GRGR(20) 1904 revisited

[jporter]

In Hank Adams mode, "the narrator," offerring a little solace to the
water-closeted Achtfaden:

"Look at it this way, Achtfaden....If tensor anaysis is good enough for
turbulence, it ought to be good enough for history. There ought to be
nodes, critical points... ...1904 was one of them-...it was the year the
American Food and Drug people took the cocaine out of Coca-Cola, which gave
us an alcoholic and death-oriented generation ideally equipped to fight WW
II..." (p451-2)

Not sure if the narrator is speaking for P. here, but this is baloney. Not
only is the premise of tensor analysis applied to history a narrative load
of crap, but with hindsight, cocaine, especially in the form of crack, has
turned out to be one of the most damaging and violence promoting
substances, ever.  Irrespective of any CIA involvement in trafficking, if
this passage doesn't make today's P. wince, I'm ducking for him.

P. is a slick writer, but he can be an arrogant s.o.b., and when he's bad,
he can stink up even the Rucksichtslos.

jody