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"J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose "The Catcher in the Rye" shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.

Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a statement from Salinger's literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H."

this is a bad week for literary heroes. Howard Zinn died this week too.

Zinn Article

Sad about this :(

Although at least now they can try making movies out of his books!

well, in regards to salinger, the dude actively avoided contributing anything to the public for quite a long time. his death has no effect on what the world will get from him, unless, opposite to your thinking, manuscripts actually get released now that he's not around to hold on to them. i don't really see any reason for sadness, just reason for appreciation of his work if you're a fan.

Does that consider pollution, second-hand smoke, water toxins, etc?

I was really more speaking on Zinn on my comment, I realize now that i said they when i should have been more clear.

that the focus on medicine and pharmacology and the whole process of living in the western world has undermined the importance of a natural, balanced diet. with proper nutrition and more attention to a natural balanced order free of toxins and industry the human body should be able to maintain itself well beyond the 70 years that is considered "old as dirt"

i'll go ahead and submit that it's going to take some time for our species to adapt to that long of a lifespan. regardless of health, diet, exercise etc. your quality of life will deteriorate, and at 110 i just don't see myself being stoked about living. We're seeing a shift currently in medical practice toward improving that quality of life now that we've gotten so good at prolonging it, but that's a slow trend.

also koger, there are many, many documented cases worldwide of people living to be anywhere from 120-200 years. so its a possibility that were evolving AWAY from this type of anomaly.

tylerFPI:But nutrition isn't the only thing that makes a person healthy. You have to take into consideration the environmental factors, exercise habits, stress levels, family health history, personal life activity, accidents, medical practices, religious practices, and the list goes on....

thats what im saying, the "new age of medicine" is focused on pharmaceuticals that attempt to counteract the western worlds toxic lifestyle which feeds the corporate money machine.

the focus should be on a radical lifestyle change which relies on fundamental nutrition and exercise which eliminate the toxicity in our lives rather than pharmaceuticals which just battle the negative effects of toxic and sedentary lifestyles, and more often than not just make things worse (the production methods and medicines themselves are usually very poisonous).

for instance, i almost never get headaches. when i do get a headache its almost always because im dehydrated. i rarely drink anything but water, or with breakfast/protein shakes i drink organic milk or almond milk. i never take pain pills or really any medicine whatsoever. my good friend drank tons of soda everyday and had a pretty bitchin caffeine addiction. he got migraines at least 3 times a week and always took excedrin to make them go away. i finally convinced him to fight through it and cut down then eventually stop drinking caffeine altogether and PRESTO he never gets headaches anymore.


im pretty sure almost all the ailments that plague society (blood pressure, heart disease, cancer) are directly caused by the toxic lifestyle that is forced down our throats and all the billions of dollars directed towards pharmaceutical research would be better spent on redirecting the food industry. too bad that will never fucking happen because of how much MONEY is involved in both of those industries.

Garrett:
How often you hear about people that finally accomplish a life dream and then pass on. Or hold out hold out hold out for that last family member to come by, hang for a bit, they leave, they pass.

This is very true, both of my step-grandparents died recently. They were in their mid 80's and both had been very sick off and on for quite a while. They were married 60 years and obviously very much in love and I think after one died the other didn't have much to live for (because she was gone, he was living in a nursing home, etc.) After living that long and battling through so much together they both died within 2 weeks of each other.

Synthetic blood will fix everything

the focus should be on a radical lifestyle change which relies on fundamental nutrition and exercise which eliminate the toxicity in our lives rather than pharmaceuticals which just battle the negative effects of toxic and sedentary lifestyles, and more often than not just make things worse (the production methods and medicines themselves are usually very poisonous).

throw in spiritual health and you might have something here.

I'm not even hoping for fifty, i'm hoping to finish my great work in this world and get out

Kenan:Koger-im sorry...i dont know what i said that offended you. im not as eloquent as you or ya basta = (

haha hey man no worries, i just hate that kind of generic recycled aggressive language. it immediately invalidates most of what you say below it in a lot of folks mind because they assume you're radical beyond reason and your points won't be grounded in any kind of reality. nothing you've said has offended me, moreso i just dislike the package your points arrived in. sorry if i sound like a stuck up jerk! <3

definitely not. basically saying that the body is biologically capable of health and vigor well past 80 if you add the proper nutrition and subtract all the toxic elements that make up our lives.


and your grandpa sounds like he was a rad old dude.

Beeson:While I don't disagree with what you're saying Isaac, and I would especially cite the aboriginee(sp) and terahumara(sp), I've always understood that in the study of cancer, which has everything to do with cell health, and the pursuit of so-called "fountain of youth" experiments with cells, there is a timer mechanism in each cell type that stops it's reproduction of replacement cells, so that eventually all the cells leave no replacements, which is what we see as aging/natural causes. Are you proposing that changes in nutrition could change the amount of times a cell replaces, or something else? I've never really stood on any solid viewpoint with that issue, whether we can alter it so drastically.

This is telomere shortening// natural cell senescence, when the repeated ends of the chromosomes grow shorter after a cell splits.

I'm glad someone brought up telomeres. I was going to but I didn't feel like arguing with people.

As our DNA continues to replicate our chromosomes are protected by telomeres. They protect the ends of the chromosomes during replication and without these telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes would be lost as well as the necessary information they contain. To my understanding, telomeres keep everything in tact during replication. Throughout our life, these telomeres shorten and the telomere replication is lessened due to the deterioration of the enzyme Telomerase. This eventually causes a decrease in replication to begin which effects the DNA molecule sequence and thus the cell is unable to duplicate itself. This is why we age.


And Ya Basta,
what documentation did you read about people living 200 years?

tylerFPI:I'm glad someone brought up telomeres. I was going to but I didn't feel like arguing with people.

As our DNA continues to replicate our chromosomes are protected by telomeres. They protect the ends of the chromosomes during replication and without these telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes would be lost as well as the necessary information they contain. To my understanding, telomeres keep everything in tact during replication. Throughout our life, these telomeres shorten and the telomere replication is lessened due to the deterioration of the enzyme Telomerase. This eventually causes a decrease in replication to begin which effects the DNA molecule sequence and thus the cell is unable to duplicate itself. This is why we age.


And Ya Basta,
what documentation did you read about people living 200 years?

Hooray! fellow nerd!
I did a large project in genetics about telomere reduction/aging and the natural causes of cancer. I read a bunch of studies that were saying after a certain amount of divisions, the telomere apparently depletes to the point where the actual gene coding section of the chromosome starts to decay - forcing the cell into a sort of oncogene state where it either dies or becomes a sort of natural life ending cancer. Which sucks, but sort of makes sense.

Koger:i'll go ahead and submit that it's going to take some time for our species to adapt to that long of a lifespan. regardless of health, diet, exercise etc. your quality of life will deteriorate, and at 110 i just don't see myself being stoked about living. We're seeing a shift currently in medical practice toward improving that quality of life now that we've gotten so good at prolonging it, but that's a slow trend.

Kevin don't worry about the medical world "catching up" for folks to have quality of life in old age. Think about it this way. A proper lifestlye is what should allow you to "maintain" not medicines. Medicines should be used to treat sickness. Being old is no more a sickness than being a baby.

91 is impressive in my opinion. My grandmother is 92 and still kickin'. She's obviously deteriorating both mentally and physically. Personally, if i'm at a point in which I can't even enjoy the life that I have, I'm ok with being ghost. Drawn-out deaths are beyond-excruciating as hell for families too, but at the same time good for "closure" for lack of a better word.

Once I get to a point where I think it's about to be going downhill, I'm just going to start being reckless as shit and end up on the news or something.