get angry WITH me!

chronic pain? tough shit.

jackie sheeler — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:02:24 +0000

where did this nation’s lopsided obsession with addiction come from?

the FDA has been advised to pull Vicodin and Percocet from the shelves. prohibit them altogether.

you know what those are, right? odds are high that you’ve gotten a prescription for one of them at some point. wisdom teeth, post-op, kidney stone, car accident. they’re pretty damn good at tamping down pain.

people with long-term chronic pain often receive these drugs. people who have cancer, fused spines, war wounds. that kind of thing.

but, because these prescription narcotics are pre-combined with generic tylenol (see fredericks’ detailed — and hilarious — piece in faster times for why that matters) they can in certain circumstances be more addictive, or more likely to result in accidental overdose, than they would solo.

so vicodin = codeine+tylenol, and percocet = oxycontin+tylenol. they are much easier for doctors to prescribe and pharmacists to dispense than the more harshly regulated sans-tylenol versions of those drugs.

but better for you to die screaming than become addicted. ANYTHING, in these puritanical united states, is preferable to addiction.

unless you’re talking about nicotine or alcohol, of course. those are different. they have lobbyists. check this out:

Tobacco addiction, the second-leading cause of death in the world, is a culprit for approximately 5 million deaths each year or 1 in 10 adult deaths.

in THE WORLD. the world includes those countries in which opiates are far less difficult to obtain than they are here. let me put this another way: even if our corner stores sold pharmaceutical-grade narcotics over the counter the same way they sell marlboros, the presumably resulting addictions would STILL not kill very many people.

got that?

not so many people die from alcohol — but drunks sure do wreak a lot more havoc on their way to the grave than regular old dope-fiends (or your grandma and her percocet habit) ever did. in fact, they might even kill you. in fact, if you ARE killed, chances that the perpetrator was drunk at the time that he shot/stabbed/bludgeoned you to death range from 30%-50% depending on which study you are reading and which country it was conducted in.

whole books have been written about the connection.

but the murderous junkie? the homicidal crackhead? nope. thanks primarily to our idiotic and ill-conceived “war on drugs“, we have addicts committing violence (and assorted other crimes) in order to obtain their drug of choice, but rarely as a result of having taken them.

alcohol can fairly easily get you to hurt someone that you would not have hurt had you not been drinking; there is such no parallel in connection with narcotics or recreational drugs like pot or ecstasy.

plus, they are more fun than drinking. and don’t make you piss like a racehorse every five minutes.

i didn’t expect to find myself writing about The Drug Question a second time in july, with the month not even halfway over. but america has gone completely insane in this area, and i just can’t keep myself quiet.

very few people directly die from alcohol addiction — but drunks sure do wreak a lot more havoc on their way to the grave than regular old dope-fiends (or your grandma and her percocet habit) ever do. in fact, they might even kill you. in fact, if you ARE killed, chances that the perpetrator was drunk at the time that he shot/stabbed/bludgeoned you to death range from 30%-50% depending on which study you are reading and which country it was conducted in. whole books have been written about the connection.

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“get those little black bastards out of OUR pool!”

jackie sheeler — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:34:39 +0000

this, more or less, is what the white families (and administration) of the philly-area Valley Swim Club said when a group of day camp students — whose $1900 season membership the Club had readily accepted — showed up for a day of swimming.

according to mother jones:

“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson , parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”[emphasis added]

didn’t that kind of jim crow bullshit end in the 60’s? after a lot of sacrifice and bloodshed on the part of quite a few people, both black and white. didn’t martin luther king lose his LIFE for fighting to end this kind of small-minded segregation?

unbelievably, john duesler, president of the swim club, released the following statement shortly after ejecting the day camp kids from his establishment:

“There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.”

well, at least he’s not pretending that it’s anything other than straightforward old-fashioned racism.that line may yet get him indicted. and i’ve heard that hate mail is pouring in thick and fast to him and the rest of the management of that “if it ain’t white it ain’t right” establishment.

i don’t know if hate mail is going to be much help here, though. they are, already, clearly filled with hate.

here is the letter that i wrote to duesler last night. please do email him your thoughts as well: info@thevalleyclub.com

Dear Mr. Duesler:

Just letting you know that I – and likely several thousand other bloggers – will be writing about the blatantly (and breezily acknowledged) racist practices demonstrated this week at the Valley Swim Club.

This kind of discrimination is, as you must know, against the law. It’s also not a very astute move on the part of the Club, as it has already focused a very negative national spotlight on your activities.

Worse than the illegality of this action is its lack of compassion and broad-sightedness. Your other patrons are “afraid” of allowing their children to swim with black children? Then it was incumbent upon you, as a leader at the Club, to ensure that the environment remained safe for all parties, and to encourage all of the children to mix, mingle and play together.

That is how true leaders help, bit by bit, to improve the world and bring people together. Your actions today were both small-minded and fearful. I invite you to take a bold step into true leadership, welcome the day camp children back to the pool, and throw your authority, personality and staff wholeheartedly into whatever effort it takes to make the integration work.

It might be a whole lot easier than you, or the supposedly terrified white parents, anticipate. Children are not born racists, they are taught to be racists. Don’t be part of that kind of teaching; be bigger than that. You can do it.

Most sincerely,

Jackie Sheeler

haven’t heard back from them yet. but then, they’ve got quite a bit of mail to deal with today. take a minute, and add your voice to the outcry.

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technology on a political blog?

jackie sheeler — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:46:50 +0000

gotta do it just this one time.

i’ve used windows from the beginning — along with the MS office suite. tried crossing over to mac about a year ago and just couldn’t do it. i still have the macbook, and use it occasionally — although now, with yet ANOTHER windows computer of mine becoming all fucked up all by itself, it may be getting more use in the very near future.

which is why today’s announcement that google is about to release an OS for the desktop made me so happy.

i have HAD IT with windows and all its concomitant, bloated bullshit problems. i have HAD it with an operating system where USB devices work on one machine but not another according to the version of the OS. i am SICK AND TIRED of the blue screen of death. i am SICK AND TIRED of unnecessary — and unnecessarily complex — application updates. office 2007? people like myself who’d been using MS Word et al for YEARS had to practically relearn the program from scratch. and microsoft sent a big Fuck You to all those excel wonks out there, by making the new version incompatible with macros written in all previous versions. i could personally care less about excel macros, but i know people who regularly used macros they’d been fine-tuning for years — years! — through one upgrade to another, who suddenly (and without warning) became unable to run what might have been one of their most important tools.

what the fuck? are we customers, or subjects?

so while i’m not crazy about the chrome browser (it’s a browser, nothing special nothing terrible, it just didn’t give me enough reason to switch from firefox) i AM crazy about the idea of this new OS and i will adopt it on every computer i have that can handle it. and yes, i’ll port all my docs over to google docs or open office. fewer features than the MS Office suite? yes. but i don’t know a single person who needs, wants or uses all those features. do you?

i am SO done with microsoft and its incompetent, high-handed operations. if google is successful in this OS venture, they will be ringing the death bell up in redmond. and i say bring it on.

***

meanwhile, if anyone can recommend a lightweight or web-based alternative to photoshop, i’d love to hear about it. since the adobe suite i have cannot be installed on vista, and microsoft has forbidden hardware manufacturers from shipping any more XP systems. and i’m afraid to downgrade this computer to XP because it has a touch screen, and i am sure that all hell will break loose over the drivers. because this is, after all, windows. it keeps getting bigger, but it’s not getting better.

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styles of incoherence

jackie sheeler — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:38:48 +0000

as republican senator john thune demonstrated in his blog this morning (ironically entitled “transparency”), you don’t have to be a backwoods ditz floundering through a poorly-thought-out resignation speech in order to be inarticulate.

granted, the material he is responding to is, in itself, fairly incoherent — i had to read through the brief post several times this morning to figure out what he and dr. mcgartland were trying to get at.

the point seems to be that if we don’t allow someone with a Ph.D. in economy (whom thune repeatedly refers to as a “scientist”, as if the economy operated on principles reliable as the law of gravity) to overrule an environmental scientist in a matter concerning the environment, then science is not being served and it’s proof that obama has reneged on his campaign promise to restore science to government.

got that? i couldn’t find any examples of john thune scolding george bush about creationism being taught in schools, so apparently this devotion to science has come upon him rather suddenly. maybe on 1/20/09.

in fairness, this latest tempest in a teapot concerns the cap-and-trade bill recently passed by the house of representatives. the passing of this bill is a good thing in one way and a godawful thing in another.

it’s good in that climate change is finally being taken seriously enough for any kind of environmentally motivated legislation to pass muster.

it’s bad in that the method it uses is carbon trading.

carbon trading is nothing but a travesty. ALL emissions have to come down — allowing tom to maintain high levels of carbon emissions because dick & harry have lowered theirs is a zero-sum game, one that actually impedes rather than supports the overall lowering of carbon levels in our atmosphere.

so, although i don’t agree with thune’s partisan-politics-as-usual approach, i do agree that this is a bad bill. unlike senator thune, i oppose the bill because it does not go anywhere near far enough, not because it might be too much of an inconvenience for the coal and oil industries.

i just rechecked my carbon footprint and it came out to 3.75 — less than half the national average, and lower than it was last year (4.4), when i worked at a job that required fairly frequent air travel. i guesstimated one medium-length flight/year for today’s recalculation.

this month i’m selling my car. once it’s gone my footprint shrinks to 3.15. what’s your carbon footprint? please leave a comment if you take the carbon test. and no cheating!Recent Posts:

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lorna salzman for president! [a guest post]

jackie sheeler — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:23:38 +0000

here’s a campaign platform I would back. I received it via email from a friend, and lorna has graciously allowed it to be posted on this blog.

Lorna Salzman is radical environmentalist, writer, bird watcher, atheist, former candidate for the US Green Party’s presidential nomination (2004). You can find more of her writing here.

My (imaginary) campaign for president

After hearing that the Waxman/Markey energy bill was over 1400 pages long, I quickly decided to announce that my campaign for president in 2012 will feature this promise: to veto any bill put on my desk that is over 100 pages long. Any bill that an ordinary citizen can’t read. Any bill over 100 pages must be filled with pork.

In keeping with my distaste for “big government”, I will shrink some parts of government such as the Pentagon while increasing other parts like education and health care. I will oppose any legislation funding or authorizing military intervention in foreign countries unless congress has made an official declaration of war.

My unqualified support for the Constitution and civil liberties means I will abolish Homeland Security, protect offensive speech, and decriminalize marijuana as long as alcohol and tobacco are legal.

To defend the separation of religion and state, I will oppose any and all special treatment of and favors to all religions, and will take action against any manifestation of sharia law or Christian or Jewish fundamentalism, against female genital mutilation, and against the covering of the face of women in public. “Honor killings” will reap castration and life in prison without parole.

I will establish a cabinet position for women’s rights to formulate policies to protect and expand women’s rights and standing in muslim countries, as well as an agency empowered to stop child slavery and forced prostitution wherever it exists.

In order to restore a truly free market, I will support a carbon tax, with revenues returned to citizens as dividends, and will oppose government subsidies and tax breaks to industry and private business, including the energy sector.

I will defend and strengthen the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, OSHA and all other federal environmental laws, and will propose a timetable for zero discharge of all pollutants from industrial processes. I will make restoration and protection of ocean fisheries a priority.

I will work vigorously for a universal single payer health plan, with the intent of taking insurance companies out of the health business and profits out of health care. This shall be funded through the income tax.

I will seek to tax large corporations at 50% as existed in the 1950s, and will increase personal income tax on all earnings over $300,000.

I will oppose the use of eminent domain and public tax breaks for private purposes.

I will work to abolish the World Trade Organization and NAFTA and similar treaties, and to radically reform the World Bank and IMF so as to put environment, social justice, women’s empowerment, health, and renewable energy technologies at the heart of all foreign aid projects.

I will make mandatory energy efficiency and an end to deforestation among my top priorities, along with imposition of a Border Tax Adjustment (BTA) on carbon-intensive imports from countries that refuse to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.

I will work for high-speed rail networks and regional public transit across the country.

I will seek mechanisms to discourage exurban and suburban sprawl.

I will end agricultural subsidies, direct and indirect, and will provide incentives for community and regional agriculture and food supply.

I will support science and environmental education, especially the teaching of evolution at all levels.

(I also support omnivory; a ban on cursing in public to be replaced by words like “Rats”, “Holy moley”, “horsefeathers”, “golly”, “gee whiz”; prohibiting the sale of pastry and cookies not made with butter; a stiff tax on the purchase of television sets; a ban on hyphenated ethnic descriptions (African-American, Italian-American, etc). unless one of the person’s parents was actually born in that foreign country); and recycling of liposuction fat as a biofuel).
Lorna Salzman
www.lornasalzman.com

“Modern science-based civilization is but a thin veneer for fundamental medieval notions divorced from empirical evidence” – Andrew Glikson

“We are already fighting World War III and I am sorry to say we are winning. It is the war against the earth”…..Raymond Dasmann

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction” (B. Pascal).Recent Posts:

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music for the 4th of july

jackie sheeler — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:50:56 +0000

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Boehner Wins Pissing Contest [a guest post]

Bill Britton — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:19:48 +0000

House Republican Leader, John (Man-Tan) Boehner (R-Ohio), came out on top in the Republican Party’s annual pissing contest. Dubbed “Pee for Democracy,” the contest has been waged every year since 1980 when Ronald Reagan outdistanced George H. W. Bush with a mark of 14 feet, 3 inches, a record that still stands. That win guaranteed Reagan’s victory in the subsequent presidential contest. The combined record of 32.75 points (distance plus volume) is held by Rush (Telatubby) Limbaugh. Point totals are determined by an arcane formula devised by former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan.

The contest, at Mitch O’Neill’s Pub in Syosset, NY, was held over a period of four days and coincided with the playing of the U.S. Open golf championship in nearby Bethpage. Because of rain delays at the Bethpage course, attendance at the golf classic suffered. In addition, Pee for Democracy’s organizers offered Bud Lite Draft, the contest’s sponsors, to spectators at 1960 prices—50¢ per pint, which further dampened Open attendance.

This year’s finalists included winner Boehner, perennial favorite Limbaugh (second), Bill O’Reilly of Fox (third), and author and conservative activist, Ann Coulter (fourth). Coulter’s participation was a first for women and reflected a desire of the Republican Party to be more inclusive. Like golf, the women’s pee-tee-off spot was circumscribed to offset the male penile advantages of adjustable elevation and tighter stream.

Disappointing was the performance of the early favorite, President George W. Bush, who barely reached the 3-foot hash mark. “I cain’t unnerstan it,” said Bush. “I been practicin’ for months and was spectacle. If we hadda skeet virgin of the contest, I woulda’ won hands down. Last week, ah was like a dead-eye dick, hittin’ them skitterin’ tumbleweed down at the Crawford ranch.”

Boehner was his usual, magnanimous self, offering O’Reilly a redo of a misdirected effort in the final round. “I saw that Bill was momentarily distracted by a picket shouting, ‘O’Reilly sucks fox cock,’ so after a 30-minute delay and two pints of Bud, Bill recovered his composure and edged out Ann by a stroke, so to speak.”

Limbaugh was bitter: “I’m not used to dealing with a headwind and should have had a redo. I guess O’Reilly is the only one that gets fair and balanced treatment around here.” Contest head, Pat Buchanan, countered Limbaugh’s complaint by saying, “Rush should be more flexible, not so rigid. He should have listened to his handlers and reduced his angle of elevation.”

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sorry, too stoned to write

jackie sheeler — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:53:26 +0000

that got your attention, didn’t it?

if i lived in portugal, i might actually be too stoned to write.

or not -- since decriminalizing ALL drug use eight years ago, fewer people in that country use drugs today than did back when using was illegal. and the dreaded influx of slavering junkies searching for a safe place to shoot up never materialized. check out this short docuclip from the BBC:

amazing? no, predictable. but this is america, and we don’t need evidence if we can have a war instead, even one so unwinnable, expensive and disastrous as the infamous “war on drugs” has turned out to be.

in fact, we are so determined to keep drugs away from people at all costs that our egregious policies have created a set of international laws around painkiller prescriptions so monstrous that few underdeveloped countries can comply with them. the result? people with cancer and HIV die screaming, with nary a tab of oxycontin nor shot of morphine to give them so much as an hour of relief. can’t be too careful with those opiates, you know. what if these people became addicted?

can’t you just picture it: armies of deathbed junkies slavering through the hospital corridors, tumors in hand, searching for that next one.

as terry j. allen so eloquently put it:

Few actions so perfectly combine stupidity and cruelty as denying pain relief to the dying because narcotics can be addictive.

meanwhile, alcohol is not only legal, not only tolerated, but absolutely celebrated by the american political elite, who can hardly hold a fundraiser without a few magnums of Cristal. despite the whimpering lush beneath the park bench two blocks away from the white house, the one who couldn’t find anything to drink that night and so is hiding from his DDT horrors like somebody out of an updated scene from the days of wine and roses.

oh stop it, jackie, you left-wing hippie liberal drugloving so-and-so. if our fearless leaders are, even today, even in the year of our lord 2009, introducing legislation that would send pot dealers to jail for the next quarter century (at our expense, of course), then you’ve got it all wrong.

uh, unless they live on rhode island, where legal pot distribution centers are set to open shortly.

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iran revolution rant

jackie sheeler — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:39:59 +0000

i’ll let the video speak for itself.

if this piece resonated with you, please share it with your network.Recent Posts:

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yes, the rumor is true: michael jackson died last week

jackie sheeler — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:16:31 +0000

and so did:

Army SSG Paul G Smith, 43, of East Peoria, IL
Army SSG Joshua A Melton, 26, of Carlyle, IL
Army SPC Chancellor A Keesling, 25, of Indianapolis, IN
Navy MCPO Jeffrey J Garber, 43, of Hemingford, NE
Army 1SG John D Blair, 38, of Calhoun, GA
Army SGT Ricky D Jones, 26, of Plantersville, AK
Army SGT Rodrigo A Munguia Rivas, 27, of Germantown, MD
Army SPC Casey L Hills, 23, of Salem, IL
Army 1LT Brian N Bradshaw, 24, of Steilacoom, WA
Army SPC Joshua L Hazlewood, 22, of Manvel, TX

that’s the military body count from iraq and afghanistan. nobody went moonwalking in front of the fucking apollo theater for any of them.

civilian body count for the same period — again, just one week, last week — in that area is estimated at 174.

can you say imbalance?

not to disparage michael jackson. i loved his music, went to his shows, bought his records. worried about his face and his habit of sleeping with children.

yet one life, however talented or celebrated it may have been, is not a millionfold more significant than another. you’d never know that watching american TV, reading american newspapers and blogs, or sitting by my living room window where four out of every five cars driving down west 116th street have “billie jean” blasting out of their radios.

we should carry on like this over every single person killed in our senseless wars. every soldier, sailor, child, journalist, housewife, laborer, cook. every single one.

if they, who lived more-or-less unsung lives, are left to die unsung, the murdering will never stop.

our national obsession with celebrity in such a bloody world is obscene. the iranian people are risking everything they have — life, limb, freedom, home — in demanding justice from their dictatorial leaders. if we had done in 2000 what they are doing right now, several hundred thousand dead might still be living. (for that matter, the whole mortgage-fiasco-market-meltdown might also have been averted, but that’s a topic for another day.)

but no. we sat in front of our televisions, then as now, and watched the world unfold on those tiny, twisted screens, with a bag of chips and a frosty bottle of beer on the coffee table.

and most of us don’t even know enough to be ashamed of this. it’s simply the american way.Recent Posts:

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