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High but not dry: Engaging new book about marijuana avoids the dullness trap
from the Detroit Metro Times:
High but not dry
Engaging new book about marijuana avoids the dullness trap
By Larry Gabriel
Published: August 22, 2012
There have been plenty of books published on marijuana in recent years. Many of them have been oriented toward politics and the law, generally arguing that prohibition is misguided and its consequences are abysmal. Another group falls into the "marijuana is medicine" category, with authors citing study after study indicating the curative wonders of the weed. Yet others are how-to books: how to set up a grow room, how to grow cannabis, and how to cook it. However, seemingly in the effort to be taken seriously, marijuana activists often fall into the trap of dullness when writing their perfectly reasonable tracts.
Smoke Signals, A Social History of Marijuana — Medical, Recreational, and Scientific, by Martin Lee, mostly avoids the dullness trap by tacking toward the social side of these issues. For the most part, the book presents the stories of people who use weed while making astute points about the policies that accompany it. Near the end of the book, Lee does start piling up the studies and statistics to support his position, but losing sight of the people being affected. Still, he manages to avoid using even one chart or graph in his storytelling.
Smoke Signals begins with several pages devoted to jazz progenitor Louis Armstrong and his marijuana use. Armstrong left New Orleans for Chicago in 1922. Shortly thereafter he started smoking "gage," a habit he carried for life. Lee hints that the looseness and camaraderie of pot smoking helped the trumpeter stretch his music out into the free-swinging sound that has been defined as America's only original art form. The mid-1920s are widely held to be Armstrong's most creative years. It's also interesting that Armstrong, who used herbal medicines throughout his life, claimed that pot helped keep him healthy.
The ironies pile up when the author points out that Armstrong became first African-American to host a nationwide radio broadcast in 1937 — the same year that the Marihuana Tax Act definitively made marijuana illegal nationwide. It's this kind of depth of detail that makes Smoke Signals so interesting — the contrast of a commercially, culturally ascendant, daily-toking Armstrong breaking down racial barriers while the substance he loves is demonized into prohibition, with cops starting to break down doors in an attempt to stop users. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/mmj/high-but-not-dry-1.1361828
Atlantic City casino sues gamblers, blames unshuffled cards
A New Jersey casino has sued a group of gamblers who won $1.5 million after they allegedly realized the eight decks of cards used in a game of mini baccarat were not preshuffled.
The Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, N.J., filed suit against the gamblers and playing card company Gemaco after 14 players collectively won $1,536,700 in 41 winning hands.
As the same sequence of cards kept appearing April 30, the players increased their bets from $10 to $5,000, the casino alleged.
"The gamblers unlawfully took advantage of the Golden Nugget when they caught onto the pattern and ... by passing money to fellow gamblers in order to place bets in excess of posted betting limits," the casino said in a statement. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/jersey-casino-suing-gamblers-won-1-5-million-172227267--abc-news-topstories.html
After capitalism: 'There is no reason to wait for revolution. It is here already in each of us'
Author Rebecca Walker outlines a utopian vision of a world after capitalism underpinned by a moral and spiritual revolution. Her words are accompanied by animation from Central Saint Martins students John Christian Ferner Apalnes and Jo Baaklini, telling the story of a family and a businessman
The Todd Akin school of Christian thought on abortion and rape
The Todd Akin school of Christian thought on abortion and rape
The Republican senate candidate saying rape doesn't cause pregnancy is in line with other wild beliefs of the religious right
Amanda Marcotte
guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 August 2012
Maybe it's time for compulsory biology lessons for politicians, but this week Todd Akin, a US Republican senate candidate, claimed that rape didn't cause pregnancy. While attempting to explain his proposals for a no-exceptions policy on banning abortion Akin said there did not need to be an exception for rape, because "it was really rare" for rape to lead to pregnancy. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he explained.
He didn't elaborate on what such a mechanism might be. But perhaps he had been talking to the similarly non-licensed or educated doctor-politician, Stephen Freind, who said in 1988 that rape victims "secrete a certain secretion" that kills sperm. Apparently, in conservative imagination, the interior of the vagina is much like a fleshy soda machine with a series of sacks filled with different kinds of liquids that dispense when the proper button is pushed. Press the "rape" button, and out comes the spermicide. Press the "she was asking for it" button and a welcome mat-style secretion comes out. Presumably pressing the "Jesus" button causes a secretion that enters a woman's bloodstream and teaches modesty and submission to her husband's will. The vagina really is a cave of wonders!
In all honesty, that Akin, who is a marching member of the Christian right, believes this should be no surprise. Anti-abortion Christians are well trained in the art of substituting wishful thinking for facts, and then aggressively promoting their made-up nonsense as if it were historical or biological truth. It starts with their rock solid belief that Jesus Christ wanted banning abortion to be a priority, despite never once even mentioning the issue. It shouldn't be surprising that those who make stuff up about their Lord and Savior would easily leap straight to spinning nonsense about the female reproductive system.
The belief that rape is effective contraception is just one of many wild beliefs. For years, activists have widely circulated two demonstrably untrue ideas about abortion: that it causes depression and breast cancer. Anti-abortion politicians frequently try to write these false claims into law – requiring doctors to "warn" patients about the nonexistent risks of breast cancer and depression. Just this summer, South Dakota has been defending a law requiring doctors to tell women that if they get abortion, their risk of suicide goes up. In reality, there is no causal relationship between abortion and depression. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/todd-akin-christian-abortion-rape
Anti-Abortion Crowd Blames Media, Tells Akin: Do Better PR.
from the Progressive:
The anti-abortion crowd, lying at the bottom of the moral heap after Todd Akin’s outrageous comments about rape, has tried to climb up in two ways. First, it’s been blaming the media, which is a favorite whipping post. And second, it’s been chiding Akin (and other anti-abortion politicians) to do better PR.
The first sentence of a press released by the National Right to Life Committee after the controversy broke consisted of a quote from the group’s president, Carol Tobias:
"The mainstream news media is once again demonstrating its eagerness to use any excuse to portray a Republican presidential ticket as out of the mainstream on abortion, while ignoring the truly extreme positions taken by the pro-abortion candidate -- this year, President Obama.”
The press release continued: “The mainstream news media is again busy ginning up stories exploring the outer parameters of the abortion-related policy positions of pro-life Republican candidates.” ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.progressive.org/anti-abortion-crowd-blames-media-tells-akin-do-better-pr
Assange, Correa, and Anti-Colonialism
Assange, Correa, and Anti-Colonialism
By Roger Burbach and Marc Becker, via New America Media, August 20, 2012
Rafael Correa, the president of one of South America's smallest countries with almost 15 million inhabitants, is taking a dramatic stand against Great Britain, Sweden, and the United States by granting political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Last Wednesday, the Ecuadorian foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, told the press in the country's capital, Quito: "Today we have received from the United Kingdom an explicit threat in writing that they could assault our embassy in London if Ecuador does not hand over Julian Assange."
Correa, in an address to the Ecuadorian people on Saturday said, “I don't know who they think I am or what they think our government is. But how could they expect us to yield to their threats or cower before them? My friends, they don't know who they are dealing with.”
.....(snip).....
On the international front, the 48-year-old Correa believes it is important to push for Latin American integration and fight for sovereignty in the face of attempts by the dominant powers and the international financial institutions to re-colonize Latin America. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.progressive.org/assange-correa-anti-colonialism
Excuse me but this butterfly can see with its butt
http://grist.org/list/excuse-me-but-this-butterfly-can-see-with-its-butt/
from Grist:
Excuse me but this butterfly can see with its butt
By Jess Zimmerman
Animals get all the cool accoutrements — tails, wings, prehensile penises — and humans all know which one they’re most jealous of. If you want proof, ask any elementary schooler, most stoned college kids, and certain tags on Tumblr. But the one creature I’ll bet no human has ever, ever envied is the Japanese swallowtail butterfly. Okay, it has pretty wings, but it also has eyes in its butt. Pass.
The butterfly, Papilio xuthus, has two light-sensing neurons called photoreceptors in its rear end, right near its junk. (In fact, I’m being a little euphemistic when I say that it sees “with its butt.” In the scientific literature, they are pretty consistently called “genital photoreceptors.”) The photoreceptors aren’t eyes in the classical sense, but they do respond to light, and they can “see” well enough to do their job: ensuring that the female’s ovipositor — the thing that deposits eggs — is in the correct position. Male butterflies have rear-end photoreceptors too, though I’m not sure why.
(UPDATE: Ferris Jabr of Scientific American explained why! “Males rely on light-detection when aligning their genitals with the female’s during mating; they do it back to back, facing away.” So it’s the same idea — making it easier to to tricky positioning on bits you can’t see, like those rear-view cameras on fancy cars.)
Man. If crotch-eyes are the price you pay for being a butterfly, then for once I think I’m glad to be a human.
U.S. Open tennis umpire allegedly killed husband with coffee mug
LA Times:
A high-ranking umpire on the U.S. professional tennis circuit arrested Tuesday in New York allegedly bludgeoned her 82-year-old husband to death with a coffee mug in Woodland Hills and then tried to make it look like he fell down the stairs, authorities said.
Lois Goodman, 70, was arrested at her New York hotel and charged with murder by the L.A. County district attorney's office. She was in New York to officiate at U.S. Open tennis matches.
Goodman, a well-known tennis official who has received dirty looks from John McEnroe, apologies from Andre Agassi and kindness from Pete Sampras, initially told police her husband, Alan Frederick Goodman, took a deadly tumble April 17 down the stairs of their Woodland Hills home. She reported it at 7 that evening.
But Los Angeles County prosecutors said Tuesday that Goodman was killed with a coffee mug. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/08/top-tennis-umpire-accused-of-killing-husband-with-coffee-mug.html
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