that photo thing again...

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“Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”

- Joss Whedon
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A fine topic for some philosophical cud chewing...

Think about it...

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I'm posting photos today. I feel I've been neglectful of y'all, image wise. These are (almost) all recent:


Central California Stuntmen Assoc, early '80s (PlusX film, scanned to digital)


Guadalupe Dunes (California), winter solstice sunset, late '80s (Kodachrome 64, scanned to digital)


Guad Dunes, early morning, winter solstice, late '80s (Kodachrome 64, scanned to digital)


Los Lonely Boys going acoustic, at the McDonald Theater, (2010)

If you aren't familiar with Los Lonely Boys I highly recommend giving 'em a listen. 3 brothers from Texas, they play topnotch Rock and Roll, Texican style!


The Hallelujah Chorus, Willamette HS combined choirs and bands, conducted by Bart Ellis, Dec 2009


Michael Franti at the McDonald Theater, 2009


My son Alex, on bass, w/ Naked in Alaska, Peterson Barn Rec Center, Eugene, OR, 2009


Redtail hawk landing in storm, here at my home, Eugene, OR


Flamboyant tulip, my garden, shot the other day


Magnolia bloom, my garden, 2 weeks ago


Stonefield Beach, south of Cape Perpetua, Oregon, Feb 2010 full moon (extreme high and low tides)

Now I know a lot of you reaaallllly like my photography, and I definitely appreciate your appreciation....

... but artists have to eat.

All of the above images and about 200 more are available for purchase at my RedBubble Gallery. And they don't have to be purchased as framed prints for $120 or so... they can be bought as greeting cards, post cards, laminated prints, mounted or matted prints (you buy or use your own frames)...

So here... these are a few examples of what my photos look like in different formats:





Cards come in 4x6 size for $2.99, 5x7 for $4.50, or as 4x6 postcards for under $2.50. RedBubble also provides quantity discounts - 20% off for 4, 30% off for 8, or 40% off for 16

Laminated prints (photo size approx 8"x12") come on white or black background:





and are priced under $22.00
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From Jay Leno: "our teenagers are so fat today... that teen boys are happy to get in their own pants..."

And I post that not as a dig at overweight folks but on our society (and the fact it's funny!)... we have our priorities a tad askew. Our personal health is our personal responsibility, just as the health of our government is the responsibility of "we, the people." Our gluttony may be fatal on both points.

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“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”

- William Shakespeare

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Got your thinking caps on?

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“When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.”

- Robert Heinlein
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I have a guest blogger appearing in today's post. I met Denny Chapin over at Pete Guither's Drug WarRant. Denny is the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource. He appeared at Pete's with a guest post on Cannabis and addiction: Marijuana Addiction - guest post and a discussion.

To get the gist of all this it would help to follow through on the discussions. Those of us who follow Pete's blog and participate in discussion are no slouches when it comes to drug policy. Drug policy reform advocates have been way ahead of today's Prohibitionists on web technology and savvy since, well, forever.

All of today's Prohibition II is promulgated and funded by the government and any organizations opposed to current drug policies are marginalized and insulted. Yet the forces of prohibition have long held sway only because they held power and purse strings. The wwweb changed that.

Just as an example... in Pete's post on the current UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs 2010 that took place this past week in Vienna, he says this:

I can’t resist showing this… The NGO’s (non-governmental organizations, including Transform, Harm Reduction Association, etc. many of whom are there to try to reform) tend to get shut out of key portions. However, they were promised a location to make their materials available to delegates.

The 160 representatives from 55 NGOs were given this table.

and he offered this photo of the one table 55 Non-Governmental Organizations were supposed to share:




So follow along with these discussions and see for yourself...

After Denny's posting, Pete followed up with a response: Marijuana Addiction - a response

After a vigorous discussion, again, Denny returned with a follow up post: Marijuana Addiction, part 3. Danny Chapin responds. This resulted in 63 responses. And it was my comments to this post that brought Denny to contact me, asking for an opportunity to post here.

And with me being the accomodating fella I am... any way here's Denny Chapin:

Bio:
Denny Chapin is the managing editor of AllTreatment.com, a directory for drug rehab centers and substance abuse information resource.

Should We Decriminalize Marijuana?

From a purely utilitarian perspective, one can arguably weigh the good and bad against each other, calculate these values according to some weighting system, and know the "right" action. The reality of everyday life, however, speaks differently. While we try to use Mill's calculus to decide the truly right action, we fail, and we fail miserably. Yet, regardless, we try to measure negatives and the positives from one another, and make what we deem is the right decision.

In speaking to the following questions and statistics, I in no way mean to claim I am fulfilling the complexity of the whole of this topic, but simply hope to show the information from a perspective, and make conclusions as I deem fit. As such, I'll preface my opinions with a disclaimer that I in no way represent the opinions of any institution, in writing this brief argument. I write simply to ask questions and hopefully challenge and evoke thoughtfulness. And with that, let me detail a few positives that could occur from the decriminalization of marijuana.

Decriminalizing Marijuana: Effects in the United States

Marijuana is used by 15.2 million people, at least, in the United States[1]. Of those 15.2 million people, in 2006, 829,625 people were arrested with marijuana related charges, and 89% of them were charges of possession only, with 11% making up sale and distribution related offenses[2]. The enforcement of these charges cost the United States government between 12 and 20 billion dollars a year. The United States federal budget for education in 2011 is 160.5 billion dollars, and if marijuana was decriminalized, that money could increase our federal education budget by 7.5 to 12.5%[3]. Decriminalization will also prevent these possession offenses from being processed through our police and court systems, increasing efficiency and, hopefully effectiveness, since police will be able to focus more on truly disruptive criminal activity related to stronger, more destructive drugs like meth, cocaine, and heroin that come into the United States from Mexico.

Does Decriminalization Create More Marijuana Users?

But despite these benefits, if we don't care about prosecuting individuals who use and possess marijuana, it seems logical to assume the use of marijuana would rise, since it's "less illegal" with less punishments. Interestingly, the contrary has been the case in the United States. The states of Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon have all enacted marijuana decriminalization, where the offense of marijuana possession does not warrant jail time[4]. And these States have not seen an increase in marijuana consumption, as the Institute of Medicine's report on marijuana consumption indicates[5]. Another report from the Journal of Public Health is worth quoting:

The available evidence indicates that the decriminalization of marijuana possession had little or no impact on rates of use. Although rates of marijuana use increased in those U.S. states [that] reduced maximum penalties for possession to a fine, the prevalence of use increased at similar or higher rates in those states [that] retained more severe penalties. There were also no discernible impacts on the health care systems. On the other hand, the so-called 'decriminalization' measures did result in substantial savings in the criminal justice system.

- E. Single. 1989. The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization: An Update. Journal of Public Health 10: 456-466.

We can see that decriminalization has proven to save American's tax money that would be wastefully spent on our criminal justice system in order to prosecute an overwhelming majority of marijuana users who possess an negligible amount of marijuana, missing the point of the actually preventing harmful drug distribution, crime, and violence.

How Should Treatment Centers Weigh In?

If decriminalization does not impact the number of people who use marijuana, marijuana treatment centers ought not to have an opinion about decriminalization as it relates to usage. And when it comes to costs, marijuana possession prosecution is simply a waste of money.

Most importantly, I think marijuana prohibition, decriminalization, legalization, etc, get a lot of buzz and force many to speak loud opinions about something most American's don't come in contact with on a very regular basis, and even rarer, to hear of someone who has a serious problem or caused themselves major harm because of marijuana. And to this degree, decriminalization is more of an afterthought in our social psyche, where the debate about medical marijuana and legalization take center stage.

So, to almost totally change subjects, I'd like to discuss what I believe is the true drug problem in America, alcohol.

The Real Problem: America's Relationship to Alcohol

In the United States, the most commonly abused substance is alcohol, a legal drug. Coinciding with this fact, treatment centers admit more patients suffering from alcohol abuse than any other drug, and of those patients, 29.9% of them admit themselves into treatment, as opposed to 14.8% of marijuana users admitting themselves into treatment[6]. Alcohol is a legal drug, yet in 2006, it caused 13,050 deaths from liver damage, and 22,073 alcohol-induced deaths, excluding deaths by drunken driving and drunken homicide[7].

Alcoholics and alcoholism is the purple elephant in the room of America's problem with substance abuse. And to this point, the fact that marijuana caused no deaths, has the fewest percentage of addicts admitting themselves to drug treatment on their own accord (along with 5.2x more people admitting themselves to treatment in sheer volume), and costs our country time, money, and energy, I believe marijuana consumption should require the least of our legislative "mindshare" when it comes to drug abuse.

Too many American have a dangerous relationship with alcohol, causing collapse in their body, their connection to their family members, and for our citizens, and scariest of all, the potential to get on the road and commit manslaughter. I feel regret that, as a blogger, the marijuana debate gets the most notice, when so many of us have been viscerally affected by an alcoholic in a truly upsetting manner. And to those of us who have not, we ought to count our blessings.

What should our government do? Make a change. But that is a whole other article ;)


Sources:
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=R2
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/treatment-statistics/
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickoptions.do
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
http://ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2010/02/02012010.html



notes


1 http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/US07.htm

2 http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7370

3 http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/index.html

4 http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3383

5 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=1

6 http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickoptions.do

7 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm ; http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

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Obviously Denny Chapin has done his homework. Feel free to weigh in, I'll be checking comments in the a.m. and the p.m to keep this current.

Thanks Denny!
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“I believe that people have a right to decide their own destiny; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only as long as) individual citizens give it a "temporary license to exist" - in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy you own the government - it doesn't own you. Along with this comes a responsibility to ensure that individual actions, in the pursuit of a personal destiny, do not threaten the well-being of others while the "pursuit" is in progress.”

- Frank Zappa

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the picking of pockets...

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Calvin: "Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?"

Hobbes: "I'm not sure that man needs the help”



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My friend Carol, a schoolteacher in California, told me about this story...

In Madera just recently, the local school district superintendent received a 9% raise:


Budget-tight Madera Unified gives chief a raise

Facing severe budget cuts last year, the Madera Unified School District was forced to furlough workers, increase class sizes, and lay off more than 30 teachers and two dozen other employees.

But last month -- as another round of cuts loomed -- the district's board of trustees offered Superintendent John Stafford a new contract with benefits that equaled a 9% raise. It also promised him a retirement bonus. He was the only superintendent among similar-size school districts in the area to get a raise.

Teachers and union leaders were outraged. They chided the board for giving the district's top administrator a raise at a time when teachers are being pressured to work harder and, in some cases, are buying school supplies with their own money.

Stafford said that even though he asked for the new benefits in his contract, he didn't expect it would be so generous.

So what the heck is going on? I mean this isn't uncommon, this apparent spending of money like rich folk, when really there just isn't any money to be spent and others are making cuts and trying trying to find ways to make this all not hurt so much.

I've heard it said that every dollar spent on education is worth two dollars to society. I also know that one of the chief factors in keeping people out of prison is education. One overriding common denominator shared by those housed in our gulag of jails and prisons is that they are grossly illiterate and have only middle school education levels.

So, what's up MADERA? You lay off 30 teachers and your suprintendent of schools gets a raise? That must be one hot rocket of a super - a super superintendent - I tell you what. Because even tho' 30 teachers have been laid off you didn't have an equitable decline in student enrollment I'm sure...

This is one of those head-shaking moments... sigh... if someone can explain the wisdom in this (or even any common sense to it), please advise. Thanks...

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When the economy debacle hit there was a story that caught my eye:

Retirement Savers Lost $2 Trillion in the Stock Market

and rather than quote the story I'm grabbing this comment:

Lost Money

I'm 58, retired and totally disabled. My wife and I lost over 70% of our retirement based on what our "financial adviser" at Merrill Lynch told us. What a laugh. Now we are scrambling to keep our house, food in our mouths and medicine in our blood streams.

Does anyone know of law suits, individual or class action against Merrill Lynch for abusing and violation their fiduciary duties???

Just drop me an email-----

Regards

S.

So was there a bailout for the working folks like S? Didn't think so...

... but now we need to move on to this Mammonistic bit of gluttony - the Wall Street/Banking bonuses.

I'm not sure if our heads are entombed in the sand or we're (we being you and I, the distinctly individual citizens) just really not able to communicate with each other anymore but I know this blue collar, under employed senior male is pissed off. C'mon... what the hell!

- ok, I'm about to go off on a tangent so I'm gonna save that tangent and not digress, as hard as that is for me to do -

Here are 3 different takes on these executive bonuses, I found them to be both entertaining and relevant:

The earnings report for Main Street: A sorry account, indeed

Prakash Laufer

To add insult to injury to working America, in came the earnings reports from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. At these mega banks, balance sheets are healthy, profits are up and bonuses for top executives are bigger than ever. JPMorgan Chase just reported $11.7 billion in profits and $26.9 billion in compensation and bonuses. Goldman Sachs made a record-high profit of $13.4 billion in 2009 and is slated to hand out $16.2 billion in compensation and bonuses.

These are some of the same institutions whose predatory and unethically risky actions brought our economy to its knees. But, thanks to billions of dollars in government resuscitation, they seem to be recovering nicely from their near-death experiences.

The "earnings report" for the rest of the U.S., however, includes — drum roll, please — higher unemployment and continued foreclosures, with no relief in sight. It sounds like a raw deal because it is. Big banks and Wall Street financiers ignited the foreclosure crisis, setting our economy ablaze, resulting in the loss of millions of homes and jobs.

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Tax Wall Street Bonuses

Jim Hightower

Start with those bonuses. Yes, say the bankers, we're stuffing ourselves with money that we should be loaning out to help Main Street recover from the crash we caused, but – hey – we've also started a few charities to help, you know, the little people. So buzz off, killjoy.

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and then this little dittie from that bastion of the liberal media, CNN Money:

Botox to vacations: Where bankers spend their bonuses

Blake Ellis

Wall Street bankers are putting together their wish lists for 2010 -- and they're not holding back. After last year's dry spell, bonuses for top-level executives are expected to be sky high. Maybe even records.

At Goldman Sachs and Chase these execs are anticipating bonuses of more than $500,000 a piece, on average, so they'll have plenty to spend.

Read that one and weep, suckers!

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But seriously, back to my digression which is now no longer a digression! I knew I could do it... now what was it again?

... oh yeah...

I'm pissed! Listen, if there is someone using the terms liberal or conservative as hot button words, trying to get a rise from folks by lambasting in what I guess they hope is Twainesque in its literary brilliance, ignore the bastards! And you know who I'm talking about - the Limbaughs and his loud-mouthed peers. And I'm not talking about just those on Limbaugh's end of the political scale, I'm talking about all across the political field.

We cannot afford to be divided further. Lord knows we can always find reasons to not like and hate each other. Heck, a lot of us can't get along with our own families let alone neighbors or strangers, but we really have to take a break. We can't afford to let our national experiment in liberty fail. (and liberty has nothing to do with government)

Liberty is essential, it's like water. Without it we die. Either physically or spiritually... we die without the essentials.

Liberty, freedom... that is a state of being. It is in our contract, a universal declaration of individual human sovereignty. But with that sovereignty comes a great weight of responsibility. Because to be free we cannot deny freedom to another. Freedom is reciprocal recognition of another's right of existence as much as it is of our own existence. Were this a world of only one... cooperation would need not exist. But there are 7 billion of us crowding together here on this earth.

And we allow others to excite us to dischord at our own expense and at great risk to our social order. Finding ways to hate one another takes no effort, but it does tend to create a need for a referee - aka government. And the more dischordant we become the more need for someone to break up the fights.

We've moved beyond (and yes there are still some bastions of ignorance remaining where this doesn't hold true) using inciteful speech like "nigger." I mean I was a kid who thought the story of Little Black Sambo (there was a Sambo's restaurant chain - try opening a restaurant with that name today!) was great. I loved it. The first time I saw a black man I asked my dad if that man was little black Sambo. I'll wager he was embarrassed just a bit.

I see it these days... skin color is about as significant as hair color. We notice but we move on. So what keeps us apart? Why are we allowing our pockets to be picked like this? How can 1% of the population hold as much wealth as the the bottom 50%?

If someone is using inflammatory rhetoric, ignore them! Seriously... we need to seek cooperation, we need to create cooperation, we need to work this out together, cooperating is the only way to do do that! And this is a big ship and it's gonna take some strong arms to keep that wheel turning us back to the good.

It is not a competition of insults - that's for friends - and those who insult are a large part of the problem. They're the scab pickers that won't let wounds heal.

[and trust me, I'm not a liberal, I am a true independent and take my own stands on issues - the two party system is also part of the problem but that is another whole blogpost - æ]

So listen for venom, don't get sucked in thinking there is another segment of humanity that for some reason needs reviling. We're all the same, we all were once seed and egg (except for Dick Cheney), and those who seek to divide us are our enemies.

Those who seek to divide us... from within or without...

are our enemies.

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Reason # 32 for not tailgating...

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“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police”

- Albert Einstein

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