"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Front Row For The Meltdown

Probably going to be required reading for the next while: Christoper Albritton is in Beruit. He's a real journalist with a great deal of expertise in the area.

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We Won't Get Fooled Again(?)

Atrios and Matt Yglesias have a good effing question of commentary about the Mid-East turmoil. "'Both attacks were green-lighted by Iran.; Who in Iran? By what process? By whose authority? When? Who told you?"

Matt:

It all looks to me like a story we've seen before. If you've been paying attention, a lot of people have been agitating for the United States to commence more active efforts to overthrow the Syrian and Iranian governments for some time now. Then some stuff happened and -- miraculously and without real evidence -- that stuff's occurence is suddenly the reason we need to implement the very same policy that was being pushed for previously. I'd like to see some proof.

We'll see. While people would clearly be up in arms if any sort of ground war were proposed, I'm pessimistic that regular Americans care enough to exert the necessary political pressure to prevent Bush from bombin Iran. I'm also pessimistic that the Fourth Estate will act as any sort of check here, either by creating a "Conventional Wisdom" that works against such plans, or by fanning popular sentiment to generate the afformentiond pressure.

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Ready for that $4 Gas?

Another effect of the increasing turmoil between Israel and neighboring guerilla groups will likely be higher oil prices. That's in addition to the annual price hike that comes with the summer driving season.

Gasoline is very unlikely to ever get cheaper. In 2004 the average US price was $1.84. Last summer as I drove through Arkansas, Alabama and pre-Katrina Louisianna, there were plenty of truck stop signs with the first digit missing. It was just $_.35/gal, because they thought the $1-something gas would be back. It won't.

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Deadwood

Holy shit man, it's just not the same when you can't watch 'em all in a row. More frustrating, but more better in a lot of ways. Dan's one of my favorites, and it was shitty to see Steve the hooplehead get the better of Hostetler.

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NeoCon Warmongering

Let's bomb Iran, says The New Republic, because a teenager was kidnapped and some rockets were launched. That article is scary on a number of levels.

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Zidane!

Bam!

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Psychadellic Science!

I think this is good:

In a study that could revive interest in researching the effects of psychedelic drugs, scientists said a substance in certain mushrooms induced powerful, mind-altering experiences among a group of well-educated, middle-age men and women.

Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions researchers conducted the study following carefully controlled, scientifically rigorous procedures. They said that the episodes generally led to positive changes in attitude and behavior among the 36 volunteer participants and that the changes appeared to last at least two months. Participants cited feelings of intense joy, "distance from ordinary reality," and feelings of peace and harmony after taking the drug. Two-thirds described the effects of the drug, called psilocybin, as among the five most meaningful experiences of their lives.

But in 30% of the cases, the drug provoked harrowing experiences dominated by fear and paranoia. Two participants likened the episodes to being in a war. While these episodes were managed by trained monitors at the sessions where the drugs were taken, researchers cautioned that in less-controlled settings, such responses could trigger panic or other reactions that might put people in danger.

I'm a staunch advocate of the psychedelic experience. It's good shit, and it's given me a lot. I'm glad to see that after 40 years of a misguided government-imposed stasis (both LSD and psilocybin are classified as Schedule 1 drugs: no medical use and a high risk of abuse; same as heroin... yeah right), the scientific community is beginning to look into this again.

I think in a civilization who's current view of mental health and well-being is focused on the maintenance of ever-more-endemic depression through regular doses of Seratonin-re-uptake inhibitors, any research which pushes the boundaries of our understanding of the mind and how to help it out is positive. Hopefully this (and subsequent experiments) will open institutional eyes to the fact that while the watershed "peak experiences" often brought on by psychedelics may not be all that profitable for drug companies they can really help improve one's attitude:

Two months after the sessions, 79% of the participants indicated in questionnaires that their sense of well-being and satisfaction increased after the psilocybin episodes...

It can be good stuff, but it can also be bad stuff too. It's significant that the people in this study were all stable, fully-grown adults with college educations. So is the fact that they were made comfortable, laid down in a living-room situation with music and observers who were experienced. The basic theory of psychedelics that Leary put forth early in his career when he was still at Harvard and not a wannabe-mystic guru still holds: set and setting are the two important variables.

Set refers, essentially, to what you bring to the table as an individual; your mood, your memories, your expectations, and your general outlook on life. Setting is your surroundings. It's a simplistic formulation, but one that works.

In general, I don't think it's a great idea for teenagers to take psychedelic drugs recreationally. The combination of factors -- immature brain chemistry, a shallow pool of life experience, a lack of self-knowledge, a likely setting that's sketchy, a tendency to massively overdose out of bravado or simple inexperience -- don't bode well.

I've had some unpleasant experiences, and dealt with friends who were truly on Bad Trips before. My net assessment is that these were still positive in the long run for me, but I can also see how the fucked-upness got started. For instance: don't let people peer-pressure you into taking acid. It won't be fun. Also, don't go tripping with a group that includes someone you have a large emotional crush on but who may or may not be interested in you. That also will not very likely work out.

That being said, I do think that legal adults should have a legal right to tinker with their own brain chemistry for fun and profit, and it seems clear from my experiences that responsible recreational psychedelic use is completely feasible. I mean, look at Saturday night at Burning Man. Here you have 30,000 people in a harsh desert environment, a great majority of them tripping on one or several powerful psychedelic agents, crowding around a gigantic uncontrolled fire and then running off into the black of night while trucks, busses and other automobiles tear around in no particular pattern, and everyone's fucking fine.

I also think that if we can get our collective heads out of our collective asses and let scientists do some research, it's very likely that psychedelic drugs will yield impressive therapeutic results for people with depression, etc. It's already a well-known fact in the underground that MDMA (aka Ecstasy, which was originally developed as an aid for marriage counseling) is effective at helping solders overcome Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other drugs used in several different manners were showing promise back in the 1960s when establishment paranoia over youth culture led to their being given the same legal status as heroin.

And ultimately, that's the rub. The drug war is almost entirely cultural, and pretty much always has been. Laws limit your and my ability to regulate our own body chemistry are enacted to enforce cultural norms, not to promote public health or the pursuit of happiness or social well-being.

It wasn't always this way. For some time, states were too weak to effectively regulate chemical use, and for some time they were too enamored with the potential tax revenues to consider anything else. Perhaps this preoccupation with attempting to influencing culture by regulating individual body chemistry is itself a transient phase as well. I certainly hope so.

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Productive Day

Good one today. I got some work done, cleaned the hot tub (which had developed some funk), and rode my bike to Trinidad to get groceries. Then I watched Nova and ate mac'n'cheese.

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Sick

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Forward Momentum

In keeping with my generally increasing psychic clarity, I've decided that I'm the boss of me, and by extension the boss of my life. It's time to bridge that damn Jungian divide and start making some choices. I don't want to be a self-technocrat, a manager of the heart, but I believe that there is a space of presence in which decisions are made throughout a natural flow of events. It is a matter of choosing first of all to engage the self with the surroundings. Once that's done, momentum will follow, and it's direction that must be chosen.

So, time to get engaged. The general direction is clear enough at the moment. I can worry about that more once I've picked up some steam.

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