Should vets with PTSD get molly?
The FDA says no, and the background to this story is fascinating
Over at Arc, the magazine I am now privileged to edit (and to whose newsletter you should subscribe for free), we have a great piece up about the FDA’s rejection of MDMA—a/k/a ecstasy, or molly—as a treatment for PTSD. I’ll just tease you with this paragraph from the opening section:
To supporters of MDMA treatment, something worrisome is afoot. They fear the FDA’s decision was not about science, or at least not purely about science. Rather, they feel that MDMA approval was thwarted by the incendiary claim, made by critics of the treatment, that the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an advocacy organization that favors MDMA usage and which is closely connected to Lykos, is a “therapy cult.” In short, those rooting for FDA approval believe that a promising treatment for people suffering from PTSD was derailed by a slur, one that plays on old antipathies toward new religious movements—antipathies that are irrelevant to the case at hand. Molly is not a cult, they say, but simply a very useful drug.
Check out the full story, by journalist Michael Agresta, here. And dig the AI-generated art, provoked by my request to show me “a veteran with PTSD getting psychedelic treatment”:
It’s pumpkin-spice time, and I’m happy
I am not sure how the annual profusion of pumpkin-spice limited-edition drinks, cookies, donuts, etc., came to be, nor how it came to be a cliché worthy of mockery, but let me be clear: I love pumpkin flavoring, artificial or not, and I will not be turned from my pumpkin path (I type these words as I sip a pumpkin-spice latte). Like matzo balls, which tend to get eaten only at Passover season but really would be yummy year-round, there is no good reason to segregate pumpkin flavoring to a month or two in the fall—yet we do, and we pay the price.
Passionate as I am about all things pumpkin-flavored, I am happy to be ribbed about it. The internet version of the magazine McSweeney’s has made it a near-annual practice to mock us lovers of pumpkin flavoring; you can find an archive of their mockery here. But here’s a taste, an excerpt from “Critical Theories of the Pumpkin Spice Latte”:
Traditional Literary Criticism
D. H. Lawrence: “Criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the pumpkin spice latte he is criticising.”
Formalism
Fritjof Capra: “This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on pumpkin spice lattes of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent barista formalism.”
New Criticism
John Crowe Ransom: “… the superior critic is not content with the compilation of the separate devices; they suggest to him a much more general question. The critic speculates on why a pumpkin spice latte, through its devices, is at such pains to dissociate itself from lattes at all, and what it is trying to represent that cannot be represented by lattes.”
Marxism
Karl Marx: “Criticism has plucked the imaginary pumpkin spice lattes on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and drink the living pumpkin spice latte.”
Reader Response Theory
E. D. Hirsch: “The critic is right to think that the pumpkin spice latte should speak to us. The point which needs to be grasped clearly by the critic is that a pumpkin spice latte cannot be made to speak to us until what it says has been understood.”
Structuralism
Jacques Derrida: “. . . the central pumpkin spice latte, the original or transcendental pumpkin spice latte, is never absolutely present outside a system of differences. The absence of the pumpkin spice latte extends the domain and the interplay of pumpkin spice latte ad infinitum.”
Gemini AI gave this image when, narcissist that I am, I instructed it, “show me a handsome 50-something man in autumn garb enjoying a pumpkin-spice latte”:
Taking hummus’s name in vain
I give pretty wide latitude when it comes to “cultural appropriation,” because there is no such thing as an undiluted culture—we all borrow from other cultures, everything is admixed, and besides, appropriation is the sincerest form of flattery, no? And yet, I can’t say I love the messianic Jews’ treatment of Sukkot (the Jews’ harvest holiday, which this year started Wednesday night), at least not as performed by a congregation in northwest Connecticut led by a Christian “rabbi.” Here is some of their schedule for the week of Sukkot:
WEDNESDAY 10/16/24
7:00am - 5:00pm - Set Up Camp! The 16th is the first night guests may sleep in their tents and trailers! (Guests bringing/renting RV’s or campers can set up a few days in advance (As early as Sunday the 13th), please reach out and we’ll get you in touch with our feet on the ground to help with arrangements.
Jews may sleep outdoors, in the huts known as sukkahs—but the point is to be outdoors, open to the stars. A trailer defeats the purpose.
THURSDAY 10/17/24
[…]
11:00AM - ABBA’s K-9’s 101 - Amelia - A workshop about training your dog! Amelia will address: How to read your dog's body language. She will also give helpful tips to stop common behavior problems. People with friendly dogs (dogs who do well around other dogs, groups of people, and small children) are welcome for some hands-on learning!
I love dogs, but I read this and have to ask … wha? (Or maybe … woof?)
FRIDAY 10/18/24
[…]
4:00PM - Heavenly Hummus - Learn to make simple, delicious, hummus from scratch! (There may be some samples involved ).
6:30PM - Jesus in the Fall Feasts - Come for a time of community joy and teaching as we celebrate the beginning of Shabbat with the lighting of the Shabbat Candles, followed by a sermonette with a fresh take on Jesus in the biblical feasts.
So, here we have hummus, and Shabbat, and Jesus. I guess I am well used to the commingling of Shabbat and Jesus—yes, I know Jesus was Jewish, and celebrated Shabbat—but sweet Jesus, why did they have to implicate the great Israeli (and Arab) food hummus in this? Is nothing sacred?
For what it’s worth, I asked Gemini AI to give me an image of Christians enjoying hummus, and this is what I got:
Funny side note: I asked ChatGPT to give me a similar image, and it kept generating images that involved crosses on foreheads, as if this were Ash Wednesday. Nota bene: I do not endorse this image—it is inaccurate and gets Christians wrong! But it’s interesting that AI gets Christians wrong in this way:
Weirder still: even after I typed, “Same image, please, but without crosses on foreheads,” it kept giving me crosses on foreheads! Like this:
When I asked ChatGPT for “an image of traditional Jews enjoying a bowl of hummus,” I was told that I had reached my image limit. Hmm… So I asked Gemini AI, from Google, for Jews eating hummus. This is what I got:
I then told Gemini I wanted to see a mixed-sex group of Jews eating hummus, and I was told, “I'm still learning how to generate certain kinds of images, so I might not be able to create exactly what you're looking for yet. Also, I can't help with photorealistic images of identifiable people, children, or other images that go against my guidelines. If you'd like to ask for something else, just let me know!”
So, why did Jewish men slip past their AI censors, but not Jewish men-and-women? Who knows?
I then tried Jewish women without Jewish men, asking Gemini, “May I see a group of Jewish women happily sharing a bowl of hummus?”
Now, this is fascinating. Gemini seems to have made the women dressing tznius, modestly (note the sleeve lengths)—they are Orthodox, right? But then two of the women are wearing yarmulkes/kippot., which for women is more of a Conservative/egalitarian, or Reform, or Renewal, move: it’s something you see in liberal streams of Judaism. So Gemini AI is trying hard, but gettings its signals crossed.
But hey, the hummus looks delish.
Parents Weekend needs an app??
This weekend, I will attend Parents Weekend (should that have an apostrophe? “Parents’ Weekend”? Who is to say?) at my daughter’s school. In the email I just got from the school, about said weekend, this paragraph caught my eye:
Download the Family Weekend 2024 Mobile App
Parents and guests can have Family Weekend information at their fingertips. Prior to arriving on campus for the weekend, we encourage you to download the Family Weekend 2024 Mobile App. When downloading the mobile app, be sure to allow for notifications to get the most up-to-date information prior to, and throughout, Family Weekend.
I really don’t know what to say. In my day (at this same high school), parents were sent a page, maybe double-sided, listing the events on Parents Weekend, they came to school with that page folded in their pocket, and they … went to those events. How much money was spent on this app? Why would anyone need it? This is a pure case of the phenomenon we might call App for App’s Sake, and in its way it’s as clear a sign of civilizational decay as anything happening in the political realm. Really.