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Cod Liver Oil as a Cure for War

Cod liver oil is the curse of Scandinavian immigrants' children.  We grew up fearing a parent with a teaspoon in hand.  


"It's good for you!", we were told; an obvious sign that it could not be true.  It was foul stuff!  Nothing that tasted as evil as fish oil could be good for you!  We know what our primordial parents never knew, because they were old, and ate lutefisk, and chewed snuff.  No!  Not snuff!  Snus!  S-n-oo-ss!  Copenhagen. 


We knew more about science than they did.  Our parents believed that God had created Adam, and then Eve to be his handmaid, and cod fish for them to eat, and cod liver oil for the kids that inevitably result from sleeping with the handmaid.  


We knew that was mythological nonsense!  We knew that God had made taste buds so that people would spit out things that taste awful; things like battery acid and lutefisk, like horse manure and snus, and like asparagus and cod liver oil.  


Teaspoons, dripping liver oil, commandeered toward our mouths, were an ungodly attempt to overwhelm our natural defense systems.  


It did not help, years later, to fill capsules with that stuff.  We knew what was in there!  To this day, the inner-tube smell of a plastic capsule causes my mouth to cringe, and my upchucker to kick into gear.  


And now the Army has begun to suspect that fish oil might lower the deplorable rate of military suicides.  The problem is real, but it is war that is hell.  Adding cod liver oil isn't going to cure war, the way it cured us second-generation Scandinavians of a curiosity about snus, or of fostering a taste for lutefisk.  Heartburn is not a cure for war!


I do not want to detract from the real effect of war that the military is trying to deal with, but the cure for that is to be very reluctant to wage war, not to pour oil on it.


I don't hate cod liver oil.  It just tastes bad, even if it is good for you.


I hate war.  

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