[lit-ideas] Re: Annie Proulx [antifreeze]
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 09:01:43 -0500
> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 12/18/2005 1:30:55 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Annie Proulx [antifreeze]
>
> Andy Amago wrote:
>
> > But if the antifreeze is diluted, then I'm wrong. I always thought
> > ethylene glycol was a good way to manage one's life once one decided the
> > party's over. I'm not suicidal, just think everyone has the right to
> > choose their death. Of course the government for some strange reason
> > doesn't agree. Excruciating pain is not to be sought out. Maybe that's
> > why antifreeze isn't pure ethylene glycol, to keep people from using
it.
>
> Well, it's the ethylene that's diluted in the antifreeze.
I'm not a chemist. Ethylene glycol is the molecule. To "dilute" the
ethylene part would be to change it into a different substance. I don't
know how that would work. It would be, to my mind, like diluting the
sodium in sodium chloride. I would think the whole thing would be diluted
with something, like diluting sodium chloride in water, but that's as much
as I know.
If you're
> thinking of it as a way out,
I said I'm not suicidal. There are philosophical issues here that don't
have ism's attached to them. For centuries, for all of recorded history in
fact, death was just a part of life. People talked about it, accepted it.
Now death is something that happens to others. Nobody talks about it
unless they're seriously disturbed as you obliquely point out. This ethic
of life at all costs, to wit, Teri Schiavo, even as the planet is destroyed
at the rate of 50,000 species every year is, in my opinion, warped.
drinking antifreeze will do, and it
> probably tastes much better than the straight stuff.
This is where I think you're wrong. From what read (and I read a *lot* of
things) it's the EG that's inherently sweet. But I will defer to you.
I'm not sure what
> the last sentence means: antifreeze is lethal because it contains
> ethylene glycol as well as natural food coloring.
This is bizarre. Why would they put natural food coloring into antifreeze?
You could terminally
> damage yourself with it easily. Seriously disturbed people use it to
> poison animals (further details omitted).
>
Seriously disturbed people do a lot of things, like invade countries for no
reason. Nobody's championing all those animals in New Orleans who were
killed by poisonous water that resulted from lack of preparation. The glee
in your words "seriously disturbed" invalidates any seriousness in them
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
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