Category: common sense
- Labels: aliens, art, common sense, deviant, freedom, genius, perception, philosophy, religion, revolution, sex, truth
- Labels: archeology, audacity, common sense, deviant, genius, gods, hubris, ignorance, paradox, perception, research, spectacle, wisdom
- Labels: authority, common sense, control, government, power, self
“Home”…is a small blue marble…
that orbits a sun…
that orbits the galaxy…
that is our little blue lifeboat…
that is our “Home”
- Labels: awareness, common sense, eyes, human condition
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(November 30, 1835 â April 21, 1910)
Mark Twainâs Autobiography or The Autobiography of Mark Twain refers to a lengthy set of reminiscences, dictated, for the most part, in the last few years of American author Mark Twain’s life and left in typescript and manuscript at his death. The Autobiography comprises a rambling collection of anecdotes and ruminations rather than a proper autobiography.
The first edition of the entire manuscript is scheduled for publication in November 2010, the 100th anniversary year of Twainâs death, edited by the The Mark Twain Papers and Project of The Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley and published by University of California Press.
Twain first started to compose an autobiography in 1870, but proceeded fitfully, abandoning the work and returning to it as the mood took him. In a 1904 letter to William Dean Howells, he wrote: “Iâve struck it! And I will give it awayâto you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography.” By 1904 Twain had embarked on what he called his “Final (and Right) Plan” for telling the story of his life. However, after 1907 he again seems to have let the book languish; in 1908-9 he hardly added to it at all, and he declared the project concluded in 1909, after the death of his youngest daughter Jean. His innovative notion â to “talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment” â meant that his thoughts could range freely. Twain thought his autobiography would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-sequential order.
Twain outlined a plan in 1899 for an autobiographical work which was to be published (according to different accounts of the episode) either “100 years from now” or “100 years after his death.” A manuscript note in the Mark Twain Papers (UC Berkeley) indicates a 100-year ban was what he was contemplating. Twain did produce a preface ‘From the Grave’ claiming that the book would not be published until after his death, which allowed him to speak with his “whole frank mind.” (read more) (nytimes)
- Labels: art, books, common sense, insight, perspective, time
What’s Wrong With the Drug War?
Everyone has a stake in ending the war on drugs. Whether youâre a parent concerned about protecting children from drug-related harm, a social justice advocate worried about racially disproportionate incarceration rates, an environmentalist seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest or a fiscally conservative taxpayer you have a stake in ending the drug war. U.S. federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America “drug-free.” Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer and easier to get than ever before. The war on drugs has become a war on families, a war on public health and a war on our constitutional rights.
Many of the problems the drug war purports to resolve are in fact caused by the drug war itself. So-called “drug-related” crime is a direct result of drug prohibition’s distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand. Public health problems like HIV and Hepatitis C are all exacerbated by zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean needles. The drug war is not the promoter of family values that some would have us believe. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.
Few public policies have compromised public health and undermined our fundamental civil liberties for so long and to such a degree as the war on drugs. The United States is now the world’s largest jailer, imprisoning nearly half a million people for drug offenses alone. That’s more people than Western Europe, with a bigger population, incarcerates for all offenses. Roughly 1.5 million people are arrested each year for drug law violations – 40% of them just for marijuana possession. People suffering from cancer, AIDS and other debilitating illnesses are regularly denied access to their medicine or even arrested and prosecuted for using medical marijuana. We can do better. (read more)
………………………………………………………………………
War on drugs?
Shouldn’t that be…
war on drug “abuse and addiction”?
You see…
prohibition produced only one thing…
a profitable criminal underground.
Legal or illegal…
we will continue to have…
an available supply and ever present demand.
In the end…
you can’t legislate morality.
- Labels: common sense, drugs, ignorance, liberty, prohibition
Cannabis is indigenous to Central and South Asia. Evidence of the inhalation of cannabis smoke can be found in the 3rd millennium B.C., as indicated by charred cannabis seeds found in a ritual brazier at an ancient burial site in present day Romania. Cannabis is also known to have been used by the ancient Hindus and Nihang Sikhs of India and Nepal thousands of years ago. The herb was called ganjika in Sanskrit (ganja in modern Indic languages). The ancient drug soma, mentioned in the Vedas as a sacred intoxicating hallucinogen, was sometimes associated with cannabis.
Cannabis was also known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered its psychoactive properties through the Aryans. Using it in some religious ceremonies, they called it qunubu (meaning “way to produce smoke”), a probable origin of the modern word “cannabis”. Cannabis was also introduced by the Aryans to the Scythians and Thracians/Dacians, whose shamans (the kapnobataiâ”those who walk on smoke/clouds”) burned cannabis flowers to induce a state of trance. Members of the cult of Dionysus, believed to have originated in Thrace (Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey), are also thought to have inhaled cannabis smoke. In 2003, a leather basket filled with cannabis leaf fragments and seeds was found next to a 2,500- to 2,800-year-old mummified shaman in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.
Cannabis has an ancient history of ritual use and is found in pharmacological cults around the world. Hemp seeds discovered by archaeologists at Pazyryk suggest early ceremonial practices like eating by the Scythians occurred during the 5th to 2nd century B.C., confirming previous historical reports by Herodotus. One writer has claimed that cannabis was used as a religious sacrament by ancient Jews and early Christians due to the similarity between the Hebrew word “qannabbos” (“cannabis”) and the Hebrew phrase “qené bósem” (“aromatic cane”). It was used by Muslims in various Sufi orders as early as the Mamluk period, for example by the Qalandars.
A study published in the South African Journal of Science showed that “pipes dug up from the garden of Shakespeare’s home in Stratford upon Avon contain traces of cannabis.” The chemical analysis was carried out after researchers hypothesized that the “noted weed” mentioned in Sonnet 76 and the “journey in my head” from Sonnet 27 could be references to cannabis and the use thereof.
Cannabis was criminalized in various countries beginning in the early 20th century. It was outlawed in South Africa in 1911, in Jamaica (then a British colony) in 1913, and in the United Kingdom and New Zealand in the 1920s. Canada criminalized marijuana in the Opium and Drug Act of 1923, before any reports of use of the drug in Canada. In 1925 a compromise was made at an international conference in Haag about the International Opium Convention that banned exportation of “Indian hemp” to countries that had prohibited its use, and requiring importing countries to issue certificates approving the importation and stating that the shipment was required “exclusively for medical or scientific purposes”. It also required parties to “exercise an effective control of such a nature as to prevent the illicit international traffic in Indian hemp and especially in the resin”. In the United States the first restrictions for sale of cannabis came in 1906 (in District of Columbia). The first federal law in the U.S. that in practice prohibited cannabis was the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. (read more)
- Labels: agriculture, cannabis, common sense, sustainable, truth
Stupid is…
as stupid does
“Narcotics have been systematically scapegoated and demonized. The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is an anathema to these idiots. I predict that in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.”
William S. Burroughs
(1914 – 1997)
“All penalties for drug users should be dropped. Making drug abuse a crime is useless and even dangerous. Every year we seize more and more drugs but the quantity available still increases. Police are losing the drug battle worldwide”
Raymond Kendall
Secretary General of Interpol 1994
- Labels: common sense, drugs, enlightenment, fear, freedom
Marine mammal trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed today at SeaWorld Orlando by a 30 year old, 5 ton orca by the name of “Tilikum”.
Tilikum has been involved in two other deaths of humans in the past.
We have no business making circus clowns out of killer whales.
Captivity is abusive to these animals.
I urge everyone to boycott SeaWorld Marine Parks.
All children are my children
All women are my sisters
All men are my brothers
All the world is one big family
- Labels: acceptance, belief, children, common sense, earth
It is clear to me that
the kill shot did not come
from the schoolbook depository
And this was just a coincidence?
- Labels: common sense, control, delusion, execution, power
The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, with solids gradually being introduced around this age when signs of readiness are shown. Supplemented breastfeeding is recommended until at least age two, as long as mother and child wish.
The Nestlé boycott is a boycott launched on July 4, 1977, in the United States against the Swiss based Nestlé corporation. It was prompted by concern about the company’s marketing of breast milk substitutes (infant formula), particularly in less economically developed countries, which campaigners claim contributes to the unnecessary death and suffering of babies, largely among the poor.
In order to sell more of its infant formula in third world countries, Nestle would hire women with no special training and dress them up as nurses to give out free samples of Nestle formula. The free samples lasted long enough for the mother’s breast milk to dry up from lack of use. Then mothers would be forced to purchase the formula but, being poor, they would often mix the formula with unsanitary water or “stretch” the amount of formula by diluting it with more water than recommended. The result was that babies starved all over the Third World while Nestle made huge profits from this predatory marketing strategy.
Groups such as the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), and Save the Children claim that the promotion of infant formula over breast-feeding has led to health problems and deaths among infants in less economically developed countries. There are three problems that are said to arise when poor mothers in Third World countries switch to formula:
Formula must normally be mixed with water, which is often contaminated in poor countries, leading to disease in vulnerable infants. Because of the high illiteracy rates in developing nations many mothers are not aware of the sanitation methods needed in the preparation of bottles. Even mothers that can understand the sanitation required do not have the means to perform it. UNICEF estimates that a non-breastfed child living in disease-ridden and unhygienic conditions is between six and 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a breastfed child.
Many poor mothers use less formula powder than is necessary, in order to make a container of formula last longer. As a result, some infants receive inadequate nutrition from weak solutions of formula.
Breast milk has many natural benefits lacking in formula. Nutrients and antibodies are passed to the baby while hormones are released into the mother’s body. Breast-fed babies are protected, in varying degrees, from a number of illnesses, including diarrhea, bacterial meningitis, gastroenteritis, ear infection, and respiratory infection. Breast milk contains the right amount of the nutrients that are essential for neuronal (brain and nerve) development. The bond between baby and mother can be strengthened during breastfeeding. Frequent and exclusive breastfeeding can also delay the return of fertility, which can help women in developing countries to space their births. The World Health Organization recommends that, in the majority of cases, babies should be exclusively breast fed for the first six months.
Advocacy groups and charities have accused Nestlé of unethical methods of promoting infant formula over breast-milk to poor mothers in third world countries. For example, IBFAN claim that Nestlé supports the distribution of free powdered formula samples to hospitals and maternity wards; after leaving the hospital, the formula is no longer free, but because the supplementation has interfered with lactation the family must continue to buy the formula. IBFAN also allege that Nestlé uses “humanitarian aid” to create markets, does not label its products in a language appropriate to the country where they are sold, and offers gifts and sponsorship to influence health workers to promote its products. Nestlé denies these allegations.
- Labels: children, common sense, corporations, greed, profit
The enemy is fear
the enemy is hate
the enemy is ignorance
the enemy is intolerance
the enemy is violence
the enemy is war
“War is a cowardly escape
from the problems of peace”
…Thomas Mann…
- Labels: common sense, paradigm shift, paradox, peace, war
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Yesterday, in Breckenridge Colorado, 72 percent of voters in early returns voted to make up to 1 ounce of marijuana legal for adults over 21. The measure is largely symbolic â pot possession is still against state law â but supporters said they wanted to send a message to local law enforcement to stop busting small-time pot smokers.
“We believe this a signal to the state of Colorado and the nation as a whole,” said Sean McAllister, a Breckenridge lawyer who pushed the decriminalization measure. McAllister said the vote shows people want to skip medical marijuana and legalize pot for everyone. They’re saying, We’ve seen this drug war, and it has failed.
A few other cities, including Seattle and Oakland, have laws that make marijuana possession a low priority for police. A dozen states, including Colorado, have decriminalized possession of small amounts but still issue fines. Denver approved a similar decriminalization in 2005. (usatoday.com)
Last September the Alaska Supreme Court upheld a previous ruling that allows adults aged 21 and older to use and possess up to four ounces of marijuana in the privacy of their homes, and not just for medical use.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for an open debate on legalizing and taxing marijuana. A recent Field Poll showed that 56 percent of Californians support taxing and regulating marijuana as a way to address the state’s fiscal crisis.
James P. Gray, a retired Orange County Superior Court judge, applauded Schwarzenegger’s openness. “Once people allow themselves to discuss the issue of treating marijuana like alcohol, the result is pre-ordained. Today marijuana is fully available for anyone that wants it, expressly including our children, so why not regulate and control it, and tax it as well? That will reduce the violence in its distribution, and bring in needed revenue for government,” Gray, now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, told the Huffington Post.
- Labels: common sense, drugs, freedom, marijuana, prohibition
The United States has 4.6% of the worlds population and nearly 25% of the worlds prisoners……what’s wrong with this picture?
In 1983 Corrections Corporation of America founded the private corrections industry. Despite having been outlawed nationally for over a century, private prisons have been turned into a money making proposition. Traded daily on the stock exchange, the profit for prisoners business is growing by leaps and bounds, incarceration rates have soared. Should this be a for-profit business?
The continued prohibition of legalized marijuana provides a convenient source of fodder for the prison-industrial complex. An American is arrested for pot every 38 seconds. Since 1965, more than 20 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses, 90 percent of them for simple possession.
Keith Stroup, Executive Director of NORML said “In fact, the war on drugs is largely a war on pot smokers. This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that should be dedicated toward combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism.”
And despite baby boomers being in charge in recent years, annual pot busts have tripled since the non-inhaling Bill Clinton took office. The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeds the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
It isnât only marijuana consumers who want to see weed legalized. (None other than William F. Buckley was for it.) Ending prohibition is also a popular cause for at least 10,000 cops, narcs, judges, and others who make up the membership of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
From LEAPâs down-and-dirty perspective, prohibition exacerbates rather than ameliorates Americaâs drug problem. Prohibition not only diverts resources from the pursuit of more-serious crimes, it empowers criminals and enhances black-market incentives. Money spent fighting what adults seem to want could be better allocated toward education and rehab.
It is well known that alcohol and tobacco related health effects and deaths by far eclipse any detrimental effects of occasional recreational marijuana use by adults. Common sense would tell you that, if anything, alcohol and tobacco should be prohibited and marijuana should be legalized.
The benifits of legalizing pot would be a double-triple-whammy in that it could create a substantial amount of wealth for farmers and industry, increase revenue through the regulation and taxation of hemp and marijuana sales, it would free up much needed police and judicial resources, put a significant dent in the income of criminal black-market forces, it would keep non-violent consumers out of jail, and create a sustainable resource that could replace many of the items now made of plastic.
The Marijuana Policy Project advocates taxing and regulating the possession and sale of cannabis, arguing that a regulated industry would separate purchasers from the street market for cocaine, heroin, and other hard drugs. You can’t legislate morality, adults should be allowed the freedom to pursue their ideal of happiness as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Legalizing marijuana would be a fabulous way to “Go Green!” There’s no reason we shouldn’t legalize pot, it’s just a plant.
(excerpts from Kathleen Parker and skeptically.org)
- Labels: common sense, freedom, marijuana, prohibition, truth
Just when it seemed the angry town hall meetings had ended, a group that’s still mad as hell rolled into Saint Paul Wednesday.
The group of touring physicians, called the “Mad as Hell Doctors,” held a rally at the state capitol.
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” the crowd yelled, at the group’s urging, before the nine doctors from Oregon and California talked about why they favor a single-payer, government-run health care system that would cover all Americans.
“I’m mad as hell because Americans are going bankrupt because of their medical bills,” Dr. Bob Seward, an internist from Portland, told the crowd.
“I’m mad as hell when I hear our country is ranked by the World Health Organization as 37th in the world, in terms of health outcomes,” San Francisco family physician Marc Sapir said.
The doctors are stopping in 26 cities on their way to Washington, D.C., and they’re not happy with any of the health-care reform options Congress is considering.
- Labels: common sense, compassion, health care, politics
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will announce legislation on Monday to legalize marijuana and earn perhaps $1 billion annually by taxing it.
Quintin Mecke, Ammiano’s press secretary, confirmed to SF Weekly that the assemblyman’s 10 a.m. Monday press conference regarding “new legislation related to the state’s fiscal crisis” will broach the subject of reaping untold — and much-needed — wealth from the state’s No. 1 cash crop.
Mecke said Ammiano’s proposed bill “would remove all penalties in California law on cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, or use of marijuana, natural THC, or paraphernalia for persons over the age of 21.”
The bill would additionally prohibit state and local law officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws. As for Step Two — profit — Ammiano’s bill calls for “establishing a fee on the sale of marijuana at a rate of $50 per ounce.” Mecke said that would bring in roughly $1 billion for the state, according to estimates made by marijuana advocacy organizations.
- Labels: acceptance, choice, common sense, education, logic
- Labels: common sense, freedom, liberation