Morphine ( ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ) was an alternative rock group formed by Mark Sandman and Dana Colley in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, in 1989. The band ceased to be in 1999 after frontman Mark Sandman died of a heart attack while performing onstage. More Wikipedia & More & More

Torrent: ♥♥♥♥♥

The following email was sent to a former college colleague who has decided that she is too good to speak to me anymore, and has now broken some very big laws.

So, now I’m taking matters into my own hands.

You can see what I wrote her, as I’m about to post the email.  She is a senior White House staffer.  Her name is Cassandra Butts.  Who hasn’t done as much as I have in DC or anywhere else.  She’s just got that horrific disease, called “I went to Harvard with Obama, I’ve got ‘tude, FUCK OFF you stupid cracker.”

Unfortunately that doesn’t work, is illegal and appalling.

And shows you exactly the attitude of THIS ADMINISTRATION.  And will be circulated all over the HILL, the blogosphere and where ever I have to send it.

Because she, just like everyone else in DC with power, doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody else.  And the only way she got that “power” also called a title on a business card and about as meaningful, was by flushing her morals down the toilet.

When they ARE PUBLIC SERVANTS.  Emphasis on the last word.  So this is just one of the lessons that dumb ass in the Oval Office is going to start learning if he keeps lying, breaking his word, and playing “I’m going to screw everyone else, give out the best bailout money to my buddies, and fuck the entire US population in the ass, so I can become a billionaire because among other things I own a shitload of pharma stock.

I WANT THAT FUCKING MEETING CASSANDRA.  NOW.

And if there are any more delays, there’s going to be further embarrassment.  If not your firing, and Obama’s impeachment.

GET IT?  Am I using small enough words?  For a “biologicially inferior piece of garbage” that the President has made sure to show his contempt for. Not to mention you.  And as for Ms. Barnes.  That goes for her too.

And the rest of the assholes in Congress  who are getting rich off of war, get bribes on the side, to vote against the interests of the people they represent on say healthcare, while we pay for their privileged lives.

That is NOT the change I voted for, nor one I believe in.  And the last thing DC needs at this point, is another clueless egomaniac on the loose, who thinks he’s the fucking Messiah.  Trust me, he’s a legend in his own fucking mind.  BUT HE’S GOING TO FUND MY FUCKING PROJECT.

SO START MAKING THE DATE PRONTO.  HE WORKS FOR ME TOO.  HE IS THE ULTIMATE PUBLIC SERVANT. NOT THE MESSIAH.

IT’S TIME HE REMEMBERED THAT.  INSTEAD OF PLAYING KING FOR A DAY, AND GETTING PISSED OFF WHEN HE IS RIGHTLY CRITICIZED FOR SPENDING FOUR TIMES WHAT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN GETS PAID ANNUALLY, IF THEY STILL HAVE A JOB THAT IS, TO TAKE THE SPOILED MISSUS TO NEW YORK.  THANKS TO OBAMA’S POLICIES ON CONTINUED OUTSOURCING, NOT TO MENTION HIS CORRUPT ECONOMIC ADVISORS.  WHO SHOULD ALL BE FIRED.

And if you think that is embarrassing, there’s plenty more to come.  You dumb clueless bitch.  Call me “privileged” again and I’m going to make you eat your fucking words.  Go ahead, bail out the banks and ruin my life.  THEY DID THIS TO ME YOU BITCH.  IS THAT YOUR DEFINITION OF PRIVILEGED?  THEN YOU ARE REALLY SICK if not morally depraved.  Oh, and I also expect a full investigation of all of the cabinet members who have threatened me, discriminated against me and you have both refused to investigate them, which is part of your job, but the IG’s who did too.

And a hurry it up over at JUSTICE, where you clowns are facing CRIMINAL ASSAULT AND BATTERY CHARGES, conveniently documented by the NYPD.  With a witness to boot, so don’t even try to get Bloomberg, another criminal to try to cover that one up.

I don’t take it kindly when DOJ, “Don’t cry for me Pharmantina” Pelosi’s office and the DLCC keep hanging up on me.  That is also illegal.  Didn’t they teach you that crap at Harvard?   Because you sure look as dumb as fuck to me.  Not to mention criminal, lawbreaking bastards.  Oh, and don’t even mention the word “defamatory” because I have multiple agencies doing so much investigating at this point, with paper work to back it up, on the illegal crap Obama is turning his back on at the municipal, state and federal level,  that you are going to look like, as those who have real educations, and speak multiple languages, say, like merde.

Capiche?  And the only reason I have edited out your email, is that I still have a modicum of mercy.  Although technically it should be listed, per Obama’s promise to make government more accountable, and transparent, on the goddamned White House website.  But, silly me, he’s “adjusted his position” on that too.  Personally I think the asshole should be “adjusted out of office.”

Also called impeachment for lying his ass off on the way into office in the first place.

You see.  You gotta put your ass on the line, and your money where your mouth is.

Because among other things, I’m going to kill that fucking healthcare bill.  It’s illegal, it’s immoral and it shows EXACTLY how little Obama really thinks about the people who put their trust in him.

And I think that is disgusting.  Oh, and Rambo. FUCK OFF.  I’m not afraid of you either.

Gimp Godzilla,

Over and Out.

On this, the fifth day of Hanukkah, we present you with the gift that keeps on giving: a new episode of everyone’s favorite cousin-hosted podcast, S’up Cuz?! As always, you’re welcome.

Click here to download the file. Or do the reasonable thing and subscribe on iTunes (keyword “Sup Cuz”).

A few thoughts on this week’s episode:

1. This was the first episode we recorded with Michael in Memphis and me in Chicago. The sheer technical complexity of how I did it would surely crash the Internet, so let’s just say it’s a technical miracle and the editing took more time than I anticipated. Hopefully the audio quality (particularly Michael’s, since there’s a big difference between his setup and mine) will improve each week.

2. I don’t like Phil Collins. Pretty sure that comes across loud and clear.

3. You’ll hear us make a pitch to Dippin’ Dots for sponsorship. It’s a pretty terrible pitch as we make our desire to “just get paid for this stuff” pretty clear,  but it’s also honest and rooted in real events. So, Dippin’ Dots management, if you’re reading this, we’re ready to sell out and you can email us at supcuzpodcast@gmail.com.

4. Michael unveiled our first/worst listener contest ever. You’ll have to check out the podcast for details.

We may or may not be on hiatus next week. We’ll see how busy Michael’s party keeps him.

And finally, we leave you with this video clip from this week’s Good Enough To Netflix: Crossroads (1986), starring Ralph Macchio of Karate Kid 3 fame. In this scene, Daniel-son’s character is battling the devil’s guitarist for the soul of his friend, who sold it to the devil years ago for blues guitar prowess. No kidding. I couldn’t begin to make this stuff up.

Why women have signed onto marijuana reform — and why they could be the movement’s game-changers.

In September, ladymag Marieclaire ruffled some feathers when it published a piece about women who smoke weed. But its most interesting effect was not the “marijuana moms” chatter it unleashed, and instead the fact that it brought to the mainstream media a more open discussion of the fact that women can be avid tokers, too.

Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion — and policy — regarding marijuana. In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap.

Women are also smoking more weed. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that current marijuana use increased from 3.8 to 4.5 percent among women, while there was no significant statistical change for men.

Indeed, it appears the growing acceptance of marijuana is fueled by women having joined the movement for reform.

Women “can reach people’s hearts and minds,” says Mikki Norris, co-author of Shattered Lives: Portraits from America’s Drug War, managing editor of the West Coast Leaf, and director of the Cannabis Consumers Campaign. “I think we can really take it from the third- to the first-person, and make it personal.”

Norris, who’s participated in numerous successful marijuana campaigns, may be onto something. If pro-weed women are a new momentum behind the normalization of marijuana, they may also become the driving force behind game-changing drug reform.

If that’s the case, then it’s worth examining why some women have signed onto the marijuana reform movement — because it may soon be why many others will as well.

‘A bigger amygdala’

The avenue through which women have been foremost leaders in the movement is medical marijuana advocacy.

There are currently 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana use and at least 14 other states with pending legislation or ballot measures. In California, where cannabis has been legalized for medical use since 1996, a Field poll found 56 percent support for adult legalization — and the matter may very well make its way onto the 2010 ballot.

Every woman I spoke to referenced cannabis’ medicinal properties as a major reason they are so personally impassioned by the marijuana reform debate.

One of these is Valerie Corral, dubbed “the Mother Teresa of the medical marijuana movement,” by Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Corral was introduced to the medical benefits of marijuana in 1973, when she was the victim of a car crash that left her an epileptic. At one point, while on pharmaceuticals, she was having up to five seizures each day.

In 1974, her husband read an article in a medical journal that described how positively rats had reacted to cannabis when treated for certain ailments. Soon thereafter, Corral started applying a strict regimen of marijuana, and kept a catalog of its effects.

“Within a few weeks, I noticed change,” Corral said. And over time, she was able to control seizure activity in a way that allowed her to wean herself off the prescription drugs. To this day she does not take anything other than marijuana for her epilepsy.

Not only did medical marijuana change Corral’s quality of life, it changed its course. She went on to found Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a patient collective based in Santa Cruz, Calif. that offers organic medical marijuana and assistance to those who have received a terminal or chronic illness diagnosis.

WAMM currently serves about 170 patients. When I spoke to Corral, she was late to hit the road for her Thanksgiving holiday. She had spent the morning with a patient who was anxious about his radiation therapy. She then spent the afternoon delivering marijuana before counseling — “and learning from” — terminal patients.

While Corral knows first-hand the physical benefits of marijuana, she believes its most important effect is “the way it affects how we look at things that are difficult.”

“No matter what else happens to us,” Corral said, “the quality with which we live our lives is so important.”

Cheryl Shuman, a 49-year-old optician in Los Angeles, would agree. Up until she started using cannabis therapy to treat her cancer, she was on a daily regimen of 27 prescription drugs, attached to a mobile intravenous morphine pump, and undergoing constant CAT and MRI scans. In 2006, her doctors told her she’d be dead by the end of that year.

“I had to make a decision [regarding] which way I was going to go and quite frankly, I thought if I am going to die, I want to control how my life is going to be,” Shuman said, her voice breaking. “And the only side-effects were that I was happy and laughing.”

It turns out those may not have been the only effects of her cannabis therapy. Her cancer has been in remission for 18 months now — and that coincides precisely with the start of the marijuana treatment.

Shuman had previously used pot medicinally in 1994, when going through a harrowing divorce. Up to 80 milligrams of Prozac a day, coupled with multiple therapy sessions a week, did not help her get over the sense that she could barely make it through each day.

During one session, she says, “my therapist said, ‘I could lose my license, but I think what would help you more than anything is just smoking a joint.’ I didn’t know how to respond! I said I couldn’t do that — I don’t drink, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette!”

But after researching medical marijuana and realizing that cannabis had been available in pharmacies until the early 20th century, Shuman acquiesced and tried a joint. At 36 — after learning to inhale — Shuman says she found she “finally had some peace.”

This year, Shuman became the founding director of Beverly Hills’ National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) chapter — and she hopes to attract women to the cause.

Corral, for her part, acknowledges that the role she fills within the marijuana movement is one that fits the traditional female archetype. “Maybe it’s because we have a bigger amygdala,” she laughs, referring to the part of the brain that processes emotions. “It probably is!”

Debby Goldsberry, director of the Berkeley Patients Group, a medical marijuana dispensary, feels similarly: “It’s our job in our families and in our circles of friends to be caregivers. It makes sense that women would gravitate to cannabis.”

In a recent study of a sample of patient reviews at a chain of medical marijuana assessment clinics in California, Craig Reinarman, a sociology professor at UC-Santa Cruz, found that only 27.1 percent of the patients were female. Another study, conducted on a sample of patients at Goldsberry’s Berkeley dispensary, found that 30.7 percent of those patients were women.

Those numbers are close to the general expert estimate that women constitute about a third of marijuana consumers.

Mainstream myth-busting

Since more women are smoking weed, it’s no surprise there has finally been an onslaught of girl stoner coverage in the corporate media.

It probably started with “Weeds” — a Showtime series about a bodacious soccer mom who deals and smokes pot — which is now readying for its sixth season premiere. But the big dam opener this year was the aforementioned publication of the Marieclaire article, “Stiletto Stoners,” which paints the portrait of a whole class of “card-carrying, type A workaholics who just happen to prefer kicking back with a blunt instead of a bottle.”

Julie Holland, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, has been called onto NBC’s Today Show twice now to explain why women are gravitating towards weed.

During one of her appearances, Holland seemingly shocks the hosts by telling them that 100 million Americans have tried weed — 25 million of them over the past year. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that 10.6 million women used marijuana in 2008.

Also surprising to the TV hosts was Holland’s assertion that marijuana is the least addictive substance among many. According to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report, the rate at which people who try a substance and go on to become addicted is 32 percent for nicotine, 23 percent for heroin, 17 percent for cocaine, 15 percent for alcohol, and 9 percent for cannabis.

“Look at what the choices are. Cannabis isn’t toxic to your brain, to your liver, it doesn’t cause cancer, you can’t overdose, and there’s no evidence that it’s a gateway drug,” Holland said. “I believe that the majority of adults can healthfully integrate altered states into their lives, and it makes sense to do it with the least toxic substance you can. “

The public seems to agree.

Societal mores around marijuana are at their most progressive in at least 40 years, when Gallup first started asking Americans whether they believed marijuana ought be legalized. This year, 44 percent of those polled — up from 36 percent in 2005 — said they are in favor of legalization. A May Zogby poll found marijuana legalization was even more popular with its respondents, at 52 percent.

Harry Levine, professor of sociology at Queens College and co-author of Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, attributes a lot of the mainstreaming of progressive views on pot to the medical marijuana movement.

“What it has done is change the image of marijuana from this tie-dye 1960s hippie-dippy kind of thing to a real drug, a real substance that has medical uses,” he said. “You can separate it from the scary image of drugs.”

Why do girls smoke?

As weed is no longer considered by the public to be a “hard drug,” three presidents — 41, 42, and 43 — have admitted to smoking marijuana. “The whole association of failure and dropouts [with marijuana] has been smashed in an important kind of way,” Levine says.

In other words, you can smoke pot and be successful. Look at Natalie Angier, for example. In her book Woman: Intimate Geography, this Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer interjects a personal note of — and case for — female empowerment through weed:

All the women in my immediate family learned how to climax by smoking grass – my mother when she was over thirty and already the mother of four. Yet I have never seen anorgasmia on the list of indications for the medical use of marijuana. Instead we are told that some women don’t need to have orgasms to have a satisfying sex life, an argument as convincing as the insistence that homeless people like living outdoors.

As Angier writes, alcohol is a “global depressant of the nervous system” so marijuana can be a woman’s best friend. In that vein, Holland has clinically observed that many of her female patients choose marijuana over alcohol — for all kinds of social situations — because it makes them “more present instead of absent.”

“You can relax but not be incapacitated. You can keep your wits about you and protect yourself,” Holland told me, adding that women don’t always tolerate alcohol the way men do.

Diana, 37, a published writer in Madison is one such woman. She uses marijuana as a social lubricant: “If I drink, I know I’ll be throwing up by night’s end, even if it’s only a couple of beers. But with weed, I know I can make it to closing time — and keep up with all the steely-stomached drinkers.”

Paloma, 25, a Bay Area union organizer, told me she smokes weed two to three times a week to “relax, sleep, work on arts and crafts or clean the house and cook” without being distracted by what she calls her “explosive” attention deficit disorder.

A few women smokers said they did not initially like the effects marijuana had on them. Tessa, 29, a doctoral student in Portland, said, she didn’t enjoy weed in college “because I would not be able to do anything besides be high and stupid. Now I know to smoke less — maybe a hit or two — and then relax on that.”

What a lot of women like Tessa don’t know is that there are several kinds of weed that have different effects on the mind and body. Women who live in places where marijuana can be purchased at dispensaries are often more attuned to the fact that cannabis sativa gives a euphoric head high while cannabis indica results in a lazy body high. And then there are hybrids — the equivalent to blends in wine culture.

Ally, 34, an architect and mother in San Francisco, sees weed as similar to vino: “Smoking a joint and taking a bath is what drinking a glass of wine and taking a bath was to my mom,” she says, balancing a baby on her knee. “It’s ‘me’ time!”

Think of the children!

The acceptance of pot has led to discussion of how marijuana reform might positively impact families and children. This may change the debate because family values have long been employed by drug warriors as reasoning for why weed ought remain criminalized.

Enter Jessica Corry, a pro-life Republican from Denver. A mother of girls aged two and four, this 30-year-old newly-minted lawyer is widely hailed as a rising star in Colorado politics. She is currently working on her first book, which she described to me as an “analysis of how race consciousness and political correctness are silencing America’s students and our entrepreneurial spirit.”

A real conservative. Yet she is also one of the most outspoken proponents of marijuana legalization.

In 2006, she started a group called Guarding Our Children Against Marijuana Prohibition, which supported a statewide initiative to legalize marijuana.

“I had high-ranking Republicans politely encouraging me to write my political eulogy,” Corry said. “Fortunately, they were wrong. While the initiative failed, it garnered more general election support than that year’s Republican candidate for governor.”

Corry doesn’t smoke pot — though she is open about past use. “As a mother,” she says, “I’m far more concerned about my kids having access to a medicine cabinet than having access to a joint or a liquor cabinet. Marijuana, when consumed independently, has never been linked to a single death.”

Mothers like Corry are drawn to marijuana regulation as part of a larger appeal that encourages the use of harm reduction to more pragmatically deal with substance abuse. Examples of harm reduction include providing designated drivers for drinkers and clean needles for heroin addicts.

Concerned moms may be moved to action by studies such as the Teen Survey, conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia. This year, there was a 37 percent increase in teens who said pot is easier to buy than cigarettes, beer or prescription drugs. Nearly one-quarter said they can get weed within the hour.

Those stats matter to women. In light of this, children and family will be included in the mission statement of the Women’s Alliance, a group NORML will launch next year. The coordinator, Sabrina Fendrick, plans to include mention of how current marijuana policy undermines the American family and sends mixed messages to young people.

An economic savior?

The harm reduction approach extends itself from families and children to our ailing economy. With the largest economic recession since the Great Depression firmly in place, more people see the benefits of taxing and regulating marijuana for adults.

Economist Jeffrey Miron has calculated that, assuming a national market of about $13 billion annually, legalization would reap state and federal governments about $7 billion each year in extra tax revenues and save about $13.5 billion in law enforcement costs.

This kind of math attracts libertarian support, ranging from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California who recently called for an open discussion on legalization, to Rep. Ron Paul, a physician and Republican congressman from Texas, who has long advocated it.

The problem with a fiscal approach, however, might be that it could have more traction as a top-down rather than a bottom-up movement. Deborah Small, a drug reform veteran and founder of Break the Chains, a group that engages communities of color around drug reform policy, believes the reason the medical marijuana movement has been so successful is that its female leaders have made it a “real grassroots movement.”

“Male-dominated libertarian philosophy and money has dominated” the general marijuana reform movement, Small says, and “there’s a struggle in this next stage to see whether the movement will be driven by people with a lot of money or people on the ground — or if they can agree to work together.”

Perhaps male drug reform leaders can learn from the ladies. Jessica Corry, the GOP mom from Denver, turns the economic discussion back to the home: “It’s generational child abuse to waste billions of dollars every year on marijuana prohibition.”

Mikki Norris, the California marijuana activist, observed gender-specific focus groups in Oakland on Measure Z, a 2004 ballot initiative that ultimately succeeded in making marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority. She heard the women’s group speaking on behalf of their children — “they wanted money for their kids’ education and they didn’t want kids arrested for pot.” Men, on the other hand, were more worried about children getting involved with drugs, she told me.

Norris said, “I just think women have a better grasp of home economics,” or what’s really important in a family.

Today’s economic climate lends itself to easy parallels with the fight to repeal Prohibition in the 1920s, which was also framed as a family issue. Harry Levine, the sociologist, reminded me of Pauline Sabin, a high-society Chicago feminist who organized women in the fight to repeal the 18th Amendment.

“Sabin said that because of the violence, the corruption, the bootleggers, and all the resulting lost tax revenue, that alcohol undermined the home and therefore women should speak out for themselves and children,” Levine said.

Many point to the moment when women joined the fight against Prohibition as the tipping point for the ultimate success of the movement.

Women as a new force

The women in the marijuana reform movement have different reasons for trumpeting policy change. Some see cannabis as a medicinal wonder drug, others see tangible — and sensible — socio-economic benefits to taxing and regulating it.

Trends indicate that as more states legalize the use of cannabis for medical purposes, more people will discover first-hand that legalization of marijuana does not equate with anarchy and instead with more effective control of a substance so readily available to Americans — and American kids — across the country.

And as Californians may next year, Americans will soon be exposed to the choice between regulating marijuana for adult use or continuing a failed drug war that incarcerates 850,000 people a year — tearing apart families, ruining futures, and siphoning from public funds that might otherwise benefit the next generation. All this for a relatively mild psychotropic that at least a third of us has tried.

As the recession continues to unravel communities across the country, the economic incentive to end this drug war will affect the opinions of many who might never otherwise have considered legalization. The time may very well be now.

Similar to the prohibition of alcohol in the early twentieth century, what we have today is a federal policy that is at odds with public opinion. It is a policy without a plurality of citizen supporters.

And many women are at the vanguard of the movement that recognizes this and is fighting for change.

Opioid pain medications include a broad range of drugs, such as morphine, codeine and oxycodone. They are marketed under many different brand names, including Percocet®, OxyContin®, and Tylenol No.1®.

When used as directed, opioid pain medications are effective and the side effects (e.g., drowsiness, nausea, constipation, etc.) are generally manageable. However, abuse of these medications can have serious health effects and may lead to addiction.

Opioid pain medications are generally used to manage moderate to severe pain, which may be acute (e.g., short-term pain following surgery) or chronic (e.g., long-term pain associated with a medical condition, such as different types of cancers). They may also be used to control moderate to severe cough, control diarrhea, and treat addictions to other opioids, including street drugs like heroin.

Potential for Abuse and Addiction

In addition to treating pain, opioid medications can also cause euphoria (a "high"), and this makes them prone to abuse. Patients taking opioid medication for pain may or may not experience a high. However, all opioids have the potential to be addictive. Addiction refers to the compulsive use of a substance, despite its negative consequences. People with a personal or family history of substance abuse, including alcohol, may be at higher risk of addiction to opioid pain medications.

Over the past decade, abuse of and addiction to opioid pain medication has emerged as a public health issue. Abuse of these medicines can cause serious health effects for the user, including a risk of death from an overdose. Drug abuse and addiction to any substance may also cause problems at work or school, and can result in the breakdown of family relationships. In addition, drug abuse can result in financial costs to society for things like healthcare, crime, and lost productivity.

Other subjects in this article include;

• Side Effects of Opioid Pain Medications
• Other Safety Concerns
• Overdose
• Drug Interaction
• Physical Dependence / Withdrawal
• Minimizing Your Risk
• Health Canada’s Role

Need More Info?

And, visit the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and search for these resources: "Do You Know…Opioids," "Oxycontin: Straight Talk" and "Is it Safe for My Baby – Pain Medications."

Full article at; Health Canada

See also; Narcotics Anonymous

I grew up in West Texas, Amarillo, if you want specifics.  It’s a place where everyone is always willin’ to tell ya you’re wrong if you’re not like them, but  I think what scares ‘em is that I’m a whole lot more like them than they want to admit.  Any of them could have wound up like me.  That’s the truth.

When I was nineteen I was doing some ranch work for my uncle and I got thrown from an old pinto named Delilah.  Even though I knew how to take a fall, I landed all wrong and felt a jolt of pain that ran my entire back.  I couldn’t stand on my own and I had to lay there until the ambulance came.

The doctors said I cracked a vertebra.  They put me in a brace and it was awhile before I could get up and around on my own again.  During that down time I was taking a lot of medication, mostly pain killers, to keep the pain at a level where I could move around a little, you know, enough so that I could use the bathroom on my own.

Well, one day a friend of mine was over at the house and he saw me taking all these pills and he asked me if I had to take that much.  I told him that even with as much as I was taking it wasn’t doing much good.  He told me that he might know how to get something that would help more than the pills.

The next day he showed up with a bottle of morphine and a syringe.  He wouldn’t tell me where he got it, but his father had just died from cancer a few months before so I assumed this was leftover from him.  My buddy told me how much to take and showed me how to inject it.  After that first shot, I had to have it.  It didn’t make the pain go away, but it did make it so I didn’t care about it.

For a long time I wouldn’t shoot it into my vein.  I’d pinch up the skin on my leg and inject it under there.  That’s how I had been shown to do it and I had the idea that I couldn’t get addicted so long as I was doing it that way.  All these years later I can’t tell you how funny that idea seems, but I sure as shit believed it then.

So, that’s how it started.  I broke my back and a friend turned me on to morphine.  Since that first day I haven’t really gone any significant time without shooting dope of some sort.

If you slam your hand in the car door and experience physical pain, medical science can offer you a “pain killer!“.  Certainly morphine (via its activation of the mu opioid receptor (OPRM1)) will make you feel a whole lot better.  However, if your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you and you experience emotional pain, its not so clear whether medical science has, or should offer, such a treatment.  Most parents and doctors would not offer a pain killer.  Rather, it’s off to sulk in private, perhaps finding relief in the writings of countless poets who’ve attested to the acute pain that ensues when emotional bonds are broken.

Love hurts! But why should this be? Why does the loss of love hurt so much?

From a purely biological point of view, it seems obvious that during certain periods of life – childhood for instance – social bonds are important for survival.  Perhaps anything that helped make the breaking of such bonds feel bad, might be selected for?  Its a very complex evolutionary genetic problem to be sure.  One way to begin to solve this question might be to study genes like OPRM1 and ask how and why they might be important for survival.

Such is the case for Christina Barr and colleagues, who, in their paper, “Variation at the mu-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) influences attachment behavior in infant primates” [doi:10.1073/pnas.0710225105] examine relationships between emotional bonds and genetics in rhesus macaques.  The team examines an amino acid substitution polymorphism in the N-terminus of the OPRM1 protein (C77G which leads to an Arginine to Proline change at position 26).  This polymorphism is similar to the human polymorphism (covered here) A118G (which leads to an Asparagine to Aspartate change at position 40).  Binding studies showed that both the 77G and 118G alleles have a higher affinity for beta-endorphin peptides.

Interestingly, Barr and colleagues find that the classical “pain gene” OPRM1 G-allele carrier macaques display higher levels of attachment to their mothers during a critical developmental phase (18-24 months of age).  These G-allele carriers were also more prone to distress vocalizations when temporarily separated from their mothers and they also spent more time (than did CC controls) with their mothers when reunited.  Hence, there ?may be? some preliminary credence to the notion that a gene involved in feeling pleasant/unpleasant might have been used during evolution to reinforce social interactions between mother and child.  The authors place their results into a larger context of the work of John Bowlby who is known for developing a theory of attachment and the consequences of attachment style on later phases of emotional life.

Click here for a previous interview with Dr. Barr and a post on another related project of hers.

Editors Note:  This is a follow on to two previous blogs and a developing story.

For those of you new to this, please read the first two installments at:

Part I

Part II

The reason I am sending you to another wormhole in cyberspace for these two articles, when the first of the two appears on this site, is for you to see something else.

DISCRIMINATION.  Particularly against women and those with disabilities and how unfounded such attitudes are, how our continued mistreatment, even by Obama, unfortunately, leads to this kind of thing, and why I am determined to make sure that I both get a meeting with him and that this kind of thing stops.

There is nothing like seeing for yourself to believe.  And the kind of comments I got, particularly on the first Part above are almost unbelievable.  Then again, this whole situation is.  And again something I blame on Obama, for reasons you will understand when you read the next parts of the developing story….something that nobody else has caught.  This is a serious and breaking news story about Presidential lawbreaking that it appears Congress is trying to cover up and none of the media outlets have caught.

Not bad for a, in the words of Mr. Summers’ Mr. Obama’s chief economic advisor, “biologically inferior” GIMP.   And in addition to that proposal that has sat in the White House for way too long, more than enough reason for a meeting in the Oval Office Pronto.  Otherwise, there will be more to follow.  Because Mr. Obama is pretty sexist himself.  And shows no respect for white women in their thirties and forties, to the extent that his goons have already beaten me up, his administration refuses to investigate, his White House refuses to return my calls on a very good jobs and clean energy proposal and THERE ARE NO WHITE WOMEN AT ALL IN THEIR THIRTIES OR FORTIES AT ANY POWERFUL POSITION IN THIS ADMINISTRATION, EITHER IN THE WHITE HOUSE OR HEADING UP A CABINET POSITION.

AND THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE.  IT IS CALLED DIVERSITY.  THEN AGAIN, AS YOU READ THIS STORY, YOU WILL SEE THAT MR. OBAMA’S BEHAVIOR IS A LITTLE LESS THAN PRESIDENTIAL.  IF NOT IMMATURE.  AND ILLEGAL.  THIS IS JUST ONE STORY.  THERE ARE MANY MORE.

This is the first of a series of this part of the action.

This is a follow up to the last blog I wrote on the topic of the supposed “break in” or um “lapse of security” or “failure of the secret service” or whatever bullshit du jour the “authorities” and “official sources” and unfortunately the mainstream media are too ever since that stupid distraction and soap opera occurred, are calling this charade not to mention the issue of “terrorist threats,” “threats to the president” and basically the entire pile of manure that surrounds this whole event that is, to use a phrase that I’m stealing from myself, but is absolutely appropriate here, so high, wide and deep that you can forget looking for the pony, ‘cause it died long ago.

Just from the stench of corruption surrounding this odiferous crap.

Not to mention the actual events of the night itself and why they were arranged.  Not to mention the ensuing “scandal” which was too.  And why.

The reason I’m writing this is because I have even more proof that what I wrote is true.

I now have additional proof that what I posted is true.  And now I’m going to tell you what that is, for several reasons, because I am really sick and tired of what is going on, and I am going to stop it.

I am also doing what I am doing to teach people, both in government and the average American a few lessons.  Including you Big Brother over there at Spook Central (NSC/CIA/FBI and whatever other unimaginative, unpronounceable acronyms you bozos make up for the security state that nobody can even remember, much less understand) and Orwell Tree House (The Department of Homeland Security) who can go kiss my ass.

And you know what; you guys over at the White House can do that too.  Not to mention ANYBODY IN GOVERNMENT, official or otherwise, who fucks with me over this.  Or anything else for that matter.  Except to start checking the President’s calendar for a meeting date.

Because I know Big Brother, among others, you are reading this too.  And if you care to show up at my door again, or any other government thugs, official or unofficial, all you are going to get, if I bother to answer my door at all, that is, is my middle finger in your face, if not my garbage pail contents thrown out my window on your heads and a string of invectives that is going to make that little twit Rambo look like a learning disabled three year old when it comes to using profanity (and I have far more respect for learning disabled three year olds than the other asshole bully for several reasons including their IQ, and morals) and trust me, I can out cuss that immoral fuck and bully in the White House, who does not intimidate me in the slightest, and when it comes to imaginative but very insulting, highly sophisticated, completely appropriate, extremely embarrassing and colorful profanity, huh, he’s in Kindergarten compared to me.  Among many other things.  And language I have every right to use.  Per some crazy thing called the law.  Not to mention, if he uses it, I can use it too.  See Title XII.

And if that confrontation happens, I will BE TAPING IT.  ON DIGITAL VIDEO SO IT WILL GO INSTANTLY VIRAL.  ASAP.

That if you would like to object to, on any stupid but you think clever or what is that word you dickheads like to use – “Unprecedented” – charge, is going to land you in a fucking Title XII, disabilities (both Rehab Act and/or ADA and 1991 Civil Rights Act) Hate Crimes and every other law I can throw at you, not to mention Constitutional law suit so fucking fast your heads are going to spin like a top.  And don’t even mention “NATIONAL SECURITY SECRET VIOLATION” YOU TURDS.

Because you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Even a prosthetic one.

Much less a wheelchair….and yes, I am making references to those with disabilities for a reason and not in a nasty or disrespectful way TO THEM, but to the fucks who are doing nothing about the issue (I.E. OUR NATIONAL LEADERS STARTING WITH OBAMA AND THE MISSUS, NOT TO MENTION CONGRESS) which you readers will understand in a sec, if you keep reading.

Capiche?

For those who don’t understand or think I’m being paranoid, even after you have completely read this blog and all of the attached blog posts (there are two other very important links you have to read to understand this especially if you have not been following the soap opera), I guarantee you, you will not think that way when I am done.

You see I had set a few, uh, “rat traps” to be consistent with my original analogies in that original story that I knew the ding dongs who I would be sending this too would probably set off and never even think to look for, much less, uh, “defuse the bomb”.  For reasons they would never catch or think I was too stupid to set.   And therefore trip.

Yes, I call myself Gimp Godzilla as a joke, but maybe Gimp Velociraptor would be more appropriate in this case.  Although I don’t plan on going extinct any time soon.  But trust me, just like in “Jurassic Park,” when I’m on the hunt for my prey, you will never see me coming.  And the uh, “attack” figuratively speaking will come from the direction least expected.

I may be a pacifist by choice.  But I do know how to be a predator.  That is the difference between being a moral human being with a sense of justice and committed to perpetuating it FOR EVERYONE and acting like a selfish solipsistic asshole.

See Exhibit A in the Oval Office for a perfect example of the latter.

But I knew that this was going to work because of the rampant discrimination against women and PWDs in our society, not to mention the disdain in general the political elite have for the hoi polloi.  And because they don’t want this leaking.  Blogs can be stripped from websites and blocked from channels in cyberspace too.  Just as well as pictures or stories can be blocked from websites.  Just like, for example, the British version of the BBC website was not available outside the country via the internet during key primaries in the U.S. last year.  How do I know that?  I checked.  For a reason.  I had some suspicions and still do about what the fuck is going on under the cover of FISA.  And trust me, when I write the blog that I’m going to about what I know about that, you will jump under the fucking bedclothes.

But why do you think that the BBC would block its own internal reporting from Americans trying to find out what the British were reporting internally during our own election, do you think?  And yes, the sites are different.  Go look them up.

But that kind of censorship has been going on for years.  Even before 9/11, Reuters, for example, would only send certain video feeds and news feeds  to certain countries and block feeds deliberately from going to others.  How do I know that?

Because I fucking worked for them.  Did I ever sign a nondisclosure?  No.  Did I ever tell them that I worked for the ACLU?  No.  Of course not.  They never asked.  And even if I had, they were too stupid or had no morals of their own to know, because of course I never said anything, that this kind of censorship is WRONG.

So people WAKE THE FUCK UP.  YOU ARE BEING LIED TO.  AND FUCKED WITHOUT THE LUBE.

And yes I’m using very graphic language, but I need to get this through your heads.  And, according to the latest studies in psychology and psychiatry, profanity gets people’s attention VERY FUCKING FAST.  So I’m not trying to offend you.  I am trying to educate you, save you, and WAKE YOU UP.

But back to our traps.  Of course they weren’t suspecting them.  So they tripped them.  Thus exposing their two inch, if that long, dicks in public.  And yes, that was meant to be a sexist insult, but a funny one, and certainly one they deserve.  You know, there are always substitutes that work just as well.  And if I can use them on you boys, as I do very handily and am often begged to, you can use them on me.

Ooops did I just say that?

Yes I did.

I hope you are laughing.  That was a comic moment.  You need them in these kinds of things.  Because this is a very scary story.  But now back to it.

Our government and our country, treat women like shit.  I mean look at who is in our government and how they treat just women, let alone gimps.  Unless you are a gazillionaire and even then, Mrs. Clinton (who I am no fan of but for the first time in my life felt sorry for when this happened during the campaign last year) for example had to endure having her daughter basically called a prostitute on mainstream, national TV.

Despite the crap the anchor, not to mention the network tried to use to justify its or even that asshole reporter’s actions, I would have had the head of the network’s balls on a platter.

And served for lunch the next day, au jus.

And FIRED that reporter.

I mean who the hell does he think he is?  Whether it is Chelsea Clinton or some unknown woman from the projects, you DO NOT say those things about women on MAINSTREAM TV.

Or ANYWHERE for that matter.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE MALE ASSHOLES RUNNING THE NETWORKS?  NOT TO MENTION THE MALE ASSHOLE REPORTERS?  THE ONLY ONES HIRED TO POLITICAL COVERAGE BEATS.

And if you don’t believe me, name one female political reporter in her thirties or forties, who does.

You can’t.  Because there aren’t any.  We are, to quote Larry Summers, biologically inferior of doing so, apparently.

What century are we in again?

You know that I’m joking and I’m not Hannibal Lector, but I would have been far firmer than Hillary Clinton was, is the point of the above.  Women are far too used to taking too much shit.  And then take their frustration out on each other.

I am someone who HAS NEVER TAKEN IT.  FROM ANYONE.  A blog story for another day.   But I suggest that American women start to learn that same fucking attitude.

Those bastards at the network are just lucky Mrs. Clinton isn’t me.

But Obama is no better, despite signing a piece of paper.  BFD.

According to Mr. Summers, Mr. Obama’s head economic advisor, women are “biologically inferior” and not capable of apparently anything except breathing and breeding.  Despite this, Mr. Obama decided that Mr. Summers, naturally, was the best candidate for the job, despite his incestuous relationships with Wall Street, not to mention his previous um “fulltime” employer, if you can call showing up for work one day a week a full time job (although at a salary that was quite impressive I have to say of $1.5 Million for that day of work) plus HUGE consulting fees on the side from other corrupt Wall Street perps, all of whom of course got bailed out with your money.

DE Shaw, Mr. Summer’s immediate ex-employer, and founded by a guy also from Mr. Obama’s undergraduate alma mater (gee, it gets more incestuous all the time, doesn’t it) that underpaying slave driver, don’t you think, FYI is the Quantiest of all quant firms in the known planet as well as a very successful hedge fund.  And also very involved in things like cancer research (i.e. healthcare), housing, and cleantech.  To the point that they invested in a HUGE offshore cleantech facility right off of what state, rather conveniently, right as Mr. Summer’s got his new job offer?

DELAWARE.

Which is significant why?

Because it is Mr. Biden’s home state.  The VEEP.

Setting themselves up not only for another incestuous spot on a Presidential advisory board but for first dibs on a lot of YOUR money in very lucrative fields where the government is giving money away to its favorite people right now.  In boatloads.  Healthcare, cleantech, etc and ad nauseum.

And oh, yes, DE Shaw is also buying lots of repossessed homes on the cheap too, as soon as the homeowners the government couldn’t give a fuck about are barely beginning to stack the few belongings left them in boxes next to their bunk beds in small piles at their nearest homeless shelter.  AND DON’T HIRE GIMPS.

Which as mentioned before in New York, thanks to such “brilliant” policies as Mr. Bloomberg’s, along with Mr. Donovan (who Mr. Obama picked for his new head of HUD so we can see some more of that “innovation in housing” nationally, are about as “brilliant” as those of Mr. Obama’s.  And as I have mentioned before, it costs twice as much to be homeless in New York City, as to occupy a studio apartment in the cheapest part of the city, thanks to such “brilliance.”  And, um “innovation.”

Does anyone else see any ethical or other say economic or logic problems here or am I the ONLY ONE?

Which also might explain some of the problems we’ve been having with Mr. Obama’s reluctance to do anything about reigning in Wall Street, implementing decent healthcare legislation, appointing a man to head Treasury who should be behind bars rather than behind the fucking desk at the head of Treasury (that would be little Timmy Turbo Tax) and does a lot of explaining about what is going so wrong right now with our economy and the absolutely inane if not stupid and immoral economic decisions this administration is making.  If not all of them.  About almost everything.  And no, signing documents doesn’t matter.  Neither does making token appointments.

Per that old fashioned Wendy’s ad “Where’s the FUCKING BEEF?”

Nonetheless Mr. Summers, who by the way also mentored Mr. Geithner, and along with Mr. Greenspan, destroyed the woman’s career who warned Mr. Greenspan in 1998/1999 about the danger of unregulated derivatives (for which they both wrecked her career right before they destroyed Glass Steagall, two of the most important reasons and causes for our economy going “boom’ last year with just as much force and destruction but which will cause far greater suffering for many more people GLOBALLY and last much longer than the damage of 9/11 ever did.

And this warning by the way, FROM A WOMAN, Brooksley Born (also the FIRST FEMALE LAW SCHOOL REVIEW EDITOR EVER AND FROM A PRESTIGIOUS LAW SCHOOL AT THAT…AND IN THE SIXTIES MR. OBAMA, you sexist asshole)…who of course, naturally don’t understand economics because we are so stupid and biologically inferior, per Summers, was BEFORE ENRON’s IMPLOSION, which was about exactly the same shit.

Oh, and one more thing.  Mr. Summers was also fired from Harvard for those disgustingly sexist and Neanderthal comments about women too.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama of course, being so much more brilliant than anyone else on the planet, according to him, naturally therefore, decided, that Mr. Summers would of course, be the best option to have as HIS numero uno economic advisor.

I personally see a great deal of “brilliance” in that decision, but not the kind I would ever share in public.  It’s the kind that I routinely extrude in my toilet and flush down the commode when solid waste removal out of a certain orifice for biological functioning of my internal organs is necessary.  Specifically the intestines and the bowel region of my anatomy.

If that is what we call “brilliance” in our elected leaders, I think Americans need to look up in a dictionary if necessary, if they do not understand the meaning of this next term: “shit for brains masquerading as genius instead.”

Nevertheless, back to the point.  The current administration is so sexist, elitist, discriminatory and impressed with its own importance and significance, not to mention that everyone in it thinks that they are smarter than everyone else in America, that it thinks it could never be set up in its own rat trap.

Which is exactly what I set out for them along with catching them in the act, in that little story about the “White House Break in” Bullshit.

It’s not that the story is not true…it’s just that I added certain extra things to set those traps off.

Except the traps I set were things that were extremely sophisticated, not verbal, not necessarily visible at all, and there are more of them that I’m not going to mention, but I will tell you about the ones that have so far gone off as in “SNAP, SNAP, SNAP” to further lend cred to this story, to teach a few lessons, and to start to make America WAKE THE FUCK UP.

The first is that the fact that a story carrying a picture of the CEO of PepsiCo India would be automatically sponsored on the premiere feeder law site domestically, LAW.COM is interesting in and of itself because the story is very critical of the President and the Indian government does not want to damage a business or political relationship with America right now.  Or vice versa.  Despite the fact that they want nothing to do with our military activities next door.

It’s not the first time that one of my stories has been carried on Law.com.  But the fact that it was sponsored by Pepsi was the issue.  Law.com would never have carried that story otherwise.  I did that deliberately.  By using so much profanity that there is no way they would.  Nor would Pepsi have sponsored it, certainly not Pepsi India, not only because of the colorful language I used, but also because they certainly would have gotten the cultural references I used also.

Which they, unlike Americans reading the story or apparently my blog posts, DO NOT UNDERSTAND.  They are sophisticated multinational cultural references that require an education.  That only very educated people will be able to interprete i.e. heads of state, senior members of the UN and people that I grew up with.  And was educated to think that way from a very young age.  Despite the ‘tude coming out of the White House and the way I was always treated in DC and for that matter New York about not having a fucking Ivy on my resume.

The reference I made to Mrs. Obama giving a children’s book, “The Jungle Book,” about a little Indian boy, who lived in the jungle among talking animals, would not (I certainly hope) be lost on either the Senior White House clowns (although you never do know given what they gave to Mr. Brown), certainly not Ms. Jarrett who hails from Imperial Iran under the American propped up Shah, (a horrifically brutal government also backed up by the CIA for American business interests) or the Indian Government.   The latter of whom would certainly understand that I was saying that America treats India like a child named Mowgli, the central character in Kipling’s book, as an unequal.  A primitive living in the jungle.  Low caste.  Not a Raj (an Indian King – the highest caste that one can get and closest to God in the Hindi religion).

Now do you understand?

And for Mrs. Obama to give him that book would be to say “Fuck You.  You bow to us.  You are part of the American Empire, we dictate how you are going to rule your country.”

That is what IMPERIALISM IS.

And personally disgusting coming from a woman who not only is the descendant of slaves but doesn’t even know that Sesame Street, for example causes epilepsy in children because of the editing techniques it uses.  And was used by the Nixon administration to dumb down public education.  Not to mention that the fact that yes, my proposal, sitting at the White House ignored, because for whatever reason the elitists at the White House think they are better than I am, when they aren’t,  is better than hers, including the fact that I had already done my homework eight months earlier, to the point of having soil scientists in place to soil test the plot of land I wanted to use for my organic gardening work.  Sorry honey, but just having an Ivy League or even being first lady, doesn’t give you the right to get credit for nothing.  And even worse than that Axelrod HAS a daughter with epilepsy.  And Mrs. Obama hasn’t hired or even invited a single person or a child to the White House with a disability.  Her father had one.  Why the hell is she sitting on the sidelines if ignoring the issue completely.

The reality is that the way people with disabilities are treated in America today is like the American Apartheid.  And frankly, just like India today.

In India, they pay slave labor wages to people who would be getting $60-70 an hour here.  And did.  Until they shipped jobs like computer programming to India.  Where the computer programmers there, with English speaking skills, get about $5 an hour for exactly the same work.  A practice Mr. Obama apparently seems to want to emulate, perpetuate if not speed up.  So I gave them a taste of their own fucking medicine.  To prove not only that the story was true about the fuckup and coverup, but to counter the sexism of this administration and Obama’s appalling continuation of OUR appalling foreign policy which ultimately hurts US.

So unless Law.com suddenly got smart about tagging, which I doubt, and knows about Indian telco law, which I doubt even further, someone told them to set that trigger on their site to pick up any picture from that night that included the picture of the perps with the CEO of PepsiCo India.  Who there was no doubt would be attending.   And was set on autopilot.  But someone set it and dollars to doughnuts came from the White House.  Again, remember the whole silly Pepsi vs. Coke thing?  Again, nothing happens for an accident.  The White House is setting up business relationships all over the place.  It’s providing product placement for Google for Christ’s sakes on it’s own website.

But it’s not a new thing for America to push it’s products onto the rest of the world, even at the point of a gun.  What is “unprecedented” to quote them themselves is that this is so aggressive, and that they are actively speeding up the outsourcing of slave labor overseas, making the situation here even worse.  And doing nothing about the situation back home.  But doing it in such a way that is literally invisible to the American people so all they see is Obama doing his “I care” act bullshit when the man doesn’t give a flying fuck.

And the reason I know all of this is deductive logic, Dr. Watson.  Plus a very strong background in Telco and IT.  Not to mention political and internet marketing strategy.  That includes, yes, even though I have tits, a working knowledge of electrical and network engineering.  BASED ON EXPERIENCE.  What the hell do you think digital video is?  It’s the same as data.  It just needs to move faster.  That is the layman’s explanation, but essentially that’s all the difference there is.  But Obama and crew want to play I’m smarter than you and use this to fuck everyone who doesn’t know this.

They don’t want Americans to know about this stupid tagging crap, manipulation of the internet, outsourcing jobs as an official policy, along with the rest of the story, because the sponsorship and the story itself was removed from that site by another act.

Another trap I’ll get to in a sec.

But back to the sponsorship thing.

That Pepsi sponsorship was triggered by the data mining of the picture of the CEO of PepsiCo India at the White House dinner.  Set by Law.com for a reason.  By whom do you think?  Who does business in India and needs to know Indian law, number one?  And number two; there is another reason which I’ll get to in a moment.  Also very geeky and technical, but important.

The answers are corporate lawyers and law firms who do the outsourced business of big corporate America.  Where metadata and data mining are starting to be a big deal.  Who the president is servicing and giving all the bailout money to first, instead of supporting small business.  Don’t you remember Summers finally saying about three weeks ago, something to the effect “oh, yes, well we are turning our attention now to small business.”

Why wasn’t that the FIRST PRIORITY OF THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY?

Small business has always been the driving force of the commercial engine of America.

For the White House to be MIA for TEN MONTHS while saving Big Business and Wall Street first, while giving them extra money on top of that, is bad enough.

For this shit on top of that (i.e. speeding up the export of cheap labor overseas) is even worse.

But they’re not going to give much money to small business either.

Why?

Because they are flushing it down the toilet in Afghanistan.

And who does that benefit?  Wall Street and big business.  Who make the equipment for DoD in the first place.  And get their financing from Wall Street.  So this whole canard is just another bailout of Wall Street over YOUR STREET, plus a whole lot of kids who are going to get blown away just for the fuck of it.

ONE YEAR IN AFGHANISTAN COSTS AT LEAST AS MUCH as the entire domestic bailout.

Conservatively it costs about $1 Million per troop per year to keep those kids in an area that we are never going to do jack in.  THREE EMPIRES HAVE ALREADY TRIED TO GO IN ALREADY AND LOST.  What the fuck are we doing there?  Does Obama really think he’s so fucking brilliant that he’s going to do better than anyone else on the fucking planet or in history?

NO FUCKING WAY.  He is delusional if he even maintains a dream about it.

The country IS MOUNT EVEREST.  OBAMA IS NOT FUCKING MOHAMMED.  HE CAN’T MOVE MOUNTAINS.  Much as he would like to think so.  Or his ass kissing staff tells him that.

If you have read ANYTHING about what those kids are going through this is exactly what they are facing and it’s flipping their wigs.  If not blowing their circuits.  Even the ones who made it through Iraq, in one piece and relatively sane.  Which was no picnic.

The country itself in the lowlands, if you look at my last blog on the topic, and I’ll include the topographical map below again, is at it’s LOWEST point, 3,000 feet above sea level.  Those squiggly little lines folks, for those unused to reading topographical maps, are FUCKING MOUNTAINS.  THE HIGHEST, TALLEST, MEANEST MOTHERS ON THE PLANET.

Now, add 60-80 lbs of gear to that, which is what the average combat soldier wears, no language skills, no interpreters (how many Afghani fluent interpreters does DoD have do you think, when we only had like ten Iraqi ones and we fired one for being gay, let alone the State Department where Mrs. Clinton gives the Russian head of state a MISSPELLED BUTTON MEANING RESET?) a completely foreign culture, even more foreign than Iraq, a culture that has been under attack for CENTURIES, so trust me, they are fierce as shit, not to mention Bedouins used to picking up and moving in three seconds flat, plus caves and secret hidey holes carved into the mountains and what do you think is going to happen?

Obama is saying we’re out of there in 2011?

BULLSHIT.

Those troops are going to be kicked into outer space.  Several galaxies far from here.

Obama doesn’t give a shit.  He’s listening to the generals and playing politics and rewarding Wall Street and corporate America.  YET AGAIN.  And the generals don’t give a fuck.  They just want promotions, big budgets and lots of toys to play with.

That is DoD.  Trust me.   I know these assholes.  Why the hell do you think I kicked THEIR asses when I was in DC.

So what the hell are we doing sending kids off to a war we are going to lose, costs billions to fight and is going to cause a shitload of suffering and we don’t even have a plan to treat the wounded already.  THERE IS NO PLAN TO TREAT, REHABILITATE OR FIND JOBS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TBI.  THE SIGNATURE WOUND OF BOTH IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.

Trust me.

I have TBI.

Even neurologists don’t fucking understand it.  It causes so many different kinds of conditions and we are on the dawn of neuroscience, that the fact that fucking White House is not only sending more troops off to a stupid war, but on top of this REFUSING to meet with the ONE PERSON IN THE COUNTRY, according to DOD, who doesn’t like ME, yet despite this, has already told me that I am far ahead of THEM in dealing with this, IS ANOTHER SIGN OF UNBELIEVABLE ARROGANCE.  IF NOT IRRESPONSIBILITY, SEXISM, RACISM, CLASSISM and everything else-ism.  And my proposal covers far more than that.

Like putting YOUR ASSES BACK TO WORK.  NOW.  At good salaries.  And saving your fucking mortgages.  NOW.  But Obama doesn’t want that.  Summers doesn’t want that.  Congress doesn’t want that.

They want their buddies to make a fortune off America’s pain.  And whether or not you want to believe that or not, that is what is happening.  All you have to do is look at where the grants are going.  I just happen to have contacts in DC at a high level because of my experience and have secret hidey holes and sources I’ll never reveal that also confirm that this is going on.

And that is totally WRONG.

And this latest escapade of blaming the secret service, is exactly the same fucking thing.  Obama and Co. are basically acting like High Caste Indians and treating the rest of America like low caste untouchables, as they call them in India.  While sending out Obama to do his “everyone in America has opportunity BS” act when they need him to.

Folks, Obama himself was incredibly privileged despite the ‘po black boy shit the campaign cooked up.  How many people have legacy AND minority extra special passes to Harvard Law?  Plus grannies who work at banks, so cosignatories on loans was never an issue.  How many people can say that?

3?  Maybe?

In the ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY?

So I gave them a taste of their own medicine.  Because I have a fucking education.  And because despite the fact that Obama thinks that he is god’s gift to the fucking planet, he’s not.

At this point I think he’s just a greedy, lying, corrupt fucking snot.

You do not set up people who are putting their lives on the line to protect you and your family for some fucking stupid political game to protect someone who may be your fucking mistress.  Much less the billion dollar salaries of some of the most corrupt, abusive companies on the planet.  The American Fortune 500.

But in the case of Tinkerbelle and Dingbat, whoever those two are, why the hell has Obama not already just ‘fessed up that he knew who they were?

Why is Tinkerbelle’s claim to greatness different in that picture at the end of the story I already posted than what she claimed to be in Virginia?  Why did no reporter do a check to see if she was a cheerleader FOR the Redskins in the first place?  Or Orwell Central for that matter before going off on some tangent about terrorists?  The Redskins are DC’s hometown sports obsession.  It’s not that difficult to get lists of who was on the cheerleading squad  going back to the founding of the team itself.  It’s not a national security secret.  Like say getting into the White House.  During a HIGH SECURITY, have to be CLEARED BY THE PENTAGON FIRST TO GET IN affair.

But Obama knows them, has for some time, has YET to say that he does, that is very clear, why the fucking secrecy in the first place?  That is what is so WRONG with this whole fucking story to begin with.  And why I smelled a rat.  And why I set out so many rat traps.  And sure enough, they’re going off.  Confirming my story and my suspicions to a T.

And that is why I’m deconstructing it.  And setting the traps I am.  And so far, every fucking suspicion, not to mention trap has been right and gone off like clockwork.  And that alone should make you too, start to ask some really hard questions if not pee in your fucking pants.  Why?  I’ll get to in a minute.

But back to the story.  We were at Pepsi.

Pepsi is hardly a shrinking violet when it comes to the online branding and social networking of it’s branding either.  I highly suggest you take a look at this link and especially think about the politics of the American politician they show.  Specifically the one known as “Tricky Dick” and his involvement with things like dirty tricks, break-ins, lying, illegal spying and of course, ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING.

And the significance to today’s problems with say FISA.  And what I’m pretty sure is an enemy’s list.  Because no matter what I’ve done, and what I’ve said, and no matter how much I’ve called, the White House REFUSES to call me back.

And there is NO EXCUSE FOR THAT.

But on the topic of Pepsi using Nixon as their iconic role model, rather ironic and fitting, don’t you think?  And pretty stupid on Pepsi’s part, although quite revealing of both their corporate politics, and, I’m sorry to say, The White House’s.  And this stupid equation and continuation of America’s obsession with fighting wars and translation of “Commie=Terrorist.”

And part of this idea called cultural superiority that Americans have that our mission in life is to Americanize the world.

Wrong.

While I’m no opponent of FAIR international trade, I don’t like seeing the double arches of McDonalds in Serbia.  And OUR, as in the American way of life is in NO WAY SUPERIOR to that of any other culture.  In fact, our way of life is incredibly destructive. Including ecologically.

Samuel Huntington, who I’m sure Mr. Obama read at Harvard or Columbia, and probably loves, was an appalling example of this kind of grandiose, America is better than anyone else thinking.

And Americans in general are appallingly culturally imperialistic, ignorant and intolerant.

And you can hate that opinion and statement all you want but having lived abroad, and trust me, if this country doesn’t shape up, will again pretty soon, with no plans on returning ever again, other countries and their cultures have the right to exist, without America fucking telling them what to do, eat, drink, consume or how to live their lives.  Much less steal their natural resources at gunpoint.  Or use their population as slave labor for our multinational criminal corporations.  Who use the same corporate BS propaganda as the White House is now, but trust me, it’s Bullshit.

Having worked at one of those appalling megamonsters out of necessity for awhile, which has now absolutely destroyed my life (guess that teaches me, huh) I know damned well how American corporations treat Indian workers.  Highly skilled ones at that.  And the truth is not very pretty.  In fact it’s a horror story.

But for the next part of THIS HORROR STORY, you’ll have to tune in to the next blog post.  Part II

Brahim in Truro, MA 10/04

Micro & Hassan in NYC circa '04?

It’s been a looooong time coming, but I am finally going to Morocco. I still can’t quite believe it’s going to happen, and won’t really believe it until I step foot on Moroccan soil. I know that’s just my dark, can’t-get-too-exited-about-things side, and it’s tempered by my giddy, can’t-believe-my-good-fortune-holy-fucking-shit! side. This will be the culmination of a long love affair between me and this magical country that has its roots in hanging out with Mark Sandman at his Norfolk St loft (Hi-N-Dry mach 2) in the mid-90s and listening to Hassan Hakmoun’s Gift Of The Gnawa while sharing a smoke. We marveled at the sound of the sintir, a 3-stringed bass lute with a camel-skin top that Mr Hakmoun was literally spanking the shit out of…wow. These roots deepened considerably several years later in ‘99 when I met and became friends with Brahim Fribgane, an incredible oud player and percussionist who was living in NYC at the time but originally came from Casablanca.

Brahim moved to Boston and joined Club d’Elf and became my roommate. With his tutelage I began to learn the intricacies of Moroccan music, which involved he and I sitting in my car on long drives to gigs or rehearsals and listening to cassettes of Berber and Gnawa music and me trying to find where “the one” was. In much Moroccan music there is no “one”, the place of emphasis where in Western music we begin counting the rhythm. “The one” is usually accented or emphasized in some way, but in Moroccan rhythms such as the chaabi the accent is on an upbeat and if listened to with Western ears such as mine, this upbeat becomes “the one”, only it ain’t. With Brahim’s patient help I would continually clap where I felt the beat, and he would invariably laugh and clap the true “one”, which was an eighth note or two away from mine. It was maddening, but I was so into it that I just kept at it, over and over, and began a process of self-brainwashing, where I would intellectually “know” where “the one” should be, and would clap that, fighting against the pull of where I was actually hearing it. At last it was like the aural equivalent of the visual phenomena of letting your eyes go out of focus while looking at something until it takes on a 3-D quality. When this happened, it was…a-mazing. Everything became clear in that instant, only to be lost soon again. Like long-distance running I just kept at it until I could go for longer stretches without losing “the one”. I don’t know how Brahim restrained himself from strangling me…I would not have been so relaxed if I were him.

For several years from about ‘00 to 03 I hung out with Brahim at his friend Abder’s store in North Cambridge called Moroccan Bazaar, now sadly gone. We would sit and drink tea and play and listen to music til all hours with all the Moroccans who would come by, as the store’s basement was a favorite after hours spot. I finally acquired a sintir when Abder, brought one back for me from a trip to Morocco to purchase merchandise for the store. With tips from Brahim and the Gnawa musicians who I met through him (including my hero Hassan Hakmoun) I set about learning to play this profound instrument, and began to incorporate it into the music that Club d’Elf was playing, which increasingly was becoming more and more influenced by Moroccan sources.

Flash forward to several months ago when I first learned of an organization called the University of the Middle East, which as it turns out in kind of a weird synchronicity, is located in the Armory in Somerville, the home of Hi-N-Dry and The Mark Sandman Music Project. Puzzling evidence. The UME are an NGO who are seeking to create links between cultures, and to that end had initiated a sister city program between Somerville, MA and Tiznit, Morocco. A delegation of people from Somerville, lead by Mayor Curtatone was going to Morocco and were accepting applications from teachers, educators, artists & musicians. Naturally I applied, and to my delight I was eventually accepted, but the cost of the trip was going to be too prohibitive for me to go. Oh well. They seemed confident that some grants might come through and asked me in the meantime to appear with them on a local cable public access show where they would discuss the trip. I would speak about my connection to Moroccan music and play a little sintir. Ok, I said. Well, the powers that be apparently saw the show and were impressed and a few days later I was notified that funding for me to go had been received. I…would…go…to…Morocco.

I’ll fill in more of the details in posts to come, as well as more of the back story. Gotta get ready for a gig tonight, so this will have to do for now.

Keeping it on the “and of one”

-Micro

11.28.09

P.S. This documentary on Sandman looks very promising. Watch the longer trailer on Vimeo…so cool to see the home movies of him as kid….

8.14.09 Lizard D'Elf w/ (L to R) Vicente Lebron, Paul Schulthies, Mike Rivard, Mister Rourke, Randy Roos & Dean Johnston

Warning this blog contains pictures  

that may be considered graphic and offensive.  

16 October 2009: 06:15  

Well it’s that morning at last.  

As the sun struggles to raise its head over the horizon I’m in the car being driven from Thomson Street to St.Vincent’s Hospital.  

Naturally I’ve over packed. My suitcase is filled with ‘ward’ appropriate outfits; boxers, white T Shirts, laptops and the like.  

The front doors of the hospital are still locked but a nurse about to start her day lets me in.  

I make my up the escalator to the ‘check in lounge’. The staff are all preoccupied playing Tetris; it’s early for them as well. A few other patients some with family dribble in.  

Finally action stations, a flurry of forms; ‘Sign here, initial here. Follow me through to the pre-op room. Take off your clothes and put them all into this large plastic back, and put on this robe, these underpants, the hat hair net and then onto to the gurney and now just try to relax.’  

 The sun is up.  

I’m visited by a very sweet, attractive Plastic Surgeon registrar (female) who checks where the ’flap’ that will become my hard palate is to come from. She looks concerned then after a phone call decides to leave well enough alone.  

I’m rolled through into another pre-op room. This time one of the anesthesiologists recognises me from the clinic a few days earlier. We chat as he inserts a needle into a vein, smiles all around… it’s too late to back out now… and then it’s good night folks…  

ICU (do u c me?)

While I’m out they remove my upper palate – well most of it and replace with a flap of skin, muscle and a few vital blood vessels from my right arm. (If you’re brave see the picture below – I warn you it’s graphic.)  

I wake up, briefly, twelve hours later on my way to ICU, “You’re doing really well Peter. It went really well.” A phrase I hear repeated many times over the next few days until even I don’t believe it.  

Richard who has been given the task of taking ‘the post op pic’, nervously snaps off two shots in ICU before he scurries away and I sink back into the black abyss.  

Later that same night I’m transferred up to the ward and shuffled from the ICU bed to a Ward bed.  

“On the count of three; One, two, three.” I let out a loud groan as I’m slid from bed to bed.  

“Squeeze my hands Peter. You’re doing really well.” Strong ethereal, female voices offer me reassurance. I drift back into my nightmare of unconsciousness.  

My dreams are squalid; filled with a sub world where things crawl through mud, slime and crap. No light enters this land. I know I’m ‘out to it’ but even when I think I’m awake I see the dirt and the evil that surrounds me.  

Creatures mutilated by their environment; a cross between Dickensian London, the Matrix and Mordor.  

I’m longing to see some light… some colour… anything vaguely human.  

When I finally seem to surface from the ‘pit’, I’m in my bed next to a window looking out over Victoria St., sharing a room with three others: an old jockey (Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup winner) Les, John a man who is actually thinner than me – he is unable to eat does have an extremely attractive son that I grimace at when attempting a seductive smile, and then there’s ‘Frank’.  

Frank is older and one of those people who seem perfectly fine; for some reason he chooses to wear two hospital gowns yet every time he bends over he flashes a set of balls that would make cowboy blush. He collects things like newspaper articles, the bag the cutlery comes in when meals are delivered, polystyrene cups… he is a hoarder, and as it turns out has a foul temper if someone, anyone touches his ‘stuff.’  

I sink slowly back into the morphine morass, back into the world of goblins and deformity.  

The first three days of post operation recovery are a nightmare. All I want to do is sleep; all they want me to do is sit up in a chair and then go for a walk.  

Physios and bed baths… leave me alone you angels of ill-health  

 I can’t speak because of the tube coming out of my neck and there’s another one up my nose and down into my stomach, for feeding – it keeps slipping and irritating me.  

I come up with ideas for new films and television series as I slip between worlds. The one that stands out is the series I called ‘The Aborts’.  

Now in my head, and my defence, this was a fully formed idea when I was self medicating with morphine.  

The Premise:  

A hospital waste management ship is sailing off the coast of America when it is swamped by a rogue wave.   

The ship is overturned and the cargo of unwanted human embryos is swept into the  ocean.   

One container washes up on an isolated uninhabited island.   

The container breaks open and the embryos are thrown into a swamp where they somehow feed and grow to become mutant embryonic, life forms.   

As they grow up each embryo develops a special power. They band together to form a team of avenging foetus’.  

Their aim in life is to fight against stem cell and live embryonic research by large corporate super companies and also reunite with the parents who aborted them.  

There you go, that’s what morphine can do to you.  

I stop morphine after this and refuse all pain medication. I can’t stand the side affects – so I suffer in silence, (mostly).  

Pressure sores are a bi-product of being in hospital especially if you are ‘slim’. I always get one… and always in the same space; just above the ‘bum crack’ at the base of the spine.  

The day Don Lane died was a big day, not just because dear Don died but it was also the day me bowels opened and moved… and moved… and moved.  

Poor Ricardo, the night nurse, hosed me down at least three times that night. From the moment his shift started, my sh*t started. To his credit, in fact to the credit of every nurse who has had to hose me down, they all did it with such kindness and gentleness. At no stage was I ever made to feel wrong. I’m sure I’ve said it before but this part of my ‘diss ease’ is the most humiliating for me. I HATE  it.  

After ten days I’m able to go home – eager to go home – to continue my recovery.  

I’m tired, exhausted and pretty drained emotionally – I mean who wouldn’t be when the hospital doesn’t have cable just the basic commercial TV stations and NO wireless connection.  

So it’s back to my flannelette sheets, warm cups of tea and the oft scorned ‘Arrowroot Biscuit.’  

I have found recovery this time much harder than 2003 but then I am 6 years older and a lot has happened and a lot is still to come.  

That’s enough for now – sorry there aren’t more jokes.  

Before I go the one thing that stands out is that out health care system is in crisis. The nurses always seem to be slightly under staffed, always just one short and their work load is huge. How they get by and maintain a mostly cherry attitude amazes me and makes me feel slightly ashamed every time I sink into ‘poor me’ mode.  

Enough – this is already too long.

Alarm went off at 6am. I should have known it was the start to a bad day… I took a good 45 minutes to get up. Then, quickly jumped in the shower and I then had a cup of coffee. The reason I got up so early was because I had a doctor’s appointment at 8am. It took me too long to get ready so I ended up taking a taxi instead of the subway. I felt somewhat guilty, because the purpose of this project is to change the way we live for the better. On the other hand, the taxi was WAY more convenient. I ended up arriving a little early, which gave me enough time to have breakfast at a coffee shop nearby. I had a breakfast sandwich (egg, ham and cheese on a croissant) with a second cup of coffee, if you must know. I’m starting to believe that I’m seriously addicted to coffee. Aren’t we all? So here are 20 surprising health benefits of coffee:

1. Apparently, coffee and alcohol really do go together. Believe it or not, alcohol drinkers who also drink coffee regularly have a lower chance of developing cirrhosis of the liver. That’s not to say it’s a healthy lifestyle – obviously, lowering your alcohol consumption is better. But…science says…
2. Caffeine reduces risk of skin cancer. Sorry, venti quaffers, this prevention method is topical. Lotions containing caffeine (both from coffee and green tea) have been shown to prevent the occurrence of cancerous tumors on the skin – in murine trials, anyway.
3. Have a smile with your morning brew! If you’re a caffephile, you don’t need this Johns Hopkins study to tell you that a cup or two a day increases your sense of well-being and happiness. You can thank dopamine for that, which also contributes to coffee’s addictive nature. But be aware, the study also noted that more than 2 cups daily increases the risk of anxiety and panic attacks. Some people respond more readily than others – if you find yourself feeling jittery or nervous, ease up on the joe.
4. Caffeine may reduce chance of Parkinson’s Disease. A 30-year study has shown that non-coffee drinkers have a higher chance of developing Parkinson’s Disease than their coffee-drinking counterparts.
5. Most Americans get their antioxidants from coffee. That doesn’t mean it’s the best source of antioxidants, just that it’s the most consumed. But, it’s true, coffee is very high in antioxidants. As for me, I’ll stick to fruit.
6. Black gold. After petroleum, coffee is the second most valuable economic product in the world. Imagine the financial potential of running our cars on coffee grounds.
7. Coffee may cut colon cancer in women. A 12-year study on Japanese women found that drinking 3 or more cups of coffee per day may actually halve the risk of developing colon cancer. They found no beneficial effect from green tea on the colon – in this case, it was strictly a coffee thing.
8. Coffee and diabetes, that’s a tricky one. Even though a Finnish study shows that drinking large amounts of coffee can reduce the risk of developing Type-2 Diabetes, coffee drinkers who already have diabetes have a harder time controlling their blood sugar levels.
9. Coffee reduces muscle pain. After a hard workout, a cup or two of coffee has been shown to reduce muscle soreness (in women, anyway) more effectively than naproxen, aspirin and ibuprofen. (But don’t replace your water thermos with coffee.)
10. Coffee will detox your liver in surprising ways. This remedy is not one for drinking: we’re talking about the coffee enema. Some people swear by it – using a tube to introduce coffee into the rectum and colon in order to stimulate the liver to remove toxins. Definitely not for the squeamish.
11. Coffee may reduce chance of death from heart disease. Studies show that drinking 4-5 cups of coffee a day can make you less likely to die from heart disease. The researchers think it may have something to do with coffee’s anti-inflammatory effects.
12. The devil is in the grounds. When coffee, which originated in Ethiopia and became popular in the Arab world, was first introduced to Western culture, Christian priests denounced it as the devil’s drink, given to the Muslims as a substitute for the wine (Christ’s blood) they weren’t allowed to consume. The belief at the time was that any coffee-drinking Christian risked burning in hell forever. Hooray, progress!
13. Coffee may help with short term memory. It’s probably because of caffeine’s stimulant effects, but an Austrian study showed that volunteers given caffeinated coffee had better reaction times and short-term memory function than those who were given the cup of decaf.
14. For women, caffeine may prevent long term memory loss. Because caffeine is a psychostimulant, older women who drink 3 or more cups of coffee or tea a day have less memory loss and cognitive decline than their counterparts who drink less or none. Unfortunately, caffeine consumption doesn’t seem to have any preventative effect against dementia.
15. Caffeine won’t cause hypertension. Some of the studies can be contradictory and confusing. What we do know is that for non-habitual coffee drinkers, those first few cups will cause a temporary rise in blood pressure, but for regular drinkers, a tolerance develops and won’t cause any long term, permanent increase.
16. The injustice of cheap coffee. No, it’s not just an injustice to your connoisseur taste buds; conventional coffee farming exploits workers and destroys communities in third world countries. On average, 5% of the profits actually make it back to the farmers, who are hungry, underpaid and treated badly. Why do they work on coffee plantations at all? Because in many cases, the plantations own the most fertile land (which was most often acquired unscrupulously) and the local people won’t survive from subsistence farming alone. How can you avoid supporting the cycle of poverty, corruption and injustice? Only buy Fair Trade certified coffee.
17. Pesticides in your brew. Because almost all coffee is grown in third world countries with less stringent lawsthan Europe or the United States, your non-organic cuppa is probably laden with chemicals. That’s not just bad for you, it’s bad for the farmers and the tropical ecosystems in which the coffee is grown. Go organic, will ya?
18. Pick your poison – literally. Caffeine is an alkaloid, which is a type of poisonous, bitter substance found in plants. Other alkaloids include strychnine, nicotine, morphine, mescaline, and emetine (the deadly ingredient in hemlock). Fortunately, in small quantities the bean is harmless, but it’s worth thinking about if you choose to use other drugs (both pharmaceutical and recreational).
19. The FDA has approved caffeine for babies. This doesn’t mean you can wake up your sleepy infant with a bottle of latte. Caffeine injections have been used medicinally since 1999 in the United States to stimulate breathing in infants who are experiencing apnea. It’s still recommended that pregnant and breastfeeding women keep their caffeine intake to a minimum, but a modest amount is safe.
20. Coffee can fight cavities. Just avoid all the sugar and milk! Actually, roasted coffee has some antibacterial properties, particularly against Streptococcus mutans, one of the major causes of cavities. By the way, these properties have nothing to do with caffeine, so decaf drinkers will get the same protection.

Source: http://www.ecosalon.com/20-surprising-facts-about-coffee/

My doctor told me I was in perfect health. Yay! Probably because I drink so much coffee… kidding. I then went back home, but this time I used public transit. The rest of the day was pretty usual. I stayed home to catch up on my schoolwork. I don’t like studying at the library or at coffee shop. I need ABSOLUTE silence to concentrate. That’s why I got noise-cancelling headphones for Christmas. I think another reason is that I have mild social phobia. Being around strangers makes me uneasy. So I stay home a lot. This is definitely something I should work on… Lunch was hot-dogs and V8. No comment.

I kept working throughout the afternoon, but I slowly started to grow really anxious. It’s because I had planned on calling Sophie that day. Who’s Sophie? The Sophie from a few posts ago. You people have to read everything in chronological order or you won’t understand anything! Anyways, I don’t consider myself to be very good with girls, so I was dreading the phone call. I was afraid that it would be awkward or that I wouldn’t know what to say. I get really tongue-tied with girls I’m interested in. But I figured that because she gave me her number I should be more positive. Couldn’t have been more wrong… When I called, she was studying in the library, so it took a moment before she could talk. Then I awkwardly tried to start a conversation, but it seemed pretty forced. I ended up asking if she’d like to go out this weekend and that’s when she dropped the bomb. She’s seeing someone.

I then felt like crap for the rest of the day. Let’s try to analyze the situation with a social context perspective. SO, why did I feel like crap? I felt like crap, because I really wanted to go out with Sophie. Why did I really want to go out with Sophie?  I really wanted to go out with her because she seemed like a really nice girl. But why? Because I was attracted to her. Why was that? Because in the end, we’re just animals and our sole purpose is the survival of the species. How romantic…

So, I went cold-turkey off of Morphine. Was on it for chronic pain, and had some $$ problems.   A few days into the detox, I realized exactly what it was doing to me, so I went all the way.  Sure I could have found the money, sure, I could have relapsed…  but I didn’t.

What I did was for me, my loved ones, and all my friends.  My mind was a muddled mess, a horrible cesspool of chemical doping and poison. 
I was not me.

Throughout this process, my Love and amazing person, TotalLunar Eclipse, put up with seeing me strung out, and near death, barely able to move.  For staying with me throughout, I will forever be in debt.  Also, during this process, multitudes of friends, strangers, even competitors, all joined together to help us in our time of need, both emotionally and more.  This… floored me.  Thank you Everyone.

You have thoroughly touched my heart, and forever set me to tears every time I even think about it.  Truly, the people of The Steamlands and beyond, you are a good group of people.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought that people who know me only through an avatar would even care, let alone, truly, deeply, want to help.  Thank you.

I have been through the darkest part of my life, and I see now, the light that is true human nature.  It is not a dark, sadistic place that many would want you to believe, it is a wonderful, amazing place, filled with love.  I struggle to type through blurred vision, not by chemical, but by tears of adoration for all.

Thank you.

Cough Medicine containing DXM can be addictive.

While many parents are learning about the dangers of prescription drug abuse, one over-the-counter medication, used for treating coughs, is rapidly becoming a favorite in middle school and high school for getting high.

Ever find any empty bottles of cough syrup in your teen’s room?

What about empty blister packs of Coricidin® or Triaminic®?

The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab in Georgia warns that this is a clear indication that your teen is “robotripping‘.

What in the world is ‘robotripping“?

“Robotripping” is drinking a bottle of cough syrup at once or popping hands full of cough suppressant pills. Why on earth would they do that? Because they get high.

Cough medicine- to get high? Yes. High. Some temporarily lose their ability to walk. Some have written stories on the Internet: “I felt my soul being ripped from my body,” and, “Are you a vampire? No, I just met God.”

More than 125 commercial cough remedies in the United States contain the synthetic drug dextromethorphan (DXM). This drug is similar to morphine, and when used as directed, can effectively help one with a cold. But abused, as 1 in 10 teens admit to doing, is a central nervous system depressant.

For the full story http://news.wooeb.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=142004&ret

…I give you Morphine.

Imagine holding your Thanksgiving dinner in the back  of a bar. As Dad carves up the turkey, cigarette smoke wafts around the room. There is an extreme sense of stillness and quiet in the room that mingles with low tenor saxophones playing in the opposite corner. It’s dark – past two a.m., and there’s a guy who’s been staring at you all night long. The place was packed with bodies and vitality at one point, but is now empty.

Now, why you’re having your Thanksgiving dinner in a bar, I can’t say, and I certainly don’t recommend it. However this is a brief glimpse into how it feels to experience the great 90’s band Morphine. Their sound arose from the alleyways of Boston and slowly crept across the country. It was a truly innovative blend of rock roots and jazz elements that steered away from guitar-centric song composing.

Morphine

The band was led by the dark voice of Mark Sandman, who joined together with his college roommate, Dana Colley, to form the band in 1989. A typical morphine song featured Sandman on his 2-string slide bass, Colley on tenor or bari sax, and then Billy Conway or Jerome Dupree (depending on the era) on drums.

But makes the band so unique is the melancholy that they were able to capture in their music. Their first album, Good, was released in 1992, and was met with some acclaim. The second song on that album is called “The Saddest Song”, where the chorus is “My biggest fear is/If I let you go/ You’ll come and get me in my sleep.”

They soon began to branch out, however, adding more layers and more complex ideas to their work – a particular favorite of mine being “Early to Bed”  off of Like Swimming (1997) which I posted on the blog last month. The video for this song is particularly worth checking out – with the three band members operating scaled-up versions of their faces from in their own heads. It’s pretty meta.

But Morphine’s most staggering album came at the end of the band’s career. February 1st 2000 saw the release of The Night. The range that Morphine covers on this record is incredible. For me, the song with the most force is the title track. Although this song is more subdued than the rest on the album, it holds a passion behind that explodes from its restraints. Sandman sings

“You’re the night, Lilah
A little girl lost in the woods
You’re a folktale
The unexplainable
You’re a bedtime story
The one that keeps the curtains closed”

The next big ticket number is “Souvenir” which has the slickest bass and drums I’ve ever heard. “Souvenir” is coupled back-to-back with “Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer” both of which have incredible harmonized sax sections.

After that comes “Like a Mirror”. I remember being blown away by this song the first time I heard it – the refrain goes: “I’m a mirror, I’m a mirror, I’m nothing ’till you look at me.” This song, more than any other typifies Morphine’s ability to create an atmosphere

Sandman, left, and Colley, right.

But this story doesn’t have a happy ending – Sandman passed away in June of 2009. While performing at the Nel Nome del Rock festival in Italy,  he had a heart attack on stage and died soon thereafter. Colley and Dupree stuck together for a little while to raise funds for the charity they started the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund. They returned to Nel Nome del Rock in 2009 as Members of Morphine to honor the tenth anniversary of Sandman’s death.

Ok, so that got a little more dark that I meant it to be, but Morphine is all about facing dark topics head on. And so should you as well.

So if the typical holiday music fare seems too banal this year, try putting on some Morphine for your friends and family, if nothing else, they’ll think you have an exquisite taste in music. But in all seriousness, this band is one of the most unique groups to come out of the 90’s and if you haven’t heard of them you should definitely take a listen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, and good news! As it turns out, turkey has no more tryptophan than other meats – so that itis is completely imaginary – just like the state of Nebraska.

—————————————-

PEAK KEYWORD: Itis

Liberation Diet Winning War Against Palsy!

Hi Kevin,

I have been following your Liberation Diet for over a couple of months now and have followed your supplementation recommendations.

In November ‘08 I had been hospitalized with a severe case of Bell’s Palsy. Even intravenous morphine barely touched the pain associated with BP. After 2 weeks on morphine and extreme fatigue, I was introduced to you by my good friend Brenda Cook. She brought hope back into my life with a Mangosteen Juice called Xango.

The Medical Specialists had told me that I would never get any movement back in my face because of the severe damage done to the seventh cranial nerve. I tried chiropractic, acupuncture and herbal remedies and even biofeedback therapies, to no avail.

In February 09 Brenda shared with me you and your Liberation Diet Program. I hired you as my nutrition coach and we went over the Liberation Diet program over the internet. I was amazed at the information and knew that although it was very different from what I was taught in school, I was a physical wreck and my own treatments and therapies were useless!

I became Liberated that day and started eating correctly right away. I began noticing an immediate increase in energy and stamina and knew I was on the right track. A few weeks later, with Gods help, I was able to locate some real dairy (RAW) and, now things really started improving. As you recommended, I started implementing fasting as part of the Liberation Diet, and beacause of my health problems, some extended fasting was encouraged.

In the last few weeks I have been able to feel, taste and move my mouth and chin. I can smile again. My eye doesn’t require eye drops hourly anymore. I don’t need to tape my eye shut at night and I can blink once again.

I was also going to the ophthalmologist every two weeks and since I have followed your regime, my eye sight has improved and I know longer have dry patches on my lens.

The fasting for 9 days presented most amazing results. The muscles in my chin are now working.

Side benefits have also been wonderful. My bowel movements are regular and easy. I had IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and only went once every 4 days, if that. I had also little control of my bladder and was unable to sleep through the night because of frequent bathroom visits. I am full of life now and there is no going back. God has been gracious to me through your efforts.

Thank you for bringing the truth to me.

Lori Ryan,RHN

Registered Holistic Nutritionist

647-828-7383

Morphine, according to a study conducted by American Association for Cancer Research, does not simply reduce the pain suffered by Cancer victims, instead rather, it may accelerate the growth of new blood vessels, providing oxygen and nutrients to the very tumours being treated.

As reported today by the BBC Professor Patrick Singleton of the University of Chicago told the meeting of experts that in laboratory tests, ‘morphine not only strengthened blood vessels but also appeared to make it easier for cancers to invade other tissues and spread’. Cancer Research UK has issued a plea for calm by stating “Research in this area is in the early stages, so it’s too early to tell whether opiate-based painkillers have an effect on cancer growth”, however for those people who have lost loved ones to this rampant disease, those suffering from it’s ever-increasing reach, or those who have thankfully beat it, the credibility of the pain relief being administered is tarnished and potentially reversing the progress of such painful and draining treatments as chemo- and radiotherapy.

Morphine is a powerful opiate. Those that have encountered anyone in its grip can be in no doubt of this. Morphine has been in the public consciousness since the American Civil War, where it was widely used as a surgical anaesthetic and vials sent home with injured soldiers, to such great effect that some 400,000 men were then ‘diagnosed’ with ‘Soldiers Disease’: addiction. Historical references can be traced, however, both as a recreational and medical drug, as far back as 400 BC, dependant on reports. Rather than reliance, based on tradition and accepted medical techniques and treatments/reliefs, does this powerful drug not deserve the same standards modern science, research and study applies to all newly created pharmaceuticals?

I wonder whether the fact that Morphine, Opium, Heroin etc., has been so well known, for so long, has caused such standard due diligence to be overlooked? Does retrospective pharmacological study occur on centuries old and accepted ‘potions’? Has the medical landscape not changed sufficiently in 200 years to have warranted a review prior to this one? Given the potent nature of the drug, one would think so, however clearly this is not the case. Have we been inadvertantly accelerating those battling valiantly against this disease simply because of a lack of due diligence and an over-reliance on medical practices outdated by modern day disease?

After its discovery, Penicillin was once thought of as the cure all anti-biotic, yet modern illness now evades this powerful cure and in some, causes allergic reaction. Our most powerful pain reliever could heading the same way, but with potentially much more dire consequences.

Good Evening