."
"This is the pro game."
"I just came in ready to serve the story, not you."
Daniels was 28 with one movie behind him, and Nicholson sized him up in a sentence. Plenty of young actors would hear that as a put-down and sulk about it. He heard it as the job description and has been working that way for more than forty years.
Dennis Herring retweeted
One bar. That's all DJ Premier took from Joe Chambers' "Mind Rain", slowed about 2% and looped under "N.Y. State of Mind"
Nas walked in, said "I don't know how to start this" and did the whole verse in one take.
Dennis Herring retweeted
Timmy, Tommy, Joey, Robby, Johnny y Brian". Lo cierto es que la retahíla de nombres fue una improvisación del propio Matt Damon porque era una lista de directores con los que le gustaría trabajar: Marc Rocco, Richard Attenborough, Danny Boyle, Terry Gilliam, Mikael Solomon...