That's not all that's baking in that house, you may be thinking…

But times are changing. Now, for the first time, a majority of Americans say that they favor replacing this failed policy with one of cannabis legalization and regulation. Further, on November 6th, voters in three states — Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — will decide at the ballot box whether to allow for the limited legalization of cannabis for adults. According to the latest polls, voters Colorado and Washington appear ready to take this historic step, while Oregonians remain closely divided on the issue.

That is why we have themed this week’s 41st national NORML Conference in Los Angeles ‘The Final Days of Prohibition’. (Conference registration information is here.) Today we reflect upon the decades of failure imposed by prohibition; tomorrow we look to the very near future when cannabis prohibition is abolished once and for all.

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? (2009, Chelsea Green) which looks back at how we got into this mess in the first place.

By 1935, most states in the country had enacted laws criminalizing the possession and use of pot, and newspaper editors were frequently opining in favor of stiffer and stiffer penalties for marijuana users. As [US Federal Bureau of Narcotics' Director Harry J.] Anslinger’s rhetoric became prominent, he found additional allies who were willing to carry his propagandist message to the general public. Among these were the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Hearst newspaper chain – the latter of which luridly editorialized against the “insidious and insanity producing marihuana” in papers across the country.

Members of state and local law enforcement also joined the FBN’s anti-marijuana crusade. Writing in The Journal of Criminology, Wichita, Kansas, police officer L. E. Bowery asserted that the cannabis user is capable of “great feats of strength and endurance, during which no fatigue is felt.” Bowery’s toxic screed, which for years thereafter would be hailed by advocates of prohibition as the definitive ‘study’ of the drug, concluded:

“Sexual desires are stimulated and may lead to unnatural acts, such as indecent exposure and rape. … [Marijuana use] ends in the destruction of brain tissues and nerve centers, and does irreparably damage. If continued, the inevitable result is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception ending in death.”

… By 1937, Congress – which had resisted efforts to clamp down on the drug some two decades earlier – was poised to act, and act quickly, to enact blanket federal prohibition. Ironically, by this time virtually every state had already ratified laws against cannabis possession. Nonetheless, local authorities argued that the marijuana threat was so great that federal intervention was also necessary.

On April 14, 1937, Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina introduced House Bill 6385, which sought to stamp out the recreational use of marijuana by imposing a prohibitive tax on the drug. The measure was the brainchild of the U.S. Treasury Department, and mandated a $100 per ounce tax on the transfer of cannabis to members of the general public. Ironically, a separate anti-marijuana measure introduced that same year sought to directly outlaw possession and use of the drug. However this proposal was assumed at that time to have been beyond the constitutional authority of Congress.

Members of Congress held only two hearings to debate the merits of Rep. Doughton’s bill. The federal government’s chief witness, Harry Anslinger, told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that “traffic in marijuana is increasing to such an extent that it has come to be the cause for the greatest national concern. … This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.”

Other witnesses included a pair of veterinarians who testified that dogs were particularly susceptible to marijuana’s effects. “Over a period of six months or a year (of exposure to marijuana), … the animal must be discarded because it is no longer serviceable,” one doctor testified. This would be the extent of ‘scientific’ testimony presented to the Committee.

The American Medical Association (AMA) represented the most vocal opposition against the bill. Speaking before Congress, the AMA’s Legislative Counsel Dr. William C. Woodward challenged the legitimacy of the alleged ‘Demon Weed.’

“We are told that the use of marijuana causes crime. But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marijuana habit. An informal inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.

You have been told that school children are great users of marijuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit among children. Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and no nothing particularly of it.

… Moreover, there is the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service. … Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have no record of any marijuana or cannabis addicts.”

Woodward further argued that the proposed legislation would severely hamper physicians’ ability to utilize marijuana’s therapeutic potential. While acknowledging that the drug’s popularity as a prescription medicine had declined, Woodward nonetheless warned that the Marihuana Tax Act “loses sight of the fact that future investigations may show that there are substantial medical uses for cannabis.”

Woodward’s criticisms of the bill’s intent – as well as his questions regarding whether such legislation was objectively justifiable – drew a stern rebuke from the Chairman of the Committee. “If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the federal government is trying to do,” the AMA’s counsel was told. “Is not the fact that you were not consulted your real objection to this bill?”

Despite the AMA’s protests, the House Ways and Means Committee approved House Bill 6385. House members even went so far as to elevate the Anslinger’s propaganda to Congressional findings of fact, stating:

“Under the influence of this drug the will is destroyed and all power directing and controlling thought is lost. … [M]any violent crimes have been and are being committed by persons under the influence of this drug. … [S]chool children … have been driven to crime and insanity through the use of this drug. Its continued use results many times in impotency and insanity.”

Anslinger made similar horrific pronouncements before members of the Senate, which spent even less time debating than the measure than had the House. By June, less than three months after the bill’s introduction, the House of Representatives voted affirmatively to pass the proposal, which was described by one congressman as having “something to do with something that is called marijuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind.”

Weeks later, after the Senate had approved their version of the bill, the House was asked to vote once again on the measure. Prior to the House’s final vote, one representative asked whether the American Medical Association had endorsed the proposal, to which a member of the Ways and Means Committee replied, “Their Dr. Wharton (sic) gave this measure his full support.” Following this brief exchange of inaccurate information, Congress gave its final approval of the Marihuana Tax Act without a recorded vote.

President Franklin Roosevelt promptly signed the legislation into law. The Marihuana Tax Act officially took effect on October 1, 1937 – thus setting in motion the federal government’s foray into the criminal enforcement of marijuana laws which continues unabated today.

Paul Armentano is co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink

What is most infuriating about squirrels eating corn is how wasteful they are. They do not eat the whole kernel. They do not even eat half of it. They drill into the middle of the white heart of the kernel and with their incisor-like teeth extract a snippet hardly bigger than a flake of dandruff. Sitting on top of the ears of corn, they toss that kernel away like a drunk does an empty beer can, and snatch another off the cob. The wounded kernel then slips and slides down through the piled up ears of stored corn. Sometimes the wanton, fluffy-tailed rats jerk kernels from the cob and then drop them, eating nothing out of them at all. By summer’s end, the top layer of corn in the crib was only half-shelled cobs and the bottom layer mostly half eaten or whole kernels.

I realized on close examination that the half eaten kernels were really not even a third eaten and that there was still plenty of nutritive value left. I fed them to the chickens— at least I didn’t have to shell them off the cobs as I or the hens, usually do. The chickens ate the wounded kernels as well as they ate the whole ones and kept on laying eggs. Talk about a win-win situation. The squirrels got their fill and so did the hens.

There is, of course, another worry involved. Just why do the squirrels eat only the germ at the heart of the kernel and show little interest in the endosperm, bran, or the yellow hull of the kernel? If they are interested only in the germ, which makes up hardly a fourth of the kernel, of what nutritional value is the rest? Are the squirrels telling us something?

…

Read on over at Gene's blog The Contrary Farmer.

Gene Logsdon is the author of, most recently, A Sanctuary of Trees: Beech Nuts, Birdsongs, Baseball Bats, and Benedictions

"I expected that by the year 2012, grandmothers like myself would be able to tell their grandchildren how life used to be 'long ago' when families used to have to figure out for themselves how to be both wage earners and care givers." — Excerpt from The New Feminist Agenda, Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work and Family, Madeleine M. Kunin, Chelsea Green Publishing.pp 1-2.

When I held a conference on onsite childcare in the workplace during my first term as Governor of Vermont in 1986, I expected that most employers would recognize that this was a great idea, both for their workers and their bottom line. When I established a grant program for early childhood education, I expected there would surely be a national program by now.

And when the unpaid Family and Medical Leave Act was signed by President Bill Clinton on Feb. 5, 1993, I expected that paid family and medical leave would soon come about.

None of that happened. The need for sensible family/work policies is greater today than ever, as more middle class families are struggling with work/life balance, and with balancing their household budgets.

Working moms, and increasingly working dads don't want a government handout, but they do need a hand up.

What is at the top of the list? The moms I have spoken with put workplace flexibility at the top of the list. Some family-friendly employers provide workplace flexibility, enabling employees to work at home or work shorter weeks or days.

But flexibility depends largely on what kind of a boss you have. In England and Australia, there is a law called "the right to request flexibility" which applies to everyone. An employee can request flexibility but it is not automatically granted. Both parties have to negotiate a solution, and if none is found, it is settled by a tribunal. Employers have found that the law works for them because it allows them to retain good workers.

Paid family and medical leave is next on the list. Present law, while helpful, is not the answer for a new mother who is forced to either go back to work right after birth, or take the leave, and give up her paycheck for six weeks. Most families simply can't afford to do that. It's hard to believe, but only three countries in the world do not have some form of paid maternity leave: Papua New Guinea, Swaziland and the United States of America.

The same story applies to paid sick days. Connecticut recently passed a limited paid sick days law for service workers in large companies. The winning slogan stated by the governor was, "I don't want someone to sneeze in my salad." Paid sick days are both a family/work issue and a public health concern.

Child care is on every young family's list — where to find quality care and how to pay for it. Again, most of the globe is ahead of us. It is high time for a national child care and early education policy, paid for on a sliding scale, to enable all children to get off to a good start. As a result of neuroscience studies we know that those early years are critical to a child's development. We also know that high quality childcare can help break the cycle of poverty.

One consequence of our lack of these policies is that the United States has the highest child poverty rate of any developed country — about 22 percent. The price we will pay for neglecting of the needs of these children will far outpace the cost of investing in their future.

Why has change been so molasses slow? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other big business interests have fought vigorously against these policies, but regardless of their opposition, two states now have paid leave laws — California and New Jersey. It can be done. Several states are providing early childhood education and all day kindergarten — despite tight budgets — because they know that this is the best place to put their scarce dollars.

How can we speed up the process of putting workplace flexibility, paid family and medical leave, childcare and early childhood education on the agenda of both political parties? We have to amplify our voices and make our demands clear. A useful strategy is to form new and powerful coalitions. Policies that are good for families with young children are also good for the elderly the disabled — and for that potentially enormous constituency — men.

These policies are no longer just "women's issues." They are working family issues — which means most of America.

We also have to play catch-up in electing more women to public office. Female membership in the Congress is 17 percent, which places us in 69th place among 168 countries. Yes, many men will support these issues, but women have the benefit of having experienced the struggles to raise their children while earning a paycheck. They have to have a seat at the table where their stories can be told.

In this election season, the most immediate step for women to take is to exercise the right to vote. Neither party has gone far enough in addressing these needs, but there is a clear distinction between the two, as reflected in the Paul Ryan budget. Instead of expanding programs like Head Start child care block grants and food stamps, they are cutting back.

Both parties are courting women's votes. Why? Because they know that women are very likely to determine the outcome of this election. That outcome will influence whether we move forward on family/work policies, or are pushed back.

Madeleine M. Kunin is the author of The New Feminist Agenda, and Pearls, Politics and Power.

I stared at him coming at me. Then I dropped my backpack off my shoulder. It held a metal lunch pail. I kept the strap in my hand. As soon as he was close enough, I closed my eyes and swung in a circle, clobbering the first thing that came into contact with the lunch pail and bag, which was the boy’s head. Golly, did he let out a wail. The cry was loud enough to break up the other two fights, and the three bullies went home to tell on me. No trouble ever came of the incident, and we were able to walk safely to the babysitter’s house after that.

The story is one of my most vivid childhood memories, as it was the end of my fear of bullies. Oh, how innocent it all was back then.

As an adult, I never saw the bullying. But one of my students wound up committing suicide over it.
Flash forward to my early twenties, when I was working as a high school English teacher in Japan, with 600 students. As an adult, I never saw the bullying. But one of my students wound up committing suicide over it. Naturally, by the time I had children of my own, the idea of childhood bullying struck me as horrific. And while bully avoidance wasn’t the reason I chose to homeschool my kids, I was perfectly happy to sidestep that part of Saoirse and Ula’s growing pains.

It turns out I didn’t sidestep it as much as I thought.

Saoirse was recently invited to an overnight sleepover party at her best friend’s house, where she and three other girls spent the night outside in a tent. I picked up a smiling, rosy-cheeked girl the next morning, full of laughter and spirit. A few days later, when we had an opportunity to have lunch alone together, I asked her to tell me all about it.

“It was really fun, Mom,” she effused.
“I’m so glad to hear that,” I sighed with relief. “Because, to be honest, I always get a little nervous when girls your age socialize in groups.”
“How come?”
“Sometimes they can fight and bicker with each other, and feelings can get hurt. I don’t know why. Once girls are grown up it isn’t usually that way, but I remember things like that from when I was your age.”
“Umm…Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Actually, since you brought it up, there was something that happened.”

I leaned back and listened to her story. One of the girls in the group was older than the rest. And during the afternoon, Saoirse found herself in a game with her in the tent. The older girl would zip up the windows in the tent, and Saoirse would unzip them before she could finish.

“I was having fun and we were laughing,” Saoirse told me, “I don’t know what I did, but suddenly she got right in front of me, right in my face, and said ‘MOVE OUT OF MY WAY!’”
“I don’t know why,” Saoirse went on, “but it was the way she said it. It wasn’t friendly at all. So I told her ‘no.’”

I waited for her to continue.

“And then she asked me if I wanted to die. As a joke, I pretended to give it some thought, and then I said ‘umm, not particularly.’ Then she told me to move again, and I wouldn’t do it. She pushed me up against the tent, and told me that if I didn’t do what she said, she’d pull my hair. Well, I figured that Ula had pulled my hair lots of times, so I told her to go ahead and do it. So she yanked it. Really hard.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I eventually moved. It was all kind of weird. But there was no sense in making a big deal out of it.”

That’s not how I felt. I wanted to call my friend, the mother who had hosted the party, and find out about who this other child was. While technically this doesn’t fit the formal definition of bullying (as the power dynamic would repeat itself over a longer period of time), I wanted to take measures to make sure that these two never saw each other again. Then, the pugilist in me came out.

“You just moved out of her way?”

“Yeah.”

I don’t know what, exactly, I was hoping she’d say—that she’d decked this brat, maybe grabbed her by the shoulders and told her to mind her manners in a menacing tone that let her know my kid wasn’t going to take any crap. But I silenced my inner beast.

“I’m not happy that happened,” was all I could think to offer.
“Actually, Mom, this is going to sound kind of weird, but, umm, I kind of liked it.”
“You what?!” I found this comment extremely disturbing.
“Well, it’s just that–” Saoirse paused for a moment and searched for her words. “It’s just that I realized I wasn’t scared after all. I always figured that if something like that happened, I would be. And I wasn’t. Not at all. And that just feels, well, good. I realized there wasn’t anything she could really do to me. So it didn’t bother me to back down. I mean, it was a birthday party, after all.”

It is at times like this when I am thankful that my children are better at acting like grown-ups than their mother. While I wasn’t on-hand to judge who was in the wrong to begin with, in the end, Saoirse did the right thing. She backed down at her best friend’s birthday party, avoiding more conflict and embarrassment for everyone.

But what struck me most was the glow around Saoirse as she told the story. She hadn’t hurt anyone. But she had recognized that she could be strong in her own way, that she didn’t need to be fearful of another kid pushing her around. I was reminded of a story I once read about a champion fighter who climbed onto a city bus one night with his friend after an evening out. A short way into the ride, a belligerent drunk came on board. Seeking someone to harass, he began insulting and pushing the fighter, unaware of the man’s background. The fighter did nothing. He ignored the drunk, who eventually lost interest and settled down. When they got off the bus, the friend said, “You’re a champion fighter. Why did you put up with that?”

And he replied, “It’s because I’m a champion fighter that I put up with that.”

When we know our strength, it becomes less necessary to show it. Saoirse recognized that the other girl, who was acting menacing, really couldn’t do much to trouble her. She walked away from the incident more aware of her own personal strength. And as she sat with me over lunch, she radiated joy at her discovery.

This has become her story. Ula asks her to re-tell it over and over again. And each time she does, I see an important idea enter more deeply into her consciousness: I do not have to be afraid. She appears to bear absolutely no resentment toward the older girl whatsoever. She talks about the fun they had at the party, and says only kind things about all the other kids.

As a parent and a former teacher, I am too keenly aware of the dangers of these power plays. But as a former kid, I see how overcoming them contributed positively to my own self-esteem. And I can see how surviving this bout has done the same for Saoirse. I guess I’d have to admit that a little childhood conflict here and there can be a good thing. The trouble arises when the stakes are higher, where more coercive weapons and means are involved than pulling a little hair or clobbering someone with a lunch pail.

In the end, as I consider these conflicting ideas in the balance, I know that my protective nature as a parent will ultimately win out. I will naturally seek to prevent these types of interactions from happening to my kids. But I am reminded this week of how my efforts to protect my girls will only go so far.

Sooner or later, they find themselves on their own, confronting any and all circumstances that I have tried to shelter them from. I can only hope they will prevail in their hearts and souls the way Saoirse did, that they will discover their own inner power. I feel quite proud of my little girl this week.

Read the rest at Shannon’s Yes! magazine blog…

Shannon Hayes is the author of Radical Homemakers.

Nothing in my experience prepared me for the field of corn on fire that I came upon in my travels. It was just awesome. I pulled off the road and deliberated on whether there was anything I could do. I had fought plenty of grass and wheat stubble fires and knew the best weapon of defense was a wet gunny sack, or rather a whole bunch of people  thrashing out the flames with wet gunny sacks, but this fire was at least 15 feet high and way too hot to get close enough for hand fighting. Fire trucks were arriving from all over however, and farmers with big tractors and disks were rumbling in ahead of the blaze to rip up wide swaths of soil in the standing corn to stop its advance. Fortunately, this was Ohio, where the fields were relatively small and where the wind was not blowing hard enough to whip up a forest-sized blaze. The fire was contained in an hour or so.

In this year of drought, together with fields of hundreds, even thousands, of almost unbroken acres of tinder dry cornstalks, the situation is especially dangerous. The National Weather Service has issued its Red Flag Warning meaning “extreme fire danger” for various parts of the cornbelt, particularly west of the Mississippi. Some eleven major corn fires were recorded in Iowa in 2011, and the Weather Service is worrying that the situation is much graver this year.

Read on over at Gene's blog The Contrary Farmer.

Gene Logsdon is the author of, most recently, A Sanctuary of Trees: Beech Nuts, Birdsongs, Baseball Bats, and Benedictions

Many nonvoting democracy activists argue that participating in U.S. national elections only maintains the illusion of democracy, and so voting can become a wedge issue that undermines solidarity among voting and nonvoting activists on democracy battlefields beyond electoral politics.

The corporate media try to persuade Americans that the problem with the U.S. political process is a lack of bipartisanship between the Democrats and the Republicans, but on the key democracy issues of our era — senseless wars, Wall Street bailouts, unprosecuted corporate criminals, and the surveillance state — there has been Democratic-Republican bipartisanship.

The real problem for those of us who care about democracy is the lack of bipartisanship between voter and nonvoter democracy activists, who often flail out at one another and then can't come together on democracy battlefields where they actually have a chance to gain power and create something closer to democracy.

U.S. Elections and Learned Helplessness

If the Bush administration didn't like somebody, they'd kidnap them and send them to torture chambers. If the Obama administration decides they don't like somebody, they murder them. (Noam Chomsky)
When the Republicans win, Americans get senseless wars and corporate control. When the Democrats win, Americans get senseless wars and corporate control. Learned helplessness means a belief that no matter what one does or does not do, one cannot decrease one's level of pain, and so one gives up trying. If a society's electoral process promotes learned helplessness, it is not a democratic society.

While Mitt Romney is another Republican "senseless wars/corporate control" candidate, what is President Obama's record here? Military spending under Obama, as a percentage of GDP, has been higher than it was during any year of the George W. Bush administration. And under Obama, there has not been a single prosecution of a high-ranking Wall Street executive or any major financial firms for their criminal practices that helped produce a worldwide financial meltdown. There are differences between Romney and Obama, but not when it comes to democracy activists' helplessness around stopping senseless wars and corporate control.

To extricate from learned helplessness, does it make sense to vote for a third party that opposes senseless wars and corporate control? Because of the power of money in the U.S. electoral process — even worse now because of Citizens United — third parties have no chance of winning. And so voting for a third party that opposes senseless wars and corporate control means that either the Democrats or the Republicans still win, and Americans continue to get senseless wars and corporate control. And more learned helplessness.

Of course, there is another choice: not voting at all. That's the choice for 40 to 50 percent of Americans in presidential elections (and even more in off-years, when the presidency is not contested). George Carlin's case for not voting rings true for millions of Americans:

Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. … Good, honest, hardworking people … continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about you. At all. At all. At all.
However, not voting doesn't change the fact that the Democrats or Republicans still win, resulting in senseless wars and corporate control. The bottom line is that regardless of what we do or don't do in the election booth, we continue to get senseless wars and corporate control.

Dropping One's Arrogance About a Voting or Nonvoting Stance

While both the Democrats and the Republicans are the parties of senseless wars and corporate control, there are differences between them. And these differences can mitigate real suffering in some people's lives. And this makes it difficult to walk away from a political party that one essentially does not respect.

Obama's capitulation to health-insurance companies was an excruciating blow for single-payer (Medicare-for-all) activists. Even before the presidential campaign began, Obama abandoned his personal belief in a single-payer health-care system. And then, after his election, Obama reneged on his presidential campaign promise to fight for a public option as an alternative to insurance companies (despite the fact that a single-payer health-care system was favored by a slight majority of Americans, and the public option was favored by a large majority of Americans).

Ultimately, Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) could well provide insurance companies with more loot than it exacts from them. Specifically, ACA's perverted use of the mandate — originally meant to make single-payer health care work — is retained in ACA, guaranteeing insurance companies millions more customers and billions more dollars, making them even more powerful and difficult to contend with. If the corporatocracy truly opposed ACA, then the corporatocracy-controlled Supreme Court would not have OK'd it.

However, the reality is that very real suffering for some people has been mitigated by ACA.

I know one young man who, because of ACA, was not forced to choose between destroying his college grades and career plans or financially devastating his family. In college he got cancer and needed a lengthy leave for treatment. Prior to ACA, in order to stay on his parents' health insurance, he would have had to remain enrolled in college, which would have meant missed classes and Fs that would have killed his grade point average and trashed his career plans; or he could have dropped out of college to save his GPA, lost his health insurance, and amassed medical bills that would have financially devastated his family. And with either choice, prior to ACA, his "pre-existing condition" would have made it unlikely that he could get affordable health insurance once on his own. The good news is that not only has this young man survived cancer but, because of ACA, his health crisis has not destroyed his college record, his parents' finances, or his future chances of getting his own health insurance.

It's easy for people who are unaffected by an issue that an election can actually decide to urge others not to vote and argue that participating in national elections maintains the illusion of real democracy.

Voting for Obama, a cheerleader for the military-industrial complex, expanded drone killing, nuclear power, corporate hegemony, and the surveillance state, means that I lose some self-respect, but to not vote for Obama feels like a betrayal of loyalty to that young man and his family. And so with respect to voting, I'm not sure yet what I will do, except that I'm not going to get stuck in the voting-vs.-nonvoting quicksand.

Extricating Oneself From the Quicksand

First, voting and nonvoting democracy activists need to be more respectful of one another. U.S. national election results may in fact make no difference in terms of senseless wars, corporate control, democracy, and real power, but results can increase or decrease real suffering for some people, which matters a great deal if you are one of those people, or if you care about them. When voting and nonvoting activists recognize the legitimacy of one another's positions, they can unify on other democracy battlefields.

Extricating oneself from this quicksand means recognizing that electoral politics is a narrow part of democracy. The major strategic problem in focusing on electoral politics is in the overfocus on a battlefield where the elite have such an advantage. This results in a lack of focus on democracy battlefields where we have a better chance of winning.

While a case can be made for voting to alleviate certain suffering, much bad can come from an exclusive focus on electoral politics. The bad is that people:

Buy into the elite notion that democracy is all about elections
Give away their power when they focus only on getting leaders elected, becoming dependent on those leaders
Forget that the power ordinary Americans have won has not been so much in the voting booth but on the streets, on the picket lines, in boycotts, and by other withdrawals of cooperation with the corporatocracy
Lose sight of the fact that genuine democracy means having influence over all aspects of their lives
Forget that if they have no power in the workplace, in their education, in their buying and selling of goods, in their entertainment, or in all their institutions, then there will never be democracy worthy of the name
If you can control a people's economy, you don't need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people's choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. (Wendell Berry)
In war, intelligent combatants attempt to force the fight onto the battlefield of their choosing, seeking the battlefield that takes advantage of their strengths and minimizes their weaknesses. So, in the class war, the elite, who are very small in numbers but very large in cash, try to make the battlefield something they can purchase with their money. It turns out that an American election is easy to buy.

Keeping the struggle on a battlefield where money is so influential is an important reason the corporatocracy wants us to believe that national elections equal democracy. These elections keep many Americans thinking that they have a democracy when they don't, and they are a relatively inexpensive way for the elite to control what appears to be democracy. Perhaps most importantly, these elections distract people from thinking about other democracy battlefields.

There are other democracy battlefields not as easily controlled by big money as is the U.S. electoral process. Historically, on these battlefields, Americans have — with persistence, courage, and solidarity — gained power. And having a fair share of power is what democracy is all about. Real power in the workplace is being fought every day by worker cooperatives, labor unions, and the self-employed. Battles for power over housing are being fought by housing activists such as City Life and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. Battles for power over who controls the food supply are being fought by family farmers and others. And other battles for power are being fought in health care, education, and nearly every other arena where the corporatocracy reigns. These real battles for power and democracy are being fought — and sometimes won — and unpublicized by the corporate media.

So, instead of voter and nonvoter democracy activists' arrogance over their position, and instead of them flailing out at one another, let the ruling class tremble at unified voter and nonvoter democracy activists who, instead of overfocusing on electoral politics, join together on winnable battlefields.

Read the rest in Bruce's latest Huffington Post entry…

Bruce E. Levine is the author of Get Up, Stand Up

But unlike the Democrats and Republicans who offered top-down plans for righting a capsized economy, these rural Westerners spoke of “collecting small donations from individuals, aggregating them, and then using them as catalytically as possible” to support food and farming microenterprises all across the country. Their approach is radically different than that which the federal government took over the last two years in dealing with so-called “food deserts,” providing Wal-Mart and other big box chains with a half billion dollars of incentives to open more of their food super-center in low income areas. So far, few poor people have had their hunger vanquished or their nutrition improved merely by access to supermarkets overloaded with cheap calories….

Those attending this “Slow Money” event included liberal venture capitalists, Tea Party farmers, back-to-the-land libertarians, college-age anarchists, and fiscally-conservative Republicans, but all seemed to be in agreement on one thing: they cannot wait for the government to fix either the food system or the economy; “we” must do it ourselves.

“If four million Americans contribute $35 per annum to the NRA,” asks the Slow Money website, “will one million Americans contribute $25 per annum to the Soil Trust to begin to fixing our economy from the ground-up?”

The Soil Trust, a crowdfunding strategy to be launched this October by Slow Money, is seeking slower, smaller and more local means of investing in strategies that will provide both rural and urban communities with greater food security. It will do so while creating jobs with live-able wages at the same time. Spearheaded by Slow Food founder Woody Tasch and Marco Vangelisti of the NorCal SOIL network, the Soil Trust is particularly interested in linking local food producers who build soil with micro-investors who build social capital.

If this seems to you to be some pipe dream, think again: Slow Money’s strategies have already led to eighty-six completely local investment deals during the last three years. Over the same time period, more than $19 million has been raised for one hundred and thirty nine food micro-enterprises. These initiatives have involved Slow Money-style investors from thirty-six states and nine countries.

Kerry Nelson of Ploughboy, Inc. in Salida, Colorado runs just the kind of independently-owned business that Slow Money’s Soil Trust is hoping to help. A hybrid of a grocery, community kitchen and local food distribution hub, Ploughboy features some two hundred and fifty food products from seventy-five producers, 80 percent of whom farm or ranch within one hundred miles of Salida.

But to get such a business launched in a small Western town was no small feat. Kerry reminded those in attendance at the Sustainable Settings farm in Carbondale that Salida is no Boulder or Aspen when it comes to mobilizing capital for green businesses. Salida sits in Chaffee County, Colorado, where per capita income for non-migrant residents has ranged between $19,430 and $24,032 over last 5 years. Even in the best of times, recent household incomes have averaged only $34,368, with multiple family members working out of the same house, garage or workshop. Kerry Nelson put it bluntly:

“The town I work in is drastically different than most other places. One thing that really surprised me was how different it is to start a business in a small place.”

But Ploughboy has not merely done well for itself; its community kitchen has begun to spawn other micro-enterprises, like an already successful artisanal bakery. The question that consumes Kerry Nelson is whether such efforts can gain momentum through Slow Money-style food financing strategies.

Earlier in the year, Woody Tasch keynoted a similar gathering in an unlikely spot–the Community Center of Elgin, Arizona–population 161–far from the Bostons, Santa Fes, Seattles, Durhams and Berkeleys where such “locavesting” discussions are all the rage. But within two hours of the meeting being launched, residents of three border counties spontaneously pledged $150,000 if they could be matched with farming, ranching and food processing innovators within the same region.

That’s good news for Santa Cruz County, where the official unemployment rate in its county seat of Nogales is twice the national average, and the unofficial rate (including undocumented residents born in Mexico) may be three times as high as that countrywide indicator. It’s not surprising that Nils Urman of the Nogales Community Economic Development Corporation took a keen interest in what four other southern Arizonans were proposing at the Community Center as projects that might create jobs and produce food in or near Nogales.

Urman and I recently facilitated the “Pitching to Peers” economic showcase featuring a half dozen farmers, food processors, nurserymen and ranchers at the first-ever Border Food Summit, September 16th to 18th on the outskirts of Nogales. Food producers, marketers and working lands restiorationists from the border counties of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico told their stories to some 250 attendees, hoping to attract marketing assistance, loans and equity to keep their dreams afloat. Their micro-enterprises varied in scale, structure and products–from Arevalos Family Farms, Borderland Restoration L3C, Double Check Ranch and Good Food Allies, to La Semilla Food Center, Rezonation Farm Institute for Natural Beekeeping and Sleeping Frog Farms. But all of these operations had one thing in common: they were intent on rediversifying food production through novel means of financing their work.

Although there is no way to predict the long-term benefits of the Border Food Summit, one thing is for sure: many in attendance are “hungry for change” in our food system, and in our economic system at large. With the food production of over 1500 rural counties damaged by this summer’s drought, something will need to change to keep food prices rising beyond the reach of America’s most food insecure families, the ones who often live in the very communities where our food is being grown.

Read the rest on Gary’s website.

Gary Nabhan is co-author of the book Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail

We’ve passed the $20 million mark.

That’s right. Over the past two years, more than $20 million has flowed, via Slow Money activities, into 170 small food enterprises across the United States. We now have 14 chapters and six investment clubs, with more on the way. Slow Money France is in formation. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money is due to come out in China soon.

And next month we begin test marketing the Soil Trust. (Stay tuned.)

Is all of this relevant in an age of hyper-inflated Initial Public Offerings on the stock market and thousand point flash crashes?

Yes, it’s significant—precisely because this is the age of all manner of excess, volatility and confusion on Wall Street and global financial markets.

Together, we are doing something that Wall Street does not want to do, and something that foundations and government programs can only do to a limited degree. And we are doing so in a way that has the potential to shape the future of local food systems and affirmatively influence public awareness on many fronts.

A few recent examples: this mention of Slow Money in the Your Money column of the New York Times in August and this piece in the Denver Post a few weeks ago about our recent regional event in Colorado.

Every day I see indicators that we are very much on the right track, and I’m happy to share with you some of what I come across.

Consider:

New York Times. A September 9 article titled “In Search of A Market Speed Limit” is one of many recent articles on the problems presented by high frequency trading: computer trades measured in milliseconds that are beginning to dominate Wall Street.

WIRED magazine. The current issue features an article titled “Raging Bulls” that has the following lead in: “Wall Street used to bet on companies that build things. Now it just bets on technologies that make faster and faster trades.”

Grantham, Mayo & Van Otterloo. The July newsletter of one of the world’s leading money managers was devoted to the global food situation, including this citation of economist Kenneth Boulding: “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” Food writer Mark Bittman picked this up under the heading: “A Banker Bets On Organic Farming.”

Kauffman Foundation. This major foundation recently published very disappointing results of its decades of investing in venture capital funds. One of the headline-grabbing lessons learned: “The average venture capital fund fails to return investor capital after fees.”

Each of these is singing its own “What’s Broken In Finance” or “What’s Broken in the Food System” tune, but together they make a song that points to Slow Money.

Or, let’s frame it with a bit more activist oomph: We see your high frequency trading and your venture capital, your GMO this and your Too Big To Fail that, and we raise you Slow Money!

After all the protesting and the regulating, after all the fixing of that which is broken, and the governing of that which keeps spinning and consolidating and lobbying out of control, we have at hand an immediate and rewarding task; working directly with one another to invest in support of the entrepreneurs who are building the future we want to see.

Food is the place to start. Food is ground zero—the place where the economy meets the soil, where profitability meets fertility. It is where our efforts to build a restorative economy are grounded.

Does our future include millions of new organic farmers? Billions of sips of biodynamic wine? Trillions of happy earthworms? How about thousands of new CSAs? And how many new enterprises like Pt. Reyes Compost and Grass Run Beef, Snowville Creamery and Coyote Creek Grain Mill, Butterworks Farm and High Mowing Seeds, Lucky Penny Farm and Parish Hall Restaurant, Organic Valley and People’s Community Market, Maine Grains and MMLocal?

The prospect of such a future is worthy of our efforts, for reasons that no earthworm would need adumbrated.

The last few years of initial Slow Money activity have been a great start. This issue of the Slow Money Letter comes out as we move into what we are calling, internally, Phase 2.

We’ve moved the Slow Money national office to Boulder, CO, where we will be building a small team. We’re improving our communications, of which this newsletter is a part and which will soon include webinars. We’re developing the Soil Trust and learning from the early experience of our investment clubs. We’re engaged in a development campaign, raising new monies to support that which we’ve catalyzed and to work on next stages of expansion. Please contact us if you want information about any or all of this.

Looking ahead, with the promise to stay in better touch and with thanks to you all for lending a hand and an ear, a head and a heart.

—Woody Tasch

Originally posted at SlowMoney.org

Woody Tasch is the author of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money.

Hardly a day passes when I don’t hear a cry for us all to work together to do X, because if we do that, everything will change and the world will be saved (or at least be rid of some horrific and intractable problem and hence made immeasurably better). Many variations of X are proposed, and they’re often about (a) comprehensively reforming our political, economic, education or other system, (b) achieving some large-scale behaviour change through mass persuasion or education, or (c) bringing together great minds and volunteer energies to bring ingenuity and innovation to bear collaboratively on some issue or crisis.

It is perfectly reasonable to believe that such change is possible: Look at what we have done in past to eradicate diseases, to institute democracy and ‘free’ enterprise worldwide, to dramatically reduce the prevalence of slavery, to pull the world out of the Great Depression, to produce astonishing technologies and improve the position of women and minorities, we are told. All we need is the same kind of effort dedicated to X. If we work together we can accomplish anything.

It is perfectly reasonable to believe that such change is possible. But such change, I would argue, is not possible. The belief that substantive and sustained change comes about by large-scale concerted efforts, or by the proverbial Margaret Mead “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” misses a critical point — throughout human history such change efforts have only occurred when there was no choice but to do them, when the alternative of inaction was so obviously and inarguably calamitous that the status quo was out of the question. And even then such efforts usually fail — either they run up against fierce and powerful opposition and are suppressed, or they bring about a new status quo that is arguably worse than what it replaced. Alas, the history books are written and rewritten by the victors, so “what might have been” is invariably portrayed as worse than what is.

I have tried to capture this realization in what I have come to call Pollard’s Laws:

Pollard’s Law of Human Behaviour: We do what we must (our personal, unavoidable imperatives of the moment), then we do what’s easy, and then we do what’s fun. There is never time left for things that are merely important.

Pollard’s Law of Complexity: Things are the way they are for a reason. If you want to change something, it helps to know that reason. If that reason is complex, success at changing it is unlikely, and adapting to it is probably a better strategy.

The human mind is astonishingly malleable; that is one of the reasons we have adapted so quickly and effectively to changes that most creatures could never manage. But a consequence of that malleability is that we can be persuaded that things are good, or at least OK (and improving), when they are not. We can even be convinced that the history of human civilization, allegedly from brutish to enslaved to democratic and affluent, is one of “progress”, when there is overwhelming evidence that it is not.

We can be persuaded that our exhaustion, our physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and imaginative poverty, the debilitating chronic diseases that are now epidemic in our culture, the ghastly suffering to which we subject other animals in the name of food and human safety, the epidemic of physical, sexual and psychological abuse in our homes and institutions, the endemic sense of grief and depression about our lives and our world, the accelerating extinction of all non-human life on Earth except for human parasites, the rapid depletion of cheap energy upon which our whole culture totally depends, the endlessly growing gap between the tiny affluent minority and the massive struggling majority, the runaway climate change that our human pollutants has triggered, the utter impossibility of ever repaying the staggering debts we have dumped on future generations, and the consequences when those debts come due — we can be persuaded that all of these things can be somehow fixed, that all of these unintended consequences of the way we have been living our lives for a thousand generations, can somehow be resolved in one or two, by a concerted effort to do X.

They cannot. That is not how the world, or human civilizations, work, or ever have worked. Our human civilization, like all living systems, is complex, and complex systems do not lend themselves to mechanical ‘fixes’. They evolve, slowly, unpredictably, over millennia. We may be able to change many malleable human minds in a hurry, if we’re motivated, and if we must, at least for a while until we can go back to what we were doing. But we cannot change our bodies, which are still evolving slowly, trying to adapt to our minds’ relatively recent decision to leave the rainforest, to eat meat, to settle in large, crowded, stressful, hierarchical cities, to walk upright. Our weary, pretzel-bent bodies are complaining about the changes we have forced on them over the past million years, and struggling with them. Too much too fast, they say.

And we cannot begin to enable the ecosystems of which we are a part to adapt to these changes, ecosystems now in states of massive collapse, exhaustion, desolation and extinction. We do not know what to do. We are limited to mechanical solutions — technology and engineering — and mechanical solutions cannot ‘solve’ these crises — crises that technology and engineering have themselves substantially caused.

Throughout this article I am going to use the term ‘organic process’ instead of the more abstract term ‘complex system’, and the term ‘construct’ instead of ‘simple system’ or ‘complicated system’. The distinction is important.

We want to understand things, and we want to be able to control them, so it is not surprising that we’ve become so adept at representing (‘re-presenting’) organic processes through the use of models, theories, ‘laws’ and other human constructs. But these models are absurdly oversimplified representations, and when we mistake the model or theory for reality we do so at our peril. A car is a construct, and it works quite well for awhile, but it is no replacement for the mobility processes of a living creature. Likewise, a computer is a construct, and a very useful one, but it is not a replacement for, or even a facsimile of, the processes of a living brain.

Keep reading over at Dave's blog (which may need to be renamed) How To Save the World…

Dave Pollard is the author of Finding the Sweet Spot.

Read the rest of Rob's write-up, listen to recorded talks, see pictures, and join the conversation over at TransitionCulture.org!

Rob Hopkins is the author of The Transition Companion.

Friday

Thursday began with the first day of a Transition Thrive training, and Friday featured the second day of that training, attended by 35 people from around the world, as well as a Youth Symposium and the REconomy Day.  I arrived on Friday lunchtime, gave a short talk for the Youth event, and dipped into the REconomy day, so I can’t say much about either.  Fortunately, thanks to the various people who documented the event, you can see some great photos of the REconomy day here and read Jay Tompt’s reflections on it here, and here Caroline Jackson reflects on the Youth day.

Both events brought a very welcome input of different kinds of energy to Transition, having more young people around was wonderful, and the focus and economic practicality of the REconomy day, especially, according to many of the people I spoke to, the session in the morning where a series of people gave 7 minute talks about their social enterprises, were amazing to see (I was already seeing people on Twitter raving about it before I even reached London!).

The other key event of Friday was, at 7pm, the official launch of Transition Free Press, the new quarterly newspaper for the Transition movement.  All the team behind bringing it into the world were there, and speeches and celebration marked its emergence, with a great deal of cheering, applause and back slapping.  There was even some home made herbal cordial stuff, a kind of hedgerow Pimms, which went down very easily.

Since its debut earlier this year, 1.3 million people have signed up for a free six- to ten-week Coursera class, which includes videos, exercises, embedded assessment and a social component delivered through message boards. Here's a more detailed explanation of how the program works, from Fast Company's September 2012 feature story about Coursera:

Coursera courses are 6 to 10 weeks long, with an hour or two of videos per week. In addition to the snap quizzes, they feature weekly exercises, ranging from problem sets to spreadsheets to design projects or essays, and sometimes a final project or exam. For all quantitative courses, the platform uses artificial intelligence to evaluate each longer exercise, with instant results. Students can keep trying until they get the right answer. For humanities courses, Coursera is testing a form of peer grading.

Although still exploring business models, the venture-funded company plans to eventually make money through certifications (a path competitor Udacity is already pursuing). The addition of these new partners will give Coursera an advantage in what's become an increasingly crowded online education market.

Keep reading at Fast Company…

Anya Kamenetz is the author of DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education.

It’s not quite the same for Bob. Maybe it’s because he is significantly taller, so he sees more of the dust and cobwebs up there. Maybe (most likely) it has something to do with his waspy New England roots.

And while the vacuum cleaner is one of his personal power tools and he wields it with truly sexy masculine form, he generously lets the rest slide with only occasional gurgles of frustration … until company is on the horizon.

A few months ago, we learned that our good friends, the Bowies, would be visiting from England for one week this August. Bob began planning right away. Our house, the color of grayed-over untreated pine siding, was slowly stained an earthy brown with burgundy trim over the course of the summer. Our front porch was cleared of tools and lumber scraps. Deteriorating screen doors were repaired. In an effort to match his enthusiasm, I bought flowers for the front deck and attempted to keep them fertilized and watered. I stacked the firewood early.

As the days grew fewer, Bob’s efforts grew more intense. He would work at reshelving books, cleaning up his basket weaving supplies, and reorganizing the guest room. And then, he’d step out to where the girls and I were doing our best to stay out of his way … and moan at our mess. Saoirse’s yarn and felt scraps littered our floor. The contents of the costume bag were strewn across the living room. Ula is in the phase where she likes to pull all clothes out of drawers and scatter them across the bedroom floor as she puts together new outfits every 20 minutes. Clean and dirty five-year-old undies get mixed together and wind up in the most unexpected locations—under couch cushions, under desks, outside on the deck.

Saoirse and Ula can be recruited to help out to a certain degree, but their creativity and unwillingness to part with a single paper scrap makes them an obstruction to progress.
I’m not much better. No sooner are the leftovers from the last meal stored away than I have to begin cooking the next meal or testing the next recipe. The lamb harvest is coming in and there is fat to render, the bones need straining from the meat broth, and a few jars of fermented pickles sit out on the counter growing mold and bubbling over. My desk is a clutter of articles, books, receipts, bills, splattered and stained jotted-over recipes, phone messages, and disseminated important scribbles for future masterpieces jotted sideways and on the backs of envelopes and recycled paper. The contents spill over to the floor, confusing themselves with junk mail and wastepaper in such a way that no one but me is authorized to touch.

Tensions were starting to grow last week with only seven days until the Bowies’ arrival. I was working at my desk, the kids were on the carpet behind me, and Bob walked through, looked at our detritus and actually moaned with anxiety.

My temper grew short. “We can’t just stop living to keep the house nice!” I snapped at him. He growled a few choice words back.

In spite of my defensiveness, I fully understood how he felt. I wanted our house to look nice, too. It only needed to be “perfect” just for one quiet moment when we brought the Bowies home. As long as we held together long enough to make a good impression, we would both be satisfied. He wasn’t asking for too much.

Saoirse and Ula can be recruited to help out to a certain degree, but their creativity and unwillingness to part with a single paper scrap make them an obstruction to progress. Rather than cleaning their craft areas, they turn the moment into gallery time, figuring out how to tape every little art project to the walls of the house. They set about picking up their toys upstairs, but soon decide that “cleaning” means meticulously arranging them in interesting and artful scenes from their imagination. At the same time, my being on the cusp of releasing a new book as the fall meat harvest begins keeps my farm, computer, and desk demands high.

Read the rest at Shannon's Yes! magazine blog…

Shannon Hayes is the author of Radical Homemakers.

“In pursuing one’s health, an individual has a fundamental right to obtain and reject medical treatment,” Justice Michael Wheat opined for the majority. “But, this right does not extend to give a patient a fundamental right to use any drug, regardless of its legality.”

He added, “A patient’s ‘selection of a particular treatment, or at least a medication, is within the area of government interest in protecting public health,’ and regulation of that medication does not implicate a fundamental constitutional right.”

The Court further opined that a patient’s “right to privacy does not encompass the affirmative right of access to medical marijuana.”

The majority concluded, “[T]he plaintiffs cannot seriously contend that they have a fundamental right to medical marijuana when it is still unequivocally illegal under the (federal) Controlled Substances Act.”

The Court’s decision allows for the state to fully implement Senate Bill 423, a 2011 law that sought to significantly limit the use, production, and distribution of cannabis among patients who possess a physician’s authorization to consume it.

Montana voters will decide in November on Initiative Referendum 124, which seeks to repeal SB 423. Montana voters in 2004 approved patients’ use of medical cannabis for qualified illnesses by a vote of 62 percent.

Paul Armentano is co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink

Harm reduction is pragmatic and recognizes that there is no single solution for every person. Instead, as the guide states, "Harm reduction accepts where people are at and educates them to make informed choices and calculated trade-offs that reduce risk and increase wellness." Harm reduction is about providing information, options, resources and support so that people can make choices that fit their situation and who they are.

I wish the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs had been in existence for my entire career as a clinical psychologist. It would have been especially helpful for one particular couple whom I saw several years ago for marital counseling. Cathy and Jim (not their real names) met during their psychiatric hospitalization, both having been diagnosed with serious psychiatric illnesses. After their hospitalization, they dated, moved in together, and married.

Cathy told me, "Jim is an intellectual, smarter than anyone I have ever met in my life," to which Jim blushed and responded, "Bruce, sometimes it's good to have a wife who is a little delusional." Jim then told me that "Cathy is the most beautiful woman in the world," to which Cathy laughed and said, "Sometimes I worry that Jim is hallucinating about another woman."

After a year of marriage, their marital bliss began to erode over the issue of psychiatric medications. One day, Jim quit taking his antipsychotic Zyprexa. Cathy, who continued to take her antipsychotic Risperdal, was worried that Jim, without Zyprexa, would become agitated, do something "crazy," and would be forced to return to the hospital. Jim said, "Even if Cathy is right that I am increasing my chances of going nuts again — and I don't know that she is right here — the reality is that with Zyprexa I can't take a decent crap and I can't concentrate when I read, and books — besides Cathy — are the most important thing in the world to me." And then Jim added that he was worried about the short-term and long-term adverse effects of Risperdal on Cathy, and that he wished she would stop taking it.

Ultimately, and quite beautifully, both Cathy and Jim came to see that risk in life was unavoidable, and they learned to respect each other's choices and risks with respect to psychiatric medications. Both would have appreciated the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, which is all about informed choice that allows one to take the risks that make most sense given one's situation.

Read the rest in Bruce's latest Huffington Post entry…

Bruce E. Levine is the author of Get Up, Stand Up

The Social Reporters will be trying to capture what they can, but by its nature it’s a hard one to document in the traditional fashion (if you are attending, and would like to be part of this, please chat to the lovely Social Reporters).  Last year lots of people got in touch who had followed it remotely to say how well it worked, so let’s hope it works as well this year.  Likelihood is I’ll be mostly Tweeting (@robintransition) using the hashtag #tnconf2012.  So, see you on the other side…

Read on, and find out what's so funny about superweeds…

Gene Logsdon is the author of, most recently, A Sanctuary of Trees: Beech Nuts, Birdsongs, Baseball Bats, and Benedictions

ee cummings and TS Eliot describe the need for a poet to be in that state of being that is completely attuned and open to what is, such that the creation seems almost to occur through them rather than by them. But they also explain that the craft of poetry both entertains (e.g. through evocative imagery or a clever turn of phrase) and brings new insight or perspective, a new way of looking at things the reader has never considered. To cummings this was a never-ending fight; to Eliot it was the painstakingly hard work of the writer.

It would seem almost impossible to at once ‘be’ in that open, creative state and ‘do’ the hard, struggling work, needed to produce great poetry. I think the reason it seems so impossible is because it is — I think there may be in fact two different states of presence.

The first, which I’m calling ‘Now Time’ presence, is that relaxed, aware, open state of high perceptiveness, imagination and connection in which you are totally attuned to what is and open to what could be. The second, which I’m calling ‘Clock Time’ presence, is the focused, attentive, self-disciplined, synthesizing state in which you are able to bring everything you know to bear to do something extremely competently. You’ve probably experienced moments of both, though probably not at the same time.The first is more a ‘being’ state, a somatic one in which your body is utterly at one and at peace with the rest of the world. The second is more of a ‘doing’ state, a social one in which you are sufficiently attuned to others’ sensibilities to be able to produce something that will resonate with them (though in the case of poetry you may not not quite how it will resonate with different readers). The first lets you sense and feel what is, while the second lets you capture it so others can feel it too.

Both are high-performance states, but they are very different. From studying great writing I have learned that its creation is often iterative, and I’m proposing that it is when some of those iterations are in ‘Now Time’ presence and others are in ‘Clock Time’ presence, that the best writing is most likely to result.

Let’s look at an example. TS Eliot wrote his Four Quartets over a period of years, and there is evidence they were extensively edited and reworked as he wrote subsequent works. Take a look at section I of the first quartet, Burnt Norton, the section ending with:

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

And now read the final section V of the final quartet Little Gidding, written years later and meant as a completely separate work, which includes the following:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from… And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

I would argue that the haunting, stark, playful and beautiful images in this work came to Eliot when he was in a state of “Now Time” presence, while the craftsmanship, the careful and precise choice of words, the brilliant re-statements and circular integration of ideas and images into a cohesive whole, occured when he was in a state of “Clock Time” presence. Eliot claimed that the only way to evoke emotion in the reader of poetry was through the use of images, though whether the emotion evoked was precisely the one the writer had hoped for was not the poet’s business. But images alone are not enough, he wrote, in an essay The Social Function of Poetry:

Poetry has to give pleasure… [and] the communication of some new experience, or some fresh understanding of the familiar, or the expression of something we have experienced but have no words for, which enlarges our consciousness or refines our sensibility… We all understand I think both the kind of pleasure that poetry can give and the kind of difference, beyond the pleasure, which it makes to our lives. Without producing these two effects it is simply not poetry.

These two effects, I believe, require two different states of presence to produce, and what comes to the poet in each of these states must then be crafted together into something that is neither overly sensuous and emotional nor overly intellectual. This, I think, is why poetry of the calibre of the Four Quartets is so rare.

So what does each of these states of presence ‘look’ like, and how are they different? The fact that Eliot’s quartets draw on quaternities (the four seasons, the four elements etc.) got me thinking about Jung’s quaternity and the four aspects of the self: Emotional, intellectual, instinctual, and sensual. I tried to draw how dominant each of these four aspects of self are in each of the two states of presence, and in two more prosaic, lower-performance states: the state of constant anxiety in which many of us live most of our lives, and the state of ecstasy we feel during sex or under the influence of euphoria-producing substances or activities (most of them quite addictive). I’ve reproduced these sketches above.

From this perspective, the two states of presence are quite different, and I would argue it is impossible to be in both of these high-performance states at once. The “Clock Time” presence state (upper right sketch) is the one most of those we have relationships with would like us to be in as often as possible: Attentive, responsive, active, alert, and working unselfishly. This is the state wild creatures shift into automatically when they face a fight-or-flight crisis. It’s amazingly productive, but it’s exhausting and, I suspect, unsustainable. We can’t be “on” all the time. Still, this state allows our intellectual selves to dominate, supported by our sensual and instinctual selves, and, of necessity, we need to subordinate our emotions to the task at hand. We may be effective in this state, but, as cummings would say, we’re not really “ourselves”.

Wild creatures, many biologists now think, spend most of their lives in a “Now Time” present state (lower right sketch). This is the state that, I believe, corresponds to the relaxed/aware state of high creativity I occasionally enjoy: playful, joyful, living in the moment, highly perceptive (rather than conceptive, as in the “Clock Time” presence state). It is a meditative, letting go/letting come state in which our instinctual, intuitive selves dominate, supported by our emotional and sensual selves, with our intellectual selves subordinated. It’s an open, ‘being’ state rather than a directed, ‘doing’ state.

By contrast, most humans seem to spend most of their lives in the chronically anxious state (upper left sketch), dominated by (mostly ‘negative’) emotions, reinforced by the fictitious stories we are told by our culture or which we tell ourselves. Except, that is, for the brief respites we get in moments of sensory-overload ecstasy (lower left sketch) — mostly sex and escapist activities. No surprise we prefer this state to the state of chronic anxiety, even if this state has to be artificially induced and proves to be highly addictive.

Those are my thoughts, for what they’re worth, on what the two states of presence ‘look’ like. The obvious next question is: How do we shift into these two high-performance states, and back and forth between them, more easily and skilfully? I’m working on that, but, paradoxically, I might have to be in those states to figure out how to get there.

Originally posted here.

Investigators at Kings College in London assessed the physiological and behavioral effects of CBD and THC versus placebo in 16 healthy volunteers in a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial.

Investigators reported that the oral administration of 10 mg of THC was associated with various physiological and behavioral effects – such as increased heart rate and sedation – whereas the oral administration of 600 mg of CBD was not.

They concluded, “There were no differences between CBD and placebo on any symptomatic, physiological variable. … In healthy volunteers, THC has marked acute behavioral and physiological effects, whereas CBD has proven to be safe and well tolerated.”

A previous review of the use of CBD in human subjects, published in the scientific journal Current Drug Safety last year, similarly concluded that the compound was safe, non-toxic, and well tolerated.

Separate investigations of CBD have documented the cannabinoid to possess a variety of therapeutic properties, including anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-epileptic, anti-cancer, and bone-stimulating properties. In recent years, patients in states that allow for the use of cannabis therapy, particularly California, have expressed an interest in plant strains that contain uniquely high percentages of the compound.

Cannabidiol, because it is an organic component of cannabis, is presently classified under federal law as a schedule I prohibited substance. Such substances are required by law to possess “a high potential for abuse,” “a lack of accepted safety … under medical supervision,” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”

Full text of the study, “Acute effects of a single, oral dose of d9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) administration in healthy volunteers” appears online in Current Pharmaceutical Design.

Originally posted here.