Drug-War Bulletins

Three of them:

1. In Seattle, a fifty-six-year old man died last Thursday after being refused a liver transplant because he had followed his doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C. From the Associated Press story:

His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class…

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use “illicit substances”—including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it—are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months.

The cruelty and stupidity of this beggars belief. This patient did not need “drug treatment.” He was already undergoing drug treatment. Nor did he need to get “clean.” He was already clean. It’s the drug war that’s dirty. (H/t: John Leone.)

[Read More »]

Guess which drug is illegal?

One deadens nerves, barely works, has foul side effects. The other helps you feel God

Over here we have a new drug. It has one particularly unfortunate side effect: It makes you fat. Or rather, fatter, given how most patients who take it are already quite overweight to begin with.

But that's not all. Other nasty side effects include dizziness, confusion, sleepiness, severe edema (swelling and oozing), among others. What fun. But hey, at least it works, right?

Well, no, not really. It apparently works only about half the time, if that, and even then it doesn't work very well and it certainly doesn't actually cure anything or treat any of the potential causes of your illness or address any of the deeper biological/psychological issues at hand and, in fact, only "works" (they guess, but don't actually know) by essentially numbing the central nervous system and therefore merely blocking out what your body is trying to tell you. Sort of like saying the light hurts your eyes and then taking a pill to make you go blind. There now, all better.

This new drug is called Lyrica. It's from Pfizer, and it was just approved by the FDA to treat an awful, inscrutable condition known as fibromyalgia, an is-it-or-isn't-it illness distinguished by all-over bodily pain the causes of which no one can figure and which few are really sure is even a real disease, per se, given that there's no biological test to diagnose it and no way to accurately validate its existence and given that it has all sorts of seemingly unrelated, scattershot symptoms, like irritable bowel (another suspect ailment) and ringing in the ears and, well, just about everything else.

No matter. After years of doubt as to its effectiveness (and fibromyalgia's existence), Lyrica has been approved, and fibromyalgia has been more or less legitimized. Pfizer stands to make billions, as do the other pharmco titans who are begging the FDA to let them make expensive new drugs to treat this strange condition that no one seems to understand — drugs which may actually exacerbate the condition — but which clearly has enough patients who seem to be suffering from it even though they might very well be suffering from something else entirely.

Ah, the pharmaceutical industry. Tremendous amounts of good, underscored by giant bolts of shameless, exploitive, predatory evil. Isn't it fascinating?

Over here, another drug. This one's been around awhile. World famous, beloved by millions, controversial for all the wrong reasons. It is currently very, very illegal. Producing and selling it in any quantity can result in severe punishment, years in prison.

It has been deemed highly dangerous, potentially toxic, even lethal, and for years the government and the Centers for Disease Control and your own mother have issued all sorts of lies and alarmist B.S. about it, like how it drains spinal fluid, induces brain aneurisms, makes you vote Libertarian. Which is not to say taking it doesn't have its random dangers, but, you know, please.

This drug is famous for producing incredible feelings of euphoria, openness, warmth and love and happiness in almost everyone who takes it. It is staggeringly effective, non-addictive, and when taken somewhat responsibly and with a slight hint of intelligence, has very few, if any, notable or permanent side effects.

Its positives border on miraculous. It can effortlessly break down long-held psychological barriers, remove obstacles to communication and stifled emotion, make patients/users feel open and happy and much better able to handle stress, anxiety, all manner of trauma.

It gets better. Some of the deeper emotional breakthroughs it produces last for weeks, months, or forever. Truly, entire loving relationships have been launched based on the deep bonding and raw emotional honesty a couple discovers while on it, and in many cases, those feelings become the foundation for long-term marriages (or, by way of the same raw honesty, encourage the end of unhappy, dying ones).

Oh yes — this drug also frequently induces profound, life-changing spiritual awakenings, can eradicate neurosis, increase feelings of empathy and forgiveness and peace and overlay it all with an increased love of music and sensual pleasure.

Thank God it's illegal.

This drug, as you've already guessed, is MDMA, or ecstasy. It has finally, after years of governmental ignorance and lack of balls/foresight/integrity in the psychiatric community, earned tacit approval for a precious handful of clinical psychiatric trials. Initial results? Turns out this scary illegal drug just might work wonders for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Gosh, really?

Yes. As reported by the Washington Post and the Guardian, as far as PTSD alone is concerned, some docs already see MDMA as potentially life-saving, a true wonder drug, which might even be administered to all our traumatized U.S. soldiers. Which could be good news indeed, given how an estimated 24 million Americans suffer from PTSD, whereas only a fraction of that number claim to have fibromyalgia.

Oh, but there are problems. Major drawbacks. Terrible, unspeakable, anti-American issues that seriously trouble our drug-addled nation.

Foremost: MDMA is not patented. Its formula is not owned by anyone. Hence, no single company (or handful of companies) stands to make billions from its potential legalization and the government cannot tax it and organized religion cannot control the power it has to help you totally reject its inane dogma, and they all really, really hate that.

What's more, millions of people already take MDMA recreationally, for the sheer pleasure and joy of it, making it a huge threat to all authority everywhere, because God knows we can't have lots of people feeling peaceful and empathetic and nonviolent, as opposed to fearful and victimized and angry and sick sick sick, all those things governments and religions rely on to keep you meek and beaten down and in check.

I know what you're thinking. That's a dangerous oversimplification, Mark. Read the literature! Ecstasy is scary! People can overdose! "Moderation" is not in America's DNA! With the possible exception of extreme PTSD cases, we should probably keep MDMA illegal forever — you know, just like that other toxic, wildly addictive drug that causes thousands of deaths every year, along with liver disease and violence and spousal abuse and trauma and impaired judgment and unwanted pregnancy and frat boys and which you can order as much as you want right now in any bar in the world. Oh wait.

Maybe it really is just that simple, just that odious. One drug, nasty and of hugely questionable value, essentially designed to numb your body and mock your spirit and shut you down like a land mine shuts down a cat, is legal. Another drug, relatively safe, enormously effective in how it opens you up like a flower and pours white hot life straight down your throat and helps you feel God without forcing you to kneel before, well, anything at all, is violently illegal. And thus doth the brutal irony of the capitalist machine floweth over once again.

It is, you could say, just another tale of the tense, vicious battle ever raging between the government/corporations/church, all of whom seek to control and profit by murdering any notion you may have that you might be far more powerful, divinely connected, empathetic than you imagine, and the humane, common-sensical universe of peaceful reality. Do you know that fight? Do you ever sense that common sense is losing? I have a suggestion for something you might want to try.

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, January 18, 2008, San Francisco

Best of 2007 Weed Reviews

Late in 2007 LAist began weed reviews, a sporadic column featuring a different variety of marijuana while presenting it as though it were a wine review, and of those different kinds of pot 3 stood out as superior to the rest.

#1 Weed of Los Angeles: Sour Diesel.
This pot is a consistent crowd pleaser. We liked it so much we reviewed it twice. Its that kind of stuff that you would smoke even if pot didn't get you high, just for the taste. It's a great strain and comes highly recommended.

#2 Weed of Los Angeles: OG Kush
OG Kush is the best of all the kush sub-strains. Forget bubba, master, hindu and all the others... OG wins. And its because its the most consistent, most pungent and knocks you off your ass the hardest. OG Kush truly is the original gangster of kushes.

#3 Weed of Los Angeles: Trainwreck
Our #3 is the most appropriately named of the bunch. You feel it all right in your face, as though you had your block knocked off by a freight train. Makes sense, eh? It is also uniquely pungent, and like OG and Sour-D can be found at your local weed outlet or stoner friend's living room.

Honorable Mentions in no particular order go to: Odyssey, Super Silver Haze, Pot of Gold, Afgooey, and Skunk #1.

link

No Extradition for the BC3!

Marc Emery, Michelle Rainey, and Greg Williams are Canadian citizens who were heavily involved in anti-prohibition activitism for over ten years.

The United States Justice Department and DEA want Canada's government to extradite these three political activists to face 10 years up to life in US prison! The extradition hearing has been scheduled to begin on November 5th, 2007. Canadians and Americans MUST do their part! Even a phone call makes a difference!

Click the image below for five things you can do to help the BC3 fight extradition!


If you support drug-reform, harm reduction, or basic human liberty and freedom of choice, please take a few minutes and do whatever you can.

link | Watch the 60 Minutes CBS broadcast about "Marc Emery, Prince of Pot" at Pot.tv

Sweet, Flavored Cocaine Now In U.S.

SACRAMENTO, June 26 (UPI) -- Police in California report a growing trend in cocaine traffickers adding flavors to the powder and charging 40 percent more for it.

The most recent arrests were in Yolo County where deputies arrested six people and seized three pounds of sweetened cocaine flavored with strawberry or coconut, the Sacramento Bee reported Tuesday.

Yolo Narcotic Enforcement Team Cmdr. Roy Giorgi told the newspaper the street price of the flavored varieties is about 40 percent higher than unflavored.

"They (users) said regular cocaine gives a medicine taste in the back of the throat when snorted," Giorgi said. "With the flavored, you get a strawberry taste."

He said there have been reports nationally of cocaine also being flavored with vanilla, banana and chocolate, and that other drugs such as Ecstasy and methamphetamines are also popping up with flavors.

Drugs that taste good? That'll bring the whole family together for some quality time.

link

NEPENTHE

Nepenthe is a drug of forgetfulness mentioned in Greek mythology, depicted as originating in Egypt. The word "Nepenthe" first appears in the fourth book of the Odyssey of Homer. Literally, it means "the one that chases away sorrow". In the Odyssey, "Nepenthes pharmakon" is a magical potion given to Helen by an Egyptian queen. It quells all sorrows with forgetfulness.

Many scholars think that nepenthe might have been an opium preparation, perhaps similar to laudanum. Alternatively, some believe it could have been an Egyptian wormwood elixir.

However, the descriptions in literature of the effects of nepenthe are similar to how the effects of opiates are described. The carnivorous plant genus Nepenthes is named after the drug nepenthe.

* In The Raven, a poem by Edgar Allan Poe there is a reference to "quaffing nepenthe" in order to forget a lost love: "Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!".

* H. P. Lovecraft referenced nepenthe in one of the famous final lines from his story "The Outsider": "For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider..."

* In Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, Sally Jupiter (the Silk Spectre) lives in a retirement home named Nepenthe Gardens, an allusion to the painful romantic relationships of her past.

* In Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 901 'The Projected Man,' nepenthe is used (somewhat satirically) to describe a plea from ghosts: Observer: "I'm sensing the presence of several disembodied souls... wandering the dark halls in search of surcease, an end to their endless night... a howl of quiet desperation... towards an indifferent universe. Nepenthe! Nepenthe!"

Have I been away from my husband too long or does this plant really look all veiny and phallic? Very interesting history and it references some decent literature. And this time the drug preceeds the plant.

link

PARADISE LIFE

A Stunning Memoir about Recovery from Addiction

Author Christopher Keeley offers hope for drug addicts to get clean, to start over, and have a wonderful life

Addiction to drugs is like a lover that you crave for, the more you give in to it, the harder it is to let go. This unhealthy obsession can cause horrible consequences, not only to yourself, but also to your family and the people you care about. Author andaward winning photographer Christopher Keeley shares how he quit this nasty habit through Paradise Life, a profound collection of personal stories and photographs that inspire a spirit of recovery.

link

As a recovering addict myself I find his book very interesting. His other web presence is also entertaining-- displaying art, activism, photographs, etc. Go have a look around.

Related:
From the Book
Daily Dreamtime
Intervention Organization
Secret Surrealistic Society

Secret Drugs Of Buddhism

Mike Crowley and his excellent work on the Secret Drugs of Buddhism. First is an introduction and a brief synopsis of his adventures leading up to his engagement with Buddhism. A lama is asked if psychedelics have been used as a secret practice. He answers, "How would I know if it was secret?" Mike Crowley elaborates an idea which many of us have long suspected.

Read more | via

Utopian Bliss Balls is a product exclusively available at Azarius. They are derived from the real Bliss Balls from the sixties, made of psychedelic LSA seeds and bee wax. This modern variety contains Hawaïan baby woodrose (Argyreia nervosa), fo ti tien (Centella asiatica), damiana (Turnera diffusa), ginseng (Panax ginseng) and bee pollen.

Very popular in the sixties among hippies and artists in California. Azarius gives them a brand new look! Made with the traditional ingredients like the Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds and damiana. Gives you an LSD-like trip.

Never heard of them, but it's sure got a great name.

It's quite the pitch: Former drug warrior sees the light, goes to the dark side and makes a video, Never Get Busted Again, with shady tips on how to fool the fuzz. Stoners rejoice.

Number One Tip: Don't put any stickers on your car. Nothing. Supporting law enforcement, belonging to a frat, being a Vietnam vet -- all of these make the fuzz notice you, and your primary mission is to blend in. That means no reckless driving, no overly safe driving. Blend. via

Even though the dvd is legal, is it moral?
YES: 63%
NO : 37%

I don't know what to make of this guy but I do have this urge to go take a shower.

Sunday January the 14th is the 40th anniversary of Golden Gate Park's Human Be-In.

"Close your eyes, man, and think of this: ten thousand people, most of them young, half of them stoned, in Golden Gate Park listening to music, to poetry, celebrating life, celebrating being human. Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. A Human Be-In."

"A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In," announced on the cover of the new issue of the San Francisco Oracle, would feature Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Richard (Ram Dass) Alpert, Dick Gregory, Lenore Kandel, Jerry Ruben, and All SF Rock Bands January 14, 1967, 1 to 5 pm in Golden Gate Park 30,000 people showed up. The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and others called the tune. Leary, in his first San Francisco appearance, uttered the sound bite of the decade: "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out."

Photo credit: Larry Keenan

READ MORE »

White Knuckle Express

This is the time of year that we recovering drug and alcohol addicts will white knuckle it, hoping to sail on through the holiday stress and parties without slipping. The time of year we must steer our car away from the liquor store. This time of year it's best to keep my blinders on when I see old playmates around town; step up the pace, and hit the breeze. Drinking and drugs were used so often to deal with my normal daytoday that it's so automatic to go there. After all this time and even in my dreams.

Sometimes I find that a warm geez or an iced anything with lime still wakes me with a smile and glow. And just when I start looking for old phone numbers and feel I might be the only junkie who feels this way, someone will confide their similar urges to me.

It always helps to know I'm not alone and together we'll get through another day, without singing any tired old platitudes; without any generic stepping going on. Strong in our weakness. Life, although not nearly as lively as before, really is good.

At the end of the day I can dust off the day's demons before turning in. Tick off the times I maintained direction, overcame weakness, kept it between the ditches. And with God/Goddess willing, I'll rise to battle another day.

From The Inbox: Tons of good reading material for you to devour on company time

* The first trailer for Factory Girl is out. The movie will be released in December. Plot Summary: A beautiful, wealthy young party girl drops out of Radcliffe in 1965 and heads to New York to become Holly Golightly. Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol, Sienna Miller as Edie Sedgwick. Interesting casting: Mena Suvari as Richie Berlin.

* The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers represents a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come.

* Music Makes Your Brain Happy - As a rock producer, Daniel Levitin worked with Stevie Wonder, the Grateful Dead and Chris Isaak. But the music business began to change, and a disillusioned Levitin turned to academia, where a career in neuroscience beckoned.

* PsyComp Academic - Featuring a searchable database of UK and USA University courses that offer an orthodox opportunity to study fields related to the psychedelic compounds. Examples of the types of course are pharmacology, neuroscience, cognitive sciences, anthropology, chemistry and many more.

* Matrixmasters New Podcast Listings from the Palenque Norte lectures at Burning Man2006, featuring Erik Davis, Rick Doblin, Earth & Fire Erowid, Alex Grey, Jon Hanna, Daniel Pinchbeck, Ann & Sasha Shulgin, and many more.

* The Biography Project is an ongoing volunteer effort to catalog and document the contributions of authors, artists, scientists, film makers and other culturally influential individuals on underground culture in its various forms. This is direct response to the unfortunate lack of accurate and comprehensive information on the net regarding Popsubculture

* Pleasure chemical - For years, the brain chemical dopamine has been thought of as the brain's "pleasure chemical," sending signals between brain cells in a way that rewards a person or animal for one activity or another. More recently, research has shown that certain drugs like cocaine and heroin amplify this effect ? an action that may lie at the heart of drug addiction.

* Shematrix is a body of diverse and courageous women who serve as gatekeepers for the Rite of Initiation, which happens within a 3-day journey. For women, this is known as The Gift -- A Woman's Rite to HerSelf and for men, The Grail -- A Hero's Quest to the Self.

* The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, dedicated to ensuring that humanity safely adopts increasingly powerful technologies, including genetics/biotechnology, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

* Ritual - In Lila, the Journal Of Cosmic Play -- Explorations into Shamanism and the Transpersonal Vision, the Bricoleur explains what he thinks are the most accurate descriptions of a "Ritual".

(most links via gaiamedianews monthly newsletters)

Latest Pharma-Scam?

Are people really buying into the Restless Leg Syndrome? I find it one of the most bogus campaigns I've ever witnessed.

If I was a corrupt pharmaceutical company, I'd brainstorm with my minions to find some chronic faux illness we could make millions of dollars from. Maybe I'd put up some wild illnesses on a spinning wheel and throw darts to decide on the next one. "Hey, what about 'Restless Leg Syndrome'? That should bring 'em in in droves!"

Some doctors claim the condition, also labeled *Ekbom's syndrome*, has been concocted or at least exaggerated to help sell drugs.

"I am not saying some people do not experience pain and restless legs but claims on the website that it is a widespread and serious condition are disproportionate."
link

If you're considering getting treatment for RLS, please research it thoroughly. If you're currently being treated for RLS, the pharma-cowboys have already sheered you and put your fluffy ass out to pasture.


*UPDATE: There seem to be two forms of Ekbom's. Ekbom's Syndrome is delusional parasitosis is a form of psychosis in which sufferers hold a delusional belief they are infested with parasites. It is usually diagnosed as a subtype of delusional disorder and was named after a Swedish neurologist, Karl Axel Ekbom, who published seminal accounts of the disease in 1937 and 1938. It is not to be confused with Wittmaack-Ekbom syndrome (restless legs syndrome). via - thanks, jh!

SAY NO TO DRUGS - Or try to say no before you get this far gone.

"They told me, 'You're going to lose your arms if you continue to use drugs, we’re going to have to amputate them', but I just can’t stop." These shocking photos show the terrible toll that heroin addiction has taken on 27-year-old Rachael Keogh.

link

HAMELL ON TRIAL - Songs For Parents Who Enjoy Drugs

Pursuing an original, unique folk-rock style that positively bristles with punk energy and attitude, singer/songwriter Ed Hamell has what Frank Zappa once called "no commercial potential." A self-proclaimed loudmouth with leftist tendencies, Hamell has never shied away from confrontation, both with himself and the powers that be. Songs For Parents Who Enjoy Drugs, Hamell's sixth studio effort, finds the songwriter's observations as keen and as deadly as ever.

"Inquiring Minds," a conversation between father and son, is spot-on -- funny and smart and all-too-true-to-life for many of us of the "lost generation" between the boomers and Gen X, while "Values" reveals the child's innocent wisdom.

Hamell likes to tease the bear at least once per album and "Coulter's Snatch" takes the fight to the Conservative Right's reigning bottle-blonde pin-up queen. The artist's story-songs are generally populated by the junkies, dealers, whores and petty criminals that exist on the fringes of polite society, and most songs eschew political correctness in favor of sex, drugs or political binges.

link

I've not heard of this guy before, but the Coulter song and some others sound intriguing.

Rush Limpdick's latest drug run-in: Viagra.

Conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours for possible possession of illegal prescription drugs found in his luggage, including a bottle of Viagra.

I could have gone all damn day without hearing about Rush and his schlong problems. [/shudder]

link

THE UNDERGROUND PRESS

Did you ever read/see any of the great underground newspapers of the late 1960's - mid 1970's in the US? There was The East Village Other (NY), The Great Speckled Bird (ATL), Black Panther, Berkeley Barb (Berkeley, CA), LA Free Press, The Paper, of East Lansing, Michigan, and many more?

I was a faithful Speckled Bird reader. We bought these most of the time from people on street corners in Atlanta; on the corner of 14th St, where all the other freaks hung out. As surely as you'd see a Bird vendor around there, you'd also see someone selling flowers for a small fee to wear in your hair or wherever. And you knew who was selling "what" "where". And someone was in a doorway playing guitar; a few bumming spare change passing by. All waiting for the next musical, sexual, or pharmaceutical experience.

Receiving The Last Whole Earth Catalog was a spiritual experience. Sort of a hippie Sears catalog and was one of the very few books we had at Peace Tree (a lakeside commune in Tennessee) when we first began. It was all about survival, metaphysics, learning to grow organic, live natural, how to build a shelter-- how to build or make just about anything. Stewart Brand (Burning Man) was the founder. We've still got one around the house someplace.

Many college libraries have some of these newspapers on Microfilm. Some are for sale on Ebay. Why are there no equivalent newspapers/websites? "Where is that one great progressive balls to the wall website that has it all?" Music, protest and boycott info, in-depth interviews, sex (& relationships), drugs, literature? more»

from the archives

The Best Little Whorehouse in Washington --Molly Ivins

Of course I am above sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. So serious a servant of the public interest am I, I can fogey with the best: On my better days, I make David Broder look like Page Six.

I don't care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie till they puke, and I don't care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they're not screwing the public.

On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much.

Molly discusses the CIA scandals past and present.

[More...!]



Another good CIA read is Robert Parry's CIA: The Bush Family Feifdom

Copenhagen's Hippie Haven - "Denmark's conservative government is gunning for Copenhagen's counterculture Christiania neighborhood, aka Freetown. But as history has shown, the challenge may just make that hippie haven a bit stronger."

That's a post from Oct 16, 2004 I wrote about Christiania, during the last uprising they had. The people in Christiania developed their own set of rules, completely independent of the Danish government and were founded in 1971, when a group of hippie squatters took over an area of abandoned military barracks in Copenhagen. Their main street is Pusher Street, which is self-explanatory.

Mooonna grew up in Christiania and has posted several pictures, including some of the Army of Clowns on her SU site.

Unused military land + squatter's rights = Christiana and I say why not? They're having way too much fun, so naturally somebody is trying to close them down yet again.

Link

Cosmic Reboot

Although Sacrament of Transition uses ibogaine for spiritual initiation ceremonies; we recognize that the vast majority of individuals who are seeking access to Tabernanthe iboga, do so for the plethora of beneficial effects this sacred plant can offer seekers who are physically dependent upon addictive drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine, alcohol, and a variety of other prescription or illicit molecules.

If you are presently drug-dependent, and do not have access to ibogaine treatment, or cannot afford it; Sacrament of Transition will begin offering remote initiations at no cost.

One remote initiation will be given on each of the religion's official holidays: Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Fall Equinox, and Winter Solstice.

Sounds good until you see it can't be shipped to any country where it's illegal, which is the United States, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark. The rest of planet earth is a go. But I'm optimistic about Ibogaine. Once upon a time methadone clinics were few and far between, but every metropolis now has one or three. For more info, see ibogaine.mindvox.com

Link

It's now time for New Rules, everybody.

New Rule: Powerball Jackpot winners must stop saying they're not sure if they're going to quit their jobs. Of course you're going to quit your job. And I have news for you. Your co-workers want you to quit your job. Nobody wants to be on the pork-processing line next to the unbearable ass in the Gucci smock.

New Rule: Ice dancing is not a sport. Take away the skates and the sequins and it's just a public wife-beating. If you saw this happening in a trailer park, you'd call the cops.

New Rule: If you're too lazy to peel your own fruit, get scurvy and die! Hoping to appeal to teenagers who say they're too busy to peel oranges, Sunkist is introducing a new pre-cut, pre-peeled snack version. Not to be outdone, Baskin-Robbins has created a new cone-less ice cream that your mother pre-chews and spits down your throat.

New Rule: Since our new national position on science is, "Screw it, we prefer witchcraft," let's not just retire the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Let's drive it to one of the five stupidest states and have the locals beat it with sticks. Putting it in a museum is too dangerous. Someone could steal it, fly it into space and notice we revolve around the sun. They almost booed that, I noticed.

New Rule: Paula Abdul must go back on drugs. "American Idol" will always have a place in my heart. It's where I met Clay. And what could be more exciting than televised karaoke? But everyone knows the show is most entertaining when Paula is thick-tongued and sleepy-eyed and poised on the brink of yelling, "Who wants to do me?!"

And finally, New Rule: When a woman over 60 has a baby, it's not a miracle from God. It's a miracle from genetic engineers, fertility experts and the good people at Merck. Here in California last week, a 62-year-old woman with 11 children, 20 grandchildren and three great grandchildren, gave birth again. To a 40-year-old man who walked out.

At an age when most women are content to putter around the garden or perform the opening number at the Grammys- -Janise Wulf, age 62, told the press at a news conference, "Age is a number. Every time you revolutionize something, there's going to be naysayers." To which the reporters replied, "We're over here!"

And, lady, let me tell you something. You're not a revolutionary. You're a vagina with no off switch. Twelve kids? Let me guess. You're either a Catholic or a hamster. Look, I don't want to be the one to say that this lady is too old and she's already had enough children. But, this lady is too old and she's already had enough children!

Hey, when you're 62 and you want children, you have two choices: a) in vitro fertilization, or b) luring them into a house made out of candy.

But, in vitro fertilization is not for 62-year-old grandmothers. It's for 35-year-old lesbians.

Link

BBC Radio's Virtual Druggie
How's this for a concept: an anti-drug site that actually dispenses useful, somewhat accurate information? BBC Radio One has an anti-drug site called Excess All Areas that says: "If you're partying hard, make sure you party smart. Our virtual clubber takes the drugs so you don't have to." Choose a drug from the menu for the clubber and watch the fun begin learn something. {via wmfu blog}

Link - (make sure your sound is turned down if at work)

-:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:- -:|:-

WFMU |> Irwin Chusid |> Outsider Music |> Key of Z

Stew Albert 1939 - 2006

Berkley 1968 - Portland 2002
Stew Albert a prominent anti-Vietnam war activist, an early supporter of the Black Panthers and a founder of the Yippie radical protest group, died Monday at age 66 in Portland, Oregon.

Initially diagnosed with Hepatitis C, he spent a whole year enduring grueling chemotherapy. He spoke openly about it on his website, documenting each day and each weekly shot. He was finally declared free of the disease only to be diagnosed with liver cancer this past December. The ultimate Fuck You. (My sister passed away this past Thanksgiving also from liver cancer from Hep C.) We spoke thru email about Hep C, how it sucked and how the treatment felt worse than the disease. I was always inspired by his spirit. From 1968 in Chicago throughout his life. People with true 60s ideals are a rare breed. Tom Robbins said, Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. Stew certainly believed in magic.

On his website...from Judy
"Stew will be buried tomorrow (Wednesday) in Jones Pioneer Cemetery in Portland. He will be wrapped in a tallis (Jewish prayer shaw), holding a stuffed flower from the Haight and wearing his kick-ass Frye boots and our wedding ring."

There are beautiful sentiments expressed on his website, Bay Area Indymedia, Infoshop News, SFGate, and on Counterpunch.


More On Hepatitis C
Allen Ginsberg died from complications of it. Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, and David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, & Nash, both had liver transplants and still suffer from it. Ken Kesey, author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, suffered from it and died of liver cancer in 2001. Penny Arcade, the 55-year-old performance artist for the East Village avant-garde art scene since Andy Warhol roamed the city, also suffers from it.

Miles Keaton Andrew, a 52-year-old author who contracted it when he experimented with intravenous drugs as a teenager, has kept a blog, www.mkandrew.com, since 2001 about his experiences battling H.C.V. His blog has received a million hits in the past year. “I understand the whole stigma thing,” he told The Villager. "There are a lot of people like me who might have experimented with drugs. Some of us got sick from it and it isn’t anything to be ashamed about."

Hep C Life After Interferon is another blogger who documents his experience with it.

Black & White & Red All Over

* She Prefers Black Men - "Black men have something white guys don't have anymore: confidence in their masculinity, their sexuality. They clearly know they're men. White men appear to be waiting for the latest sociological research study to let them know if they are men or not. Yet black men are gentlemen, something else white men no longer are."

* White Cop On Dope - "I bought drugs in uniform. I had been doing drugs my whole life. So I learned the ins and outs of the alleyways. Just because I put a cop uniform on didn't change that. I would shoot dope five minutes before roll call when I was a cop. No one knew I lived this double life. Just my wife knew."

* Why Are Your Reading the Little Red Book? - Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung, also known as the Little Red Book, a book once rivaling the Bible in circulation. To really monitor its readership would involve watching all internet access to the text, purchases of the book, and library loans of it. A formidable task and insane waste of FBI time, surely. But these are mad times.

The Rare Vinyl Network specializes in 'hard-to-find' vinyl. But I also reading enjoy the back story on the albums about the band members or what was happening at the time it was made.

In 1967 the Beatles were in Abbey Road Studios putting the finishing touches on their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. At one point Paul McCartney wandered down the corridor and heard what was then a new young band called Pink Floyd working on their hypnotic debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. He listened for a moment, then came rushing back. "Hey guys" he reputedly said, "There's a new band in there and they're gonna steal our thunder". With their mix of blues, music hall influences, Lewis Carroll references, and dissonant experimentation, Pink Floyd was one of the key bands of the 1960s psychedelic revolution, a pop culture movement that emerged with American and British rock, before sweeping through film, literature, and the visual arts. The music was largely inspired by hallucinogens, or so-called 'mind-expanding' drugs such as marijuana and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), and attempted to recreate drug-induced states through the use of overdriven guitar, amplified feedback, and droning guitar motifs influenced by Eastern music.

This psychedelic consciousness was seeded, in the United States, by countercultural gurus such as Timothy Leary, a Harvard University professor who began researching LSD as a tool of self-discovery from 1960, and writer Ken Kesey who with his Merry Pranksters staged Acid Tests - multimedia 'happenings' set to the music of the Warlocks (later the Grateful Dead) and documented by novelist Tom Wolfe in the literary classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) - and traversed the country during the mid-1960s on a kaleidoscope-colored school bus. Suzy Hopkins, formerly *Suzy Creamcheese, a dancer and inspirational figure on the underground scene in Los Angeles and London, remembers the visceral way psychedelic culture affected the senses. 'There's a difference between a drug and a psychedelic. Drugs make you drugged and psychedelics enhance your ability to see the truth or reality' she says. For her, LSD and music created a kind of alchemy. Many psychedelic bands explored this sense of abandonment in their music, moving away from standard rock rhythms and instrumentation.

* She's ONE of the Suzy Creamcheesees.

MORE

Don't Date Him Girl
Women bent on revenge and on saving others from their fate can anonymously post their dating horror stories on the 2-month-old site, complete with names and pictures. They can also check the database of cheaters for a suspected player.

Thanks for the warning, although no explanation necessary for this fine specimen. I posted something similar on Sept 7 about a Dickhead Registry Actually, it's been a veritable parade of dicks and drugs around here lately. Link - via

Live Blogging Martha
11:10 We understand that the hurricane shout-out is obligatory and basically unavoidable, but Martha’s flat voice is about as warm as George W’s. “Yesterday was also 9-11.” Thanks, we had no idea. Let’s fucking cook something… via

If President Bush is going to exclusively play to military audiences, he must carry a golf club like Bob Hope and tell the Marines that the mess in Iraq is bigger than Dolly Parton's boobs. Why is there a troop shortage in Iraq? Because so many of them have to be here doing photo-ops with this clod. This guy has shown his ass to more servicemen than a bar girl in Thailand. --Bill Maher

Queerty is a fun, new site that's agenda-free. If it were any gayer it would be Elton John's fanny pack.

"NAPS is all about laughs. We are not degenerates or Pervs, we are PREverts with a good sense of humor and want share some laughter." Brand new site that's really taking off. Link

100 days without Sex - Belle de Jour scandalised literary society with her candid diaries of life as a prostitute - and her admission that she enjoyed sex with strangers. So how would she cope with celibacy? Link

Drawn curtain reveals naked emporer, fiddling.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
--"When The Levee Breaks", Led Zeppelin

I can't get that song off my mind, and I'm probably not the only one. Jimmy Page's sinister slide combined with the thrashing thud of Bonham's drums in tangent as Robert Plant begins to howl, well, it takes on an eerie edge after Hurricane Katrina.

:: skippy is challenging everyone to pledge to the Red Cross by matching his donation of 100.01, blog about it and pass on the message. We had already pledged 100.00, so I'm off by .01...not sure what that penny is about, although it's true to form for wild and wacky blogfriend skippy. [via]

:: Our daughter just left for the annual Ozzfest in Charlotte on Friday night. She told her teachers she'd be out for two days and they were accommodating. Then again, she's now going to the very progressive Balfour School. No homework. Zero. Zilch. Nada. If a fight breaks out, they let them get it out of their system right on the spot. Swearing is permitted as long as it's not personally directed at anyone. In some ways, it's similar to the Montesorri school she attended as a much younger student. Later she wanted to try the public school system, and now she's back to a more alternative way of teaching and learning and we all couldn't be more pleased.

Say "NO" to drugs. That will bring the prices down.

Life Among the Neo-Pagans
--Paul Krassner's article on the Starwood Festival

The first event was on a weekend, attended by 185 people, with twenty presentations and a bonfire built from an old split-rail fence. This July marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Starwood; the weeklong event drew 1,600, with 150 presentations and twenty musical and theatrical performances. I attended several workshops, including "Shamans and Drugs" by Stanley Krippner, a psychology professor at Saybrook Institute, psychic researcher and co-author of Dream Telepathy. A member of the Rainforest Action Network, he mentioned a Brazilian tribe, the Guarani, whose members have hanged themselves from endangered trees. I related my participation at an ayahuasca ceremony in Ecuador where the shaman's shrine included a sealed-beam headlight from an old Buick and a gray clamshell-like item that opens up, revealing a head of the Virgin Mary that can be used as a Jell-o mold.

[More »»] - Via [Wildhunt Weblog]

"Drugs open peoples minds. That is why they are illegal. It is nothing to do with our mental or physical well-being. If the government gave a rats ass about our health, tobacco and alcohol would be banned outright. It is as simple as that." Testify, brother Dee. Good post. [More...]

saturday morning me//
woke up--it was a laurel park morning/
and the 1st thing that i knew/
there was toast and eggs and oj/
a bowl of strawberries, too/
i was sitting in a long, soft celedon gown/
stacking the deck/up to my neck/
pass me the pipe, captain/
i may be heading for a fall/
now playing-Nina Hagen - Wir Leben Immer Noch/
so how about you?/

Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott!

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.

And tell your friends.

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela. A country with so much oil wealth shouldn't have 60 percent of its people living in poverty, earning less than $2 per day. With a mass movement behind him, Chavez is confronting poverty in Venezuela. That's why large majorities have consistently backed him in democratic elections. And why the Bush administration supported an attempted military coup in 2002 that sought to overthrow Chavez.

So this is the opposite of a boycott. Call it a BUYcott. Spread the word.

Of course, if you can take mass transit or bike or walk to your job, you should do so. And we should all work for political changes that move our country toward a cleaner environment based on renewable energy. The BUYcott is for those of us who don't have a practical alternative to filling up our cars. StoreLocator

So get your gas at Citgo. And help fuel a democratic revolution in Venezuela. Link

(Related: Chavez maintains that the DEA has been using the fight against drugs as a pretext to gather intelligence on Venezuela. [more »])