Don't drink flouride, but look into the sun.

It began a few nights ago on my deck. I noticed a few stars blasting through the forcefield known as Philadelphia's light pollution. And I live next to a little league ballpark with huge flood lights on late into the night. I think how amazing it is that these stars are so bright that they penetrate through space, atmosphere, and competing light all the way to my own retina. I imagine somehow getting up closer to them and experiencing a brightness unknown to humans. Then I realize, "You fool. We have the sun. Oh yeah, I'm not aloud to look into it... it will burn out my eyeballs."

I remember only a few details from grade school science class: ROYGBIV, some mitosis steps, Au for gold, Ag for silver, the carbon cycle, krebs cycle, liquid nitrogen is really, really cold, and starfish are like the brooms from Fantasia. Wow... that was a nice trip down memory lane. Anyway, my point: I specifically remember learning that Galileo went blind from studying the sun. This freaked me out, since I had been secretly peering into the sun from time to time. It wasn't the first time I received a warning not to look into the sun. There were solar eclipses with shoe boxes, and looking into the sun was usually tacked onto a string of silly scoldings including, "Stop crossing your eyes! Don't puff out your belly! Stop picking at your scabs! Did I see you eating the toothpaste?" Okay, so then I hear about Galileo. At first I'm freaked because this is the first real evidence that someone went blind from the sun. But then I'm walking home from school and I get to thinking. Galileo probably looked at the sun more than anyone else in the history of mankind. I mean, he invented the telescopes to study the damn thing. He watched the movement of sunspots. That requires some serious focusing of the eyes. The teacher never said how old he was when he finally lost his sight, but it seemed pretty obvious that he was an old man. I decided to look it up tonight. He was 72.

Okay, so what's the deal? Can we look at the sun or what? I can't help but think to Gen. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove and his theories about flouride being placed in the water by communists:

Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?
Mandrake: Well, I can't say I have.
Ripper: Vodka, that's what they drink, isn't it? Never water?
Mandrake: Well, I-I believe that's what they drink, Jack,yes.
Ripper: On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Mandrake: Oh, eh, yes. I, hmm, can't quite see what you're getting at.
Ripper: Water, that's what I'm getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?
Mandrake: Uh, uh, Good Lord!
Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Mandrake: Yes. (He begins to chuckle nervously)
Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?
Mandrake: Yes. (More laughter)
Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol?
Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation. Fluoridation of water?
Mandrake: Uh? Yes, I-I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yes.
Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?
Mandrake: No, no I don't know what it is, no.
Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Mandrake: I-- no, no. I don't, Jack.
Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.


So who first warned against looking into the sun? It certainly wasn't the Communists, since I'm pretty sure they teach this nonsense too. I find the most likely explanation to be the simplest. The sun transmits energies which, if absorbed through the eyes, mutates our synapses, and may ultimately form super powers. These powers, when possessed by certain individuals...

I'll be looking for Galileo's lost journals.