Reefer Madness

In response to an article "Why is it bad to smoke weed and OK to sell beer?" by David Sirota at Salon.com (2009-10-23) - I posted this comment :

Marijuana has had a bad reputation since a campaign in the 1930's by the American press. Randolph Hearst started publishing articles linking cannabis use with violent crime, Blacks and Mexicans. He renamed cannabis "marijuana", dissociating it from the hemp that for generations had been used as medicine, paper, oil, fabric and rope. The stories triggered the support of racist white organizations who wanted cannabis prohibited, and Hearst with his friend Harry Anslinger, the Director of the Bureau of Narcotics, managed to get "marijuana" made illegal in 1937. Prohibition of alcohol ended at the same time.

The advantage for Randolph was that once the hemp, rope and paper industries had been destroyed by this legislation, he was free to use his own pine plantations and paper mills. He also funded movies such as "Reefa Madness" which portrayed a negative image of cannabis related products.

The timing is interesting for other reasons.

Until then, hempseed oil was one of the most common oils used for lighting, lubrication, cooking and as an additive to paint and varnish. After 1935 virtually all of these oils and strong hemp fibre were replaced with petrochemicals and nylon made by Dupont.

Over the next 30 years marijuana was portrayed as a badge of rebellion in films, books and music, reaching cult status with the beatniks and the hippies. It still appears to be as popular as ever and as misunderstood. Nearly 50 years later it still is, but it has lost its 'cool' to the other mind altering substances that are a sign of the times.

All the academic and medical studies of its affects are inconclusive and there are no reports linking it to reckless, violent or dangerous behaviour. There is no evidence that it is a harmful drug. There is no objective analysis of the effects of its use compared to other drugs that are just as commonly available, like alcohol or tobacco.

Smoking marijuana is no longer the act defiance it once was. For $25 you can buy eniugh alcohol to put you in a serious coma or kill yourself. If you smoked $25 of dope, you would probably fall blissfully asleep in front of the TV with a half eaten chocolate bar in your hand.

We have adopted a set of double standards forced on us by past barons of media and industry. Marijuana smokers are hapless victims of the cultural obsession with the with the 'war' on drugs, violence, alcoholism and cancer. It's OK to get out of it, but it seems to matter to the authorities just what substance we abuse to do it. Our means of recreation and enlightenment seem to have to be sanctioned by our government nannies and then these issues will be swept from the public domain and open discussion in a pathetic display of acquiescing to minority opinion.

The continued debate about prohibition, legislation or decriminalization of marijuana highlights the gap between government policy and public perception. Maybe there is just not enough money to be made were its use be legitimized. But you can bet your last reefer, that as soon as the Australian government perfects a way to licence, grow, distribute sell and tax marijuana it will suddenly become legal. The news media will celebrate their victory for public values and the tobacco companies will be already in line for licences to grow, distribute and sell their very own patented version of Mary J.

"The lethal dose of cannabis is a two-kilo block dropped on your head from the 25th floor of a high-rise building." (Quote from a leading British health professional).

Misadventures of an attention whore.

In response to an article "A nation of attention whores" by Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon.com (2009-10-16) - I posted this comment :

I wanna' be famous.

Yep, me too, just like you and everybody else. I want to be a popular celebrity and I have become obsessed with achieving that goal. This new addiction has overwhelmed me and I have succumbed to a new mantra of greed: "I want it now and I want it forever".

Andy Warhol's quote has inspired me. He said - "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" (he is often misquoted). Well Andy, it is the future and I now only have one option left available to me (I've tried everything else)! I'm going to join the worldwide web interchatnet community of Myspacefacebookskypetwittmessenger. Yep, that's for me. I'll join in a big way, everything, all of them now, right at this moment. Here we go, my personality will now become my aethernality.

But crikey, have I got some decisions to make before I present my new ego to the world. But first I am required to prove I am a person, not an animal, by verifying secret words. I need to register and validate, create and confirm. I must invent passwords and divulge personal information or choose to be anonymous and lie. So many choices, so little time. My own portrait photo or should I use a fake? An amusing profile if I'm looking for a date? How honest should I be in this pseudo digital text fest as I divulge and disguise information that is unsubstantiated and unconfidential?

Should I be concerned that privacy is no longer sacrosanct and the invasion of privacy has become a peculiar perversion. Miss-confidential is slowly being undressed before our very eyes. Sharing has become daring and everybody wants to know and watch. Quick, I must do, share or say something right now, someone might notice. Hey, look at me - I'm important!

I wanna' be a celebrity - I can hardly wait.

Wow, look at how many friends I have. That was quick. See, all these people like me already. And look at the access I have to places and things and people all over the world and everybody wants to know me. Me, me! Now I can truly connect with all those other people who are already celebrities. Now I can make all those witty little comments and have a cool bio and some pics to share and a list of my favourites. I can check in with Britney, share recipes with Martha and catch all the goss, choose my hottest person, make connections, do my stuff and get noticed.

Now look what's happened. I can't believe it, oh wow! Tom Anderson is now my friend and he's sharing his celeb pals and gals with me. And look, now I've got followers and friends and some of them want to share details with me. They all seem very friendly and quite willing to get to know me better and one of them has sent me a picture. She's a nice girl and she has a sister and they were wondering if I might like to join them there in the spa with that bottle of baby oil and.......just hang on a minute! What is going on here? She shouldn't be doing that! Not on camera in front of the world and on my screen right in my face! Oh no, this is not good. Now I'm over excited about my new friends and I'm just going to have to click here and move that over there until.......oh no, what was that? Woops! That shouldn't have happened. She is such a naughty girl and I'm a little bit distracted here. She can't do that! Oh no, I can't do that! Not here, not now, not with the videocam still on, gimme a break!!

Oh my gosh, now I really am famous - how cool is that?

Look at the screen. My god, what a mess. It probably wasn't exactly what Andy had in mind but it certainly worked for me. Do you feel like a cigarette after that?

Damn the infernal eternal world wide netweb! In 15 minutes I'm famous, but not as the type of celebrity I had in mind. I have just been seduced like a bee to pollen and have just managed to splash my ego and all it's digital glory all over the world.

I'm famous now, but for all the wrong reasons. Good on ya Martha. Up yours Britney. Get a life Tom!

Welcome fame. Here it is. There it was.

Certainly can't edit that. Nup, there is no 'delete' button for that one. No 'undo' will fix that. To hell with 'refresh', once was enough thank you! Worse than hitting 'reply' or 'send to all'. Hello you idiot, are you sure you want to f****n save this? Yes, I am certainly a d******d sending that into the eternal digital library.

I shoulda' thought about that, definitely not cool! Forever available for viewing, imprinted in the aethernet for anyone and everyone to see anytime, anywhere, forever. My 15 minutes of fame complete with all the glorious consequences.

It's hard not to be famous when you are no longer anonymous.

( In 1968, Andy Warhol became bored with his famous line. He changed it to : "In 15 minutes everybody will be famous".)

The Scottish artist, Momus, said it another way : "In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people".

Personally, I think it's all a wank.

(This is an edited version of an original comment by goblinono on Salon.com)

No, but it certainly made men miserable.

In response to an article "Did feminism make women miserable?" by Barbara Ehrenreich at Salon.com (2009-19-15) - I posted this comment :

Oh no, please don't place that bait in front of me. How can I possibly resist a chance to speak on behalf of many men who think they were conned. How much longer was the feminist movement going to continue deluding itself that they were actually all about equal rights. Damn, the bitches had a good thing going when they were barefoot and pregnant and devoted to domestic duties. Hey girls, you were on a roll, why did you have to go and mess it all up!

No wonder men think women lack credibility. Why would you want to go and ruin a perfectly good arrangement? Men have dicks. We grunt and we groan and take out the garbage, we conquer and build and dominate - that's what we do, it's a dick thing.You wanna be like us, go and grow a dick. Face it, you aren't us and you can't deceive us any more. You pretty yourself and mask your true intentions and use your sex as a lure, but you won't admit it. You moan and bitch and carry on about how hard it is to be female, what with mother nature's regular reminders of your need to breed; and you spend almost a quarter of your lives bitching and another two quarters preparing to bitch. Hell, that's one week out of four when you're relatively sane - and we gotta live with you! Cut the crap! All that the burning your bras' said was "hey, now they hang just like your balls". Idiots. Who did you think was setting your agenda? Are you sure you were not manipulated by a powerful, vocal minority?

In over thirty years of seeking workplace equality you still have not managed to break through that glass ceiling. There is no equality in the workplace, you are still under-represented in top jobs and income. The only equality you have is your sheer abundance in the workplace. You have taken over large meaningless employment sectors like banks, fast food, call centers, receptionists, marketing consultants, assistants and pole dancers. Wow, great achievement. And if I ever hear one of you tell me again - "I will terminate this phone call if you do not alter your tone of voice" - I will jam my negotiating skills down your freakin' throat!

Do you realize what you did to the economy by demanding equal rights? You managed to force real wages down and boosted unemployment! You took all the menial jobs that blokes had and because you weren't experienced or didn't have the strength or guts to do the real dirty work, you were paid less. All wages went down to create a level playing field and male management saw the advantage in introducing you to other employment sectors. No more overtime, less working hours, the capacity to employ two people for the price of one. You managed to take over management of the pornography industry and then complained that men were degrading women when in fact you encouraged that exploitation because it was a way for your to make more money from our vulnerabilities. You weren't at home bringing up our kids, teaching them decency and morality. No, you wanted to work so that you could have everything men had and become independent. Who the hell is going to bring up our kids when you want a career? You keep behaving like this and sooner or later there is going to be a backlash from men - and it won't be a little flick with the leather whip either dear.

Leave us alone you charlatans, witches and harlots, go and be a natural woman, stop trying to be a man, stop trying to find ways to get through life easy by marrying money. Hey, no wonder we die early and leave you with our fortune. No wonder I'll pay you zillions in a settlement - just to get you the hell outa' my life! Stop making millions from a divorce, eg- you never taught Greg Norman to play golf. Stop blaming me for all your troubles and stop hating me for being preoccupied with sex. And wake up and look at the damage your have already done. I'm sick of hearing you complain that you can't find a good man and you don't know where they are. Do you want to know where they are and why you can't find 'em? The good men, the real men, aren't hanging out in bars waiting to pick you up - no, the real men are at home, living on a meager wage, paying off your debts, watching you rip off a third of their earnings and trying to bring up the kids you so badly wanted but left behind because you wanted a career and equality. You won't find a good man where you are looking because he's too busy fixing up the mess you left when you deserted because you didn't get what you wanted - you poor little thing. He's the man staying home at night, passing the time, dreaming, hoping, self medicating and trying to keep his life on track while loving his kids he hardly ever sees because you say he's not a fit father - go f**k yourself. No you won't find him where you are looking because he doesn't want to be found. He's had enough of women and their demands for equality. He's trying to build a better life for himself, alone, coz' he's sick of spending his life fixing up your problems and being bribed with your sex. Yeah, I know; I can already hear all the females talking about me as another man with issues - "get over it"! Nup, not this little black duck nor lot's of others whose spirit has been broken.

I have a problem with why you want to need to be liberated. Hey, I can repair a machine but all I can ever do is lubricate a woman - there is no repair manual, it's a bloke thing. Stop giving me so much criticism and condemnation and don't even think of getting me started on any other issues of sex, inequality, taboos or deviance coz' i'm done with feminism. I'm over it, it's sorted, I'm liberated. You deal with it. Not tonight dear, I've got a headache.

(Oh, and I am sorry to all those lovely women I have just insulted. They know they do not fit in the category that suits my ignorant, middle aged, jaded, bigoted, dysfunctional, sexist, homophobic, politically incorrect maleness. God bless you - you are beautiful.)

It's such a shame that some of you ruined it for all.

(This is an edited version of an original comment posted by goblinono on Salon.com).

Non - Motivational Quote of the Day

"I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless."

: Bette Davis

Motivational Quote of the Day

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

: Robert Louis Stevenson

Um, excuse me Robert but I think I have a few problems with that.

By the end of a day harvesting and reaping I really don't have much time to consider if the outcome was any good. It's exhausting work concentrating hard on planting all the little things that are going to grow up into all the big things. You see, it's a problem with the size. I keep getting this daily bag of goodies that obviously offers all solutions to match all choices but everything in it is different, none of it is matched or fits together.

It's such a challenge to decide what to choose - they're all there but rolling around loose. You do understand that I'm supposed to do something with all these colours and shapes and whistles and bells don't you? What do you mean that I don't know what I'm doing - of course I bloody well don't!

Am I supposed to be a knowledge farmer, is there a book written for this? What seeds do I plant? How often do I plant them? Should I keep a record of what I planted where? Do I retrace my steps to make sure I planted well? Should I keep my planting to a schedule or just distribute them randomly? Is it a seasonal thing and do I need any fertilizer?

Gimme a break! About the only fertilizer my seeds have seems to be bullshit. Hey, I don't even know if some or all the seeds will grow and I certainly don't know when. Of course, some of the seeds may have been given to me by others who work this pasture, but how do I know they are good seeds? How does anyone know - maybe they're just blanks, duds, decoys put there to fool me.

Oh, and I forgot about the shape and size of the pasture, not to mention the weather. I don't really want contamination from some other farmer who might not have checked his seeds or the direction of the wind when he planted them. I may end up with a beautiful harvest of something I know nothing about.

How do I even know if my seeds have the right parentage. They don't actually come with a certificate of authenticity. What if the seeds were accidentally planted in Bernie Madoff's garden? Are they his seeds or mine when the time comes to harvest and then they may appear to be not actually anything at all?

How the hell am I ever going to get any time to even judge the harvest, I'm just too damned busy planting! You think I'll be sitting on my laurels counting all the seeds produced. I think not. I will be far too busy weeding out all the nasty little toxic things that threaten to wreak havoc on my pristine environment.

I've worked damn hard trying to establish a good seed planting program. I started young, been doing it for years. There is no way I am just going to stand back and let the harvest produce itself. Hey, this needs constant maintenance. I've decided to give up sleep and start patrolling at night. If I let this get out of hand the seeds will mutate into something horrible.

When I'm not planting I worry. I worry who might steal my seeds, exchange my seeds, play tricks with my seeds, teach them to do other things that I may never have intended - despicable things. I've taken to patrolling my seeds checking for viruses. And I wait for the little darlings to grow into a successful harvest. Now if they don't, then I will have this huge, hulking, stinking, fermenting, useless harvest and then that's gotta be dumped somewhere. I know where! I'll sneak over in the dead of night and just leave it neatly arranged on my neighbours property. He will think it's a bonus from all the seeds that he planted.

Perpetuating the Debt

In response to an article "Does Bernanke Really Not Understand His Fate" by Byron King at http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au - Aug.1,2009 - I posted this comment :

Thanks for an insightful article. It's amazing you took so long to state the obvious. Our little voices just aren't heard because we're not "celebrities" - we knew it all along.

The chickens have not come home to roost at all. Feeding the big boys was not the way to fix the economy and waive the recession. All the rhetoric about the "trickle down' effect is cock. By the time it reaches those on the bottom the whole system will be 'belly-up'.

The little people needed help. Each of us should have received a slice of the handout and the big boys should have been left to collapse. Only then would there have been 'real' money in the economy. They should be left to face their shareholders and bankruptcy and disgrace.

It is the risk of business, you either make it or you don't. Does my small business get a government handout because of my bad decisions - I don't think so ?

The "greed is good" mantra of the 80's should have been left to die and buried in it's own stink. Only then would we have a chance to sort this mess out. - Goblinono.

Daily Combat

I came across a quote by Mahatma Gandhi :

"Victory attained by Violence is tantamount to Defeat, for it is momentary".

It reminded me of something Sun-Tzu said :

"Ultimate excellence lies not in Winning every battle, but in Defeating the enemy without ever fighting - The highest form of warfare is to attack strategy itself; the next, to attack alliances; the next, to attack armies".

That prompted me to think of our current culture and society and the enemies we face almost daily. I think Lee Child said it a superior way in one of his novels :

1. Be on your feet and ready.
2. Show them what they're messing with.
3. Identify the Ringleader.
4. The Ringleader is the one who moves first.
5. Never back off.
6. Don't break the furniture.
7. Act, don't react.
8. Assess and evaluate.
9. Don't run head on into me!

My apologies to all those authors concerned, if I seem to have taken them out of context, but there is an association of philosophies implied herein.

From Dennis Leary to Timothy Leary

In 1956, Timothy Leary was the Director of Psychology Research for the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Canada. He had just completed writing a 518 page book titled - 'Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality: A Functional Theory and Methodology for Personality Evaluation'. It was described as the 'Best Book on Psychotherapy of the Year'.

In early 1960 he ingested seven of the Sacred Mushrooms of Mexico - 'psilocybe Mexicana', and as a result of the experience, dedicated his life to this 'new instrument' of psychology.

By 1963 he was experimenting with and studying the effects of LSD. He was using two books by Aldous Huxley as reference points, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell.

In 1969, Leary joined John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Montreal Bed-In and Lennon subsequently wrote him a campaign song called "Come Together". In the same year time he wrote an essay for David Solomon's book The Marijuana Papers. The following is an excerpt from that article.

"None of us knows how to handle the power and promise-threat of mind-expanding chemicals. But if I am confronted with a fifteen-year-old who does not know what he is doing and a fifty-year-old who does not know what he is doing, I'll take the fifteen-year-old every time. In using a new form of energy, whatever mistakes the teenager makes will be in the direction of sensation, love-making, curiosity, desire for growth. The fifty-year-old has abandoned sensation, lost the impulse to make love, killed his curiosity, and dissipated his lust for growth. You know how he uses new forms of energy: for control and power and war making.
Support the kids. Listen to them. Learn from them if they will let you. They are closer to their nervous systems, closer to cellular and seed wisdom, closer to the Divine Energy than we parents".

In 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, (a compulsive hermit with an atavistic fondness for the .44 Magnum and extremely amplified music), put an altogether different twist on the culture of drugs and kids.

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas he said: "The big market these days is in downers. Reds and smack - Seconal and heroin - and a hellbroth of bad domestic grass sprayed with everything from arsenic to horse tranquillizers. What sells today, is whatever Fucks You Up - whatever short-circuits your brain and grounds it out for the longest possible time.....The Milltown man has turned, with a vengeance, to skin-popping and even mainlining.....and for every ex-speed freak who drifted, for relief, into smack, there are 200 kids who went straight to the needle off Seconal".

With that oblique thrust at Timothy Leary, Hunter S. managed to predict the sadness of the current youth culture. Those of us older and sane enough to remember the opening of the doors of perception in the 60's and 70's should be ashamed that we, as a majority of substance abusers, did not use the newly gained awarness to positively change the world.

Help the youth of today to experience mind altering substances completely and safely. We, as adults and parents are responsible for the corruption, greed, death and poverty that plagues mankind today.

Sorry kids, we just got too stoned and forgot about the consequences of the fun we were having.

Timothy Leary passed away in 1996 and his ashes went into space.

Atavism

"I am not a New Man. I drink and I drive and I smoke and I puke. I will not bond and I will not share. I will not nurture --- and you can bet your powder blue party-dress I ain't gonna cry. I pine for the sheer stupidity of the old days when men brandished hammers and built huge hulking cars which tore open the ozone layer and crushed furry little animals, and walked naked through the woods pissing and barking."

: Dennis Leary

Fundamental Human Truths

1. You will receive a body.
You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life.
Each day in this school you will be given the opportunity to learn lessons.
You may like the lessons or consider them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth is a process of trial, error and experimentation.
The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the one that ultimately "works".

4. A lesson is repeated until learned.
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until it has been learned.
When you have learned it, you can then proceed to the next lesson.

5. There is no end to learning lessons.
There is no part of life that does not contain a lesson.
If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better place than "Here".
When your "there" has become a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here".

7. Others are merely mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate in yourself.

8. What you make of your work and your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need.
What you do with them is up to you.
The choice is yours.

9. The answers are inside you.
The answer's to life's questions are inside you.
All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget this.

: Anon

Creativity

"The man who follows the crowd, will get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before.

"Creativity in living is not without his attendant difficulties, for peculiarity breeds contempt. And the unfortunate thing about being ahead of your time is when people finally realize you were right, they'll say it was obvious all along.

"You have two choices in life: you can dissolve into the mainstream, or you can be distinct. To be distinct, you must be different. To be different you must strive to be what no one else but you can be."

: Alan Ashley-Pitt