[lbo-talk] Saved by the carrot...

[joanna]

Two stories caught my eye in the last few days. One was about a couple 
of teenagers, blown off Florida's coast, who had managed to survive for 
six days on jellyfish and seawater, and who had been rescued, according 
to the boys and their family, because of God, his angels, .....and a 
passing fishing boat. The other story concerned a cousin of riverbend's 
who had narrowly missed being blown up by a car bomb because he had 
turned back at the last moment to run an errand for his mother -- buying 
some carrots. His survival was chalked up to the fortuitous intervention 
of carrots: "he was saved by the carrots," everyone exclaimed.

This is all anecodtal of course. But the cultural differences exposed by 
these stories were interesting. God-fearing Muslims crediting carrots; 
secular Americans thanking God and his angels. Then, I realized, that in 
a country where bombs rain daily, it may be becoming clear to everyone 
that God has nothing to do with any of it, and that it's carrots (dumb 
luck) that may save your mortal hide. I think this latter intepretation 
makes more sense. It's also this kind of thinking that probably 
prevented my becoming an evolutionary psychologist.

Joanna