[Sorry about that double post: Wireless kept dropping when I hit Send.] Some months ago, mention was made here of Ben Franklin remarking that he was able to learn math only after becoming a vegetarian. I wondered how he managed without fish. I wouldn't think(!) of attacking a hard problem without a fish dinner, a pot of tea, and a decaKochel of Mozart. Here's an excerpt from Franklin's autobiography, as quoted in the March 2002 Access to Energy. (Tyron wrote the book that turned Franklin veggie): "I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd with my master Tyron, the taking of every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. "All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, 'If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you.' So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." --rwg Of course, Franklin's proposal to use PISCATOR APRICOTS for bait was no help at all. Luckily, someone had PISCATORY CYRTOPIAS