THINGS I DIDN’T NEED TO HEAR, PART 1
THINGS I DIDN’T NEED TO HEAR, PART 2
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Your recent discussion of farts and beans is misleading [July 28]. I call your attention to a paragraph from my monograph, “A Metaphysical and Anecdotal Consideration of the Fart” (Alphabeta Press). “Little did we know as children about the power and symbolism of beans. If we had read The White Goddess by Robert Graves, we would have known that beans were filled with wondrous powers and ought not be mocked. Graves tells us in his book that the Pythagorean mystics were bound by a strong taboo against eating beans. To eat beans was to eat one’s parents’ heads. This superstition was similar to the views held by the Platonists. They excluded beans on the rationalistic ground that they caused flatulence. Life, they argued, was breath, and to break wind after eating beans was proof one had eaten a living soul.” The point is that the soul is associated with breath, you know, “pneuma,” pneumonia, etc, and that a fart was a kind of breath, so a soul was created and escaped, etc. Thus the connection with reincarnation. If you are going to consider this subject in your column, why won’t you answer the many letters I have sent you in the past about fish farts? If you recall, I wanted to know if in fact fish fart. As a woman who has spent much time at sea, I still have no answer to this question. Your attention to this matter will help me finish my monograph on the subject. –Gloria Klein, via the Internet
You write that “Amnesty International has rightly protested that [Mumia Abu-Jamal] is being killed for his political views. The guy maybe deserves prison but probably not the fatal dose [July 21].” Think about your use of the words “maybe” and “probably” in that last sentence. If you’re uncertain that Abu-Jamal deserves prison, maybe you should probably conclude that he certainly should not be killed. –Jeff Balch, Chicago
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
