Monday, December 13, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
'The Barbarian Hordes Storm the Walls' by Mark Pesce (from Future Present)
Mark Pesce - Words.
CHU - Images.
Steve 'Fly Agaric'' - Mixing
http://chu51.wikispaces.com/UNEVENLY+DISTRIBUTED
http://www.sharethiscourse.org/
Unevenly Distributed:
Production Models for the 21st CenturyII. The Barbarian Hordes Storm the Walls
Without any doubt the most outstanding success of the
second phase of the Web (known colloquially as “Web 2.0”) is
the video-sharing site YouTube. Founded in early 2005, as of
yesterday YouTube was the third most visited site on the
entire Web, led only by Yahoo! and YouTube’s parent, Google.
There are a lot of videos on YouTube. I’m not sure if anyone
knows quite how many, but they easily number in the tens of
millions, quite likely approaching a hundred million. Another
hundred thousand videos are uploaded each day; YouTube
grows by three million videos a month. That’s a lot of video,
difficult even to contemplate. But an understanding of
YouTube is essential for anyone in the film and television
industries in the 21st century, because, in the most pure,
absolute sense, YouTube is your competitor.
Let me unroll that statement a bit, because I don’t wish it to
be taken as simply as it sounds. It’s not that YouTube is
competing with you for dollars – it isn’t, at least not yet – but
rather, it is competing for attention. Attention is the limiting
factor for the audience; we are cashed up but time-poor. Yet,
even as we’ve become so time-poor, the number of options for
how we can spend that time entertaining ourselves has grown
so grotesquely large as to be almost unfathomable. This is the
real lesson of YouTube, the one I want you to consider in your
deliberations today. In just the past three years we have gone
from an essential scarcity of filmic media – presented through
limited and highly regulated distribution channels – to a
hyperabundance of viewing options.
This hyperabundance of choices, it was supposed until
recently, would lead to a sort of “decision paralysis,” whereby
the viewer would be so overwhelmed by the number of
choices on offer that they would simply run back, terrified, to
the highly regularized offerings of the old-school distribution
channels. This has not happened; in fact, the opposite has
occured: the audience is fragmenting, breaking up into eversmaller
“microaudiences”. It is these microaudiences that
YouTube speaks directly to. The language of microaudiences
is YouTube’s native tongue.
In order to illustrate the transformation that has completely
overtaken us, let’s consider a hypothetical fifteen year-old
boy, home after a day at school. He is multi-tasking: texting
his friends, posting messages on Bebo, chatting away on IM,
surfing the web, doing a bit of homework, and probably
taking in some entertainment. That might be coming from a
television, somewhere in the background, or it might be
coming from the Web browser right in front of him.
(Actually, it’s probably both simultaneously.) This teenager
has a limited suite of selections available on the telly – even
with satellite or cable, there won’t be more than a few
hundred choices on offer, and he’s probably settled for
something that, while not incredibly satisfying, is good
enough to play in the background.
Meanwhile, on his laptop, he’s viewing a whole series of
YouTube videos that he’s received from his friends; they’ve
found these videos in their own wanderings, and immediately
forwarded them along, knowing that he’ll enjoy them. He
views them, and laughs, he forwards them along to other
friends, who will laugh, and forward them along to other
friends, and so on. Sharing is an essential quality of all of the
media this fifteen year-old has ever known. In his eyes, if it
can’t be shared, a piece of media loses most of its value. If it
can’t be forwarded along, it’s broken.
For this fifteen year-old, the concept of a broadcast network
no longer exists. Television programmes might be watched as
they’re broadcast through the airwaves, but more likely
they’re spooled off of a digital video recorder, or downloaded
from the torrent and watched where and when he chooses.
The broadcast network has been replaced by the social
network of his friends, all of whom are constantly sharing the
newest, coolest things with one another. The current hot item
might be something that was created at great expense for a
mass audience, but the relationship between a hot piece of
media and its meaningfulness for a microaudience is purely
coincidental. All the marketing dollars in the world can foster
some brand awareness, but no amount of money will inspire
that fifteen year old to forward something along – because his
social standing hangs in the balance. If he passes along
something lame, he’ll lose social standing with his peers. This
factors into every decision he makes, from the brand of
runners he wears, to the television series he chooses to watch.
Because of the hyperabundance of media – something he
takes as a given, not as an incredibly recent development – all
of his media decisions are weighed against the values and
tastes of his social network, rather than against a scarcity of
choices.
This means that the true value of media in the 21st century is
entirely personal, and based upon the salience, that is, the
importance, of that media to the individual and that
individual’s social network. The mass market, with its
enforced scarcity, simply does not enter into his calculations.
Yes, he might go to the theatre to see Transformers with his
mates; but he’s just as likely to download a copy recorded in
the movie theatre with an illegally smuggled-in camera that
was uploaded to the Pirate Bay a few hours after its release.
That’s today. Now let’s project ourselves five years into the
future. YouTube is still around, but now it has more than two
hundred million videos (probably much more), all available,
all the time, from short-form to full-length features, many of
which are now available in high-definition. There’s so much
“there” there that it is inconceivable that conventional media
distribution mechanisms of exhibition and broadcast could
compete. For this twenty year-old, every decision to spend
some of his increasingly-valuable attention watching
anything is measured against salience: “How important is
this for me, right now?” When you weigh the latest episode of
a TV series against some newly-made video that is meant only
to appeal to a few thousand people – such as himself – that
video will win, every time. It more completely satisfies him.
As the number of videos on offer through YouTube and its
competitors continues to grow, the number of salient choices
grows ever larger. His social network, communicating now
through FaceBook and MySpace and next-generation mobile
handsets and iPods and goodness-knows-what-else is
constantly delivering an ever-growing and increasinglyrelevant
suite of media options. He, as a vital node within his
social network, is doing his best to give as good as he gets.
His reputation depends on being “on the tip.”
When the barriers to media distribution collapsed in the post-
Napster era, the exhibitors and broadcasters lost control of
distribution. What no one had expected was that the
professional producers would lose control of production. The
difference between an amateur and a professional – in the
media industries – has always centered on the point that the
professional sells their work into distribution, while the
amateur uses wits and will to self-distribute. Now that selfdistribution
is more effective than professional distribution,
how do we distinguish between the professional and the
amateur? This twenty year-old doesn’t know, and doesn’t
care.
There is no conceivable way that the current systems of film
and television production and distribution can survive in this
environment. This is an uncomfortable truth, but it is the
only truth on offer this morning. I’ve come to this conclusion
slowly, because it seems to spell the death of a hundred yearold
industry with many, many creative professionals. In this
environment, television is already rediscovering its roots as a
live medium, increasingly focusing on news, sport and “event”
based programming, such as Pop Idol, where being there live
is the essence of the experience. Broadcasting is uniquely
designed to support the efficient distribution of live
programming. Hollywood will continue to churn out
blockbuster after blockbuster, seeking a warmed-over middle
ground of thrills and chills which ensures that global receipts
will cover the ever-increasing production costs. In this form,
both industries will continue for some years to come, and will
probably continue to generate nice profits. But the audience’s
attentions have turned elsewhere. They’re not returning.
This future almost completely excludes “independent”
production, a vague term which basically means any
production which takes place outside of the media
megacorporations (News Corp, Disney, Sony, Universal and
TimeWarner), which increasingly dominate the mass media
landscape. Outside of their corporate embrace, finding an
audience sufficient to cover production and marketing costs
has become increasingly difficult. Film and television have
long been losing economic propositions (except for the most
lucky), but they’re now becoming financially suicidal.
National and regional funding bodies are growing
increasingly intolerant of funding productions which can not
find an audience; soon enough that pipeline will be cut off,
despite the damage to national cultures. Australia funds the
Film Finance Corporation and the Australian Film Council to
the tune of a hundred million dollars a year, to ensure that
Australian stories are told by Australian voices; but
Australians don’t go to see them in the theatres, and don’t buy
them on DVD.
The center can not hold. Instead, YouTube, which founder
Steve Chen insists has “no gold standard” of production
values, is rapidly becoming the vehicle for independent
productions; productions which cost not millions of euros,
but hundreds, and which make up for their low production
values in salience and in overwhelming numbers. This
tsunami of content can not be stopped or even slowed down;
it has nothing to do with piracy (only nine percent of the
videos viewed on YouTube are violations of copyright) but
reflects the natural accommodation of the audience to an era
of media hyperabundance.
What then, is to be done?
 | |||||
| Sodtherich by CHU |
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Evolve The Spore
Loose spore, spoor, spell s’poor.
Lou’s Spore Spore of Destiny. The weir of brandy,
Spart of the Lyf Cycle cycle.
Sports Day. Sport for all. Reproductive seed,
Ballistico Spores blowing, Spores and cures and
Starseed Transmissions 2010.
The Intelligence in the Cherry Stone Words are
Growing both on the ground and Underground
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Maybe Logic Academy on BOINGBOING. Thanks Douglas Rushkoff
Robert Anton Wilson and his crew set up an online academy for him to teach James Joyce and other subjects to those of us who thrived off his learning and insights. Before he died, he began to invite others to teach courses through the Maybe Logic Academy, and the site has lived on. I was honored to be asked to teach a course based on my new book. It goes for ten weeks, and begins October 11. I'll be donating my proceeds to archive.org. Here's the pitch. Ten weeks of study and dialogue, ten commands for a digital age. We continue to accept new technologies into our lives with little or no understanding of how these devices work and work on us. We do not know how to program our computers, nor do we care. We spend much more time and energy trying to figure out how to use them to program one another, instead. And this is a potentially grave mistake. Just as the invention of text utterly transformed human society, disconnecting us from much of what we held sacred, our migration to the digital realm will also require a new template for maintaining our humanity. In this course, Rushkoff shares the biases of digital media, and what that means for how we should use them. The course will be organized along the ten main biases of digital media - time, distance, scale, choice, complexity, identity, social, fact, sharing, and purpose - exploring how digital media is tilted towards one or the other end of each spectrum. We will then discuss how to maintain agency in the face of each of these biases.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
RAW Illumination: Fly Agaric 23 announces online RAW course Steve "...
Steve "...: "Fly Agaric 23 announces online RAW course Steve 'Fly Agaric' 23 has announced a new online course, 'email to the tribe,' which will run fr..."
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Over 20,000 Studies Conducted on Marijuana
Neither story particularly breaks any new ground, though the first provides some valuable — if inadvertent — insight into the prohibitionist (or at the very least, statist) mindset.
Quoted in the story is Columbia University researcher Margaret Haney. I’ve written about Haney’s clinical work with cannabis before. In particular, Haney was the lead author of a 2007 clinical trial concluding that inhaled cannabis increased daily caloric intake and body weight in HIV-positive patients in a manner that was far superior to the effects of oral THC (Marinol aka Dronabinol). The study further reported that subjects’ use of marijuana was well tolerated, and did not impair their cognitive performance.
Yet Haney’s comments in US News & World Report ring tepid at best. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“’I am not anti-marijuana, I’m not pro-marijuana. I want to understand it.’ Haney expresses frustration at what she considers wrongheaded efforts by states to legalize medical marijuana. There is too much, she says, that scientists do not know.”
Haney’s refrain is a common one, and at first glance it appears to make sense. After all, who among us doesn’t want to better understand the interactions between the marijuana plant and the human body? Yet placed in proper context this sentiment appears to be little more than a red herring. Here’s why.
Marijuana is already the most studied plant on Earth, and is arguably one of the most investigated therapeutically active substances known to man. To date, there are now over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature pertaining to marijuana and its active compounds. That total includes over 2,700 separate papers published on cannabis in 2009 and another 900 published just this year alone (according to a key word search on the search engine PubMed).
And what have we learned from these 20,000+ studies? Not surprisingly, quite a lot. For starters, we know that cannabis and its active constituents are uniquely safe and effective as therapeutic compounds. Unlike most prescription or over-the-counter medications, cannabinoids are virtually non-toxic to health cells or organs, and they are incapable of causing the user to experience a fatal overdose. Unlike opiates, cannabinoids do not depress the central nervous system, and as a result they possess a virtually unparalleled safety profile. In fact, a 2008 meta-analysis published in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMAJ) reported that cannabis-based drugs were associated with virtually no serious adverse side effects in over 30 years of investigative use.
We also know that the cannabis plant contains in excess of 60 active compounds that likely possess distinctive therapeutic properties. These include THC, THCV, CBD, THCA, CBC, and CBG, among others. In fact, a recent review by Israel’s Raphael Mechoulam of Hebrew University and colleagues identifies nearly 30 separate therapeutic effects — including anti-cancer properties, anti-diabetic properties, neuroprotection, and anti-stroke properties — in cannabinoids other than THC. Most recently, a review by researchers in Germany reported that since 2005 there have been 37 controlled studies assessing the safety and efficacy of cannabinoids, involved a total of 2,563 subjects. By contrast, most FDA-approved drugs go through far fewer trials involving far fewer subjects.
Finally, we know that Western civilization has been using cannabis as a therapeutic agent or recreational intoxicant for thousands of years with relatively few adverse consequences — either to the individual user or to society. In fact, no less than the World Health Organization commissioned a team of experts to compare the health and societal consequences of marijuana use compared to other drugs, including alcohol, nicotine, and opiates. After quantifying the harms associated with both drugs, the researchers concluded: “Overall, most of these risks (associated with marijuana) are small to moderate in size. In aggregate they are unlikely to produce public health problems comparable in scale to those currently produced by alcohol and tobacco. On existing patterns of use, cannabis poses a much less serious public health problem than is currently posed by alcohol and tobacco in Western societies.”
That, in a nutshell, is what we ‘know’ about cannabis. I’d say that it’s ample enough information to, at the very least, cease the practice arresting people, and seriously ill patients in particular, who possess it. As for what else Dr. Haney and others of a similar mindset would still like to know — and how many additional studies would it take to provide them with that information — well, that’s anybody’s guess.
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/06/theres-been-over-20000-studies-on-marijuana-what-is-it-that-scientists-do-not-yet-know/
Monday, July 5, 2010
Politics of Psychopharmacology By Timothy Leary
By Timothy Leary
Without ritalin: a natural approach to ADD
By Samuel A. Berne
Sexs, Drugs & Magick by Robert Anton Wilson (Preface to the 2000 Edition)
Sexs, Drugs & Magick
PREFACE TO THE 2000 EDITION
And the Beast said:
"By their pee shall ye judge them,
and by thy pee shall ye be judged.
And all will be divided by their pee.
And in the snow shall their names be written."
- The Book of Urinomics 1
Around the time he wrote this book, Robert Anton Wilson had passed the age of 40, lost the rigid right/wrong ideology he had picked up during the anti-war and anti-segregation movements of the 1960s and thought he had outgrown the dogmatic follies of his youth, achieving a middle-aged and mellow agnosticism about everything. Ten years later, as Ronald Reagan sat in the White House, Wilson reached 50 and, looking back, felt astonished at how much folly had persisted even in his 40s. As he approached 60 a few years ago, he began to realize that he still had his share of human idiocy even in his 50s. Today at 66+ (beginning to merge with him now), I can only wonder how much of the current Robert Anton Wilson literary output of palaver will embarrass me when I reach 75-80...
Nonetheless, I don't feel particularly disgraced by another printing of this book. Some of it still makes a lot of sense to me, after corrections, and I see that in the semi-fictionalized- "case histories" I have accidentally provided a son of "ideogrammic" history of the 1960s—still the most controversial decade of the century, and well worth looking at again, to learn what we can from both its wisdom and its blunders.
The major blunder I acquired from the 1960s counterculture was the notion that the Enemy (with a capital E), was ignorance and that this could be cured by education. I now feel more inclined to accept R. Buckminster Fuller's description of the four major problems confronting the world as "ignorance, fear, greed, and zoning laws." Being untypically brave (like most fools), I always underestimated the role of fear in human affairs; having simple desires, I underestimated greed; and not being an architect, I never grasped the perfidious nature of zoning laws. Above all, I failed to realize the extent to which the synergy of ignorance-fear-greed-zoning laws in maintaining the tyranny that Fuller calls MMAO (Machiavelli, Mafia, Atoms and Oil) - the banks, the mob, and the energy cartels.)
My current thinking about MMAO derives from Fuller and, in relation to the topics of this book, even more from the Sub- Genius Foundation of Dallas, TX, which refers to MMAO as "the Con."
Many think the Con is just a joke or a parody of other conspiracy theories. To such doubters, the Sub-Genius Foundation says that this is "the Time of Pee"—the time foretold, when people would be judged not by works, nor by family, nor even by looks, but by their urine.
They listen to you through your telephone without its even being off the hook, and record you through satellites that can peer down any street, anywhere...
They kick your door in any time they want to. All they have to yell is "DRUGS!" and your spouse is in jail, your kids are farmed out to the state, your car and house are suddenly theirs...
Nobody up there is a friend of yours; nobody up there wants you to have what you would call freedom. The purpose of "government" is to produce consumers and workers who will keep the cost of labor down, and the profits high for the owners...
For this has become so crooked and perverse a nation that your precious bodily fluids are no longer your own, and not even your bladder or bloodstream are private. There is no place where they may not watch.
The 1973 author of this book never could have imagined a State so crazily totalitarian, or a population so brainwashed into sheep-like submissiveness, that such absurdities could occur. But then, only Kafka and Orwell in their most eerie satires on bureaucracy-gone-bonkers could imagine an obscenity like our Piss Police. The State in which we live can only accurately be called Urine Nation.
How can this happen in a once-free Republic where searches of the person are forbidden except by court order after probable cause has been shown? Urine Nation, posing as the representatives of you and me, is engaged in an alleged "War on Drugs." That justifies trashing the Constitution.
Now this is, on the face of it, absurd.
1. Wars on drugs or other insensible things (objects, sub-stances) can only be carried on by lunatics. The Con cannot be accused of insanity: of ignorance, yes, and of fear, greed and zoning laws, but not of being batshit crazy. They are not making war on chemicals—or on the laws of physics, or anything of that sort. They are making war on the American people—on all of us, although only a few of us know that yet.
For instance, as you may read in Pissing Away the American Dream (Pissing Away the American Dream, edited by David Ross, Digit Press), on January 1989 the Minneapolis police smashed down the door of the home of an elderly Black couple, using "flash bang" grenades which accidentally set the house on fire and killed both old people.
The cops were looking for "drugs," but never found any. The chief of police justified the murders of two innocent citizens (and the total violation of the Fourth Amendment) by saying, "This is war."
The war is being waged against people, not chemicals, and it is people who get killed.
2. Even within the off-kilter logic of its own rhetoric, the "War on Drugs" is nonsense.
If you go out your door and drive a few blocks, they say, you will find at least one store boldly declaring that they sell DRUGS, although some say PHARMACY, which can only be deciphered by those who know Greek roots; and in these stores, hundreds of drugs are available. Nearby is a supermarket where you can buy cigarettes, containing nicotine, a drug more addictive than heroin according to former Surgeon General Koop. Next door is a BAR where you can buy dozens of varieties of C2H30H, a heavily addictive substance, statistically linked to wife and child battering, divorce and violent crime.
Urine Nation, thus, is not making war on all drugs, or drug- users, but only on some. The government asserts that the drugs on their taboo list are the worst ones; skeptics like me say they are merely the ones that are either (a) cheap and effective, like herbal medicines, and/or (b) not easy to monopolize, like marijuana or (c) better than the higher priced drugs manufactured by the large pharmaceutical corporations that financially support both political parties.
The only people literally "at war" with drugs—all drugs—are the Christian Scientists. Eight of them are currently appealing their convictions for refusing to give their children the drugs ordained from on high by the Con/MMAO.
As Count Bismarck once said, "Laws are like sausages: you have much more respect for them if you haven't actually seen how they're made."
Many of the chemicals and herbs forbidden by the Con are not only harmless, but are widely believed to be beneficial. The war against the users of these substances is just as vicious as the wars against all other substances on the taboo list.
Over the past 10 years, the Food and Drug Administration has engaged in raids on alternative health companies - companies operating openly and, they thought, legally - that more and more tend toward the violence of DEA raids on suspected crack dealers. In every case, the companies were selling vitamins and herbs that a growing minority of the medical profession approves but which MMAO and the FDA do not approve.
For instance, in 1990, the FDA raided the offices of Dr. Jonathan Wright, a fully qualified physician with an M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School, terrorized the staff with drawn guns, and seized all the vitamins and herbs they could find. They never did file criminal charges against Dr. Wright for the heresy of giving his patients cheap medicines instead of expensive ones, but this raid was only one of hundreds of similar Gestapo-style operations, creating what libertarians call "a chilling effect" on scientific freedom.
As the Life Extension Foundation wrote:
. . . The FDA's strong-arm tactics are used to intimidate and terrorize Americans into toeing their police state party line on healthcare and medicine. The FDA's purpose is not just to destroy the business and lives of their targets, but also to spread fear and terror throughout the land so that others who may be tempted to rebel against the agency will remain meek and submissive.
In the 1980s, a Fundamentalist couple named Randy and Vicki Weaver fled to a mountain top in Idaho, to get as far as possible from the U.S. government, which they considered a Zionist conspiracy. However goofy that idea was, it was the only "offense" of which the Weavers were guilty. They didn't annoy their neighbors and they didn't plot an insurrection against the government: they just tried to avoid and evade it. This alone was too much for the Feds. They sent in an informant to make friends with Randy and eventually entrap him into selling a shotgun. With that excuse, the FBI and ATF made war on the Weaver family, killing Vicki while she stood holding her baby in her arms, killing the older son, and even killing the family dog.
Please visit: http://www.rawilson.com/sexdrugs.html
No Dope without Dope
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
--Albert Einstein
I once had a band in New Orleans, 2003.
We called ourselves
The Pharmageddon Arkestra.
Dope/Hope meme splicing.
There is always dope
Keep your dope up
Dope for Tomorrow
All my dopes and dreams
Your Building my dope up now.
Land of Dope and Glory
No dope without Dope
Dopeless
Dope I’m getting through to you
Dope you are feeling better
Dope Arkensaw, home of the resident
Kid Hope
Dopes and dreams of a nation
Dopefully Dopeless.
Cape of Good Dope
Doppler Effect.
Pharmacratic Tyranny.
Tales of a hope fiend
Global pharamalogical and Digital
Con tricks unveiled.
Tales of a hope fiend
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.
--Martin Luther King
Ceremonial chemistry: the ritual persecution of drugs, addicts, and pushers
By Thomas Stephen Szasz
The influence of the pharmaceutical industry: volume II:
Coercion as cure: a critical history of psychiatry
By Thomas Stephen Szasz
PR - a persuasive industry?: spin, public relations, and the shaping of the ...
By Trevor Morris, Simon Goldsworthy
Presentation planning and media relations for the pharmaceutical industry
By John Lidstone
J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia: scholarship and critical assessment
By Michael D. C. Drout
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Leaglize Marijuana in Detroit NOW! and leave them kids alone.
However, if you happen to be a sado-masochistic authority type with the word of god in your ear that mankind must behave, abide by the law, pay taxes and not make any noise or complain, you may see the 'war on drugs' as a success, with all those dope fiends and criminals drug addicts locked up, away in Prison. Is this their sick dream, to lock peaceful folks away and live their 'drug free' life. With Nukes, Oil and Booze and guns forever?
Please ask yourself, and others around you, are these people so ill as to want this? to criminalize human beings for simply ingesting a plant based substance, and lock them away, or give them a criminal record, a stigma?
Do all the cops and law enforcement agents really believe in these 'harmful' and 'out dated' laws that we see enforced as prohibition policy around the world?
I think not, I feel that if we simply had access to all the information and could share the 'frustration' and the 'positive' attributes of marijuana in an 'open debate' without wildly wrongheaded political operations slurring and confusing the direct communications between scentists, researchers, lawyers, policy makers and well, the rest of humanity, not trying to take over everybody's lives with all pervasive rules and laws to coerce.
--Steve
Sound Off: Should Pot be Legalized in Detroit?
Updated: Friday, 18 Jun 2010, 10:48 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 18 Jun 2010, 10:47 AM EDT
(myFOXDetroit.com Staff Reports) - Detroit voters may actually get to vote on allowing the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
A group called the Coalition for a Safer Detroit is working to get the issue on November's ballot. The measure would allow adults over the age of 21 to possess, and we assume use, one ounce or less of pot on private property.
Tim Beck, a registered marijuana user who's leading the pot petition, joined FOX 2's Huel Perkins on Thursday to discuss the impact of the measure. Click the video player to watch the interview.
Information from the Coalition's Web site:
What is the Safer Detroit Initiative?
It is a ballot initiative sponsored by the Coalition for a Safer Detroit proposing to amend the Detroit City Code to decriminalize use or possession of an ounce or less of marijuana on private property, by anyone who has attained the age of 21 years.
Has this ever been done before?
Yes. The cities of Denver, CO, and Seattle, WA recently made use or possession of small amounts of marijuana their lowest law enforcement priority. Here in Michigan the City of Ann Arbor, made possession of small amounts of marijuana a minor "civil infraction" (like a traffic ticket) in the early 1970's. None of these jurisdictions has experienced any significant, negative consequences as a result. Marijuana is safer then alcohol. It is time we treat it accordingly.
What has been the result in these other cities?
All three are nationally recognized for their prosperity, quality of life, and educated, creative populations. Even more important, police and prosecutors in these cities have been freed up to focus on crimes with victims -- those that have a direct impact on the community, such as vandalism, auto theft, breaking and entering, and domestic violence.
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/should-pot-be-legalized-in-detroit-20100618-mr
Pot legalization on track in Detroit
Published: June 17, 2010 at 6:44 PM
DETROIT, June 17 (UPI) -- Possession of small amounts of marijuana on private property could soon be legal in Detroit, organizers of a legalization effort said.
The city council's internal operations committee decided Wednesday against amending the proposed ordinance, the Detroit Free Press reported. The last step is election commission approval of the language for the November ballot.
The ordinance would allow anyone 21 or older to possess less than an ounce of marijuana on private property without fear of arrest. Medical marijuana for registered users has been legal in Detroit since a 2004 referendum.
Tim Beck, a registered medical marijuana user, spearheaded the effort to get the legalization ordinance on the ballot. He argues police will be able to focus on "crimes with actual victims."
Dennis Mazurek, an assistant corporation counsel, told the city council committee the ordinance conflicts with Michigan state law, which take precedence. But Beck is confident of victory.
"It's going to win -- I have no doubt of that," he said.
Med Grow's Nick Tennant with a marijuana plant at his school
Roy Ritchie for TIME
This is what a medical-marijuana class looks like. Twenty-five or so students — men, women, young, middle-aged — listen attentively as an instructor holds up a leafy green plant and runs down the list of nutrients it needs. Nitrogen: stimulates leaf and stem growth. Magnesium: helps leaf structure. Phosphorous: aids in the germination of seeds. Michigan's Med Grow Cannabis College is one of several unaccredited schools to have sprung up in the 14 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized medical use of marijuana. Many of its students suffer from chronic pain. Others are looking to supply those in need of relief. (See pictures of cannabis conventions.)
The Med Grow campus sits across the street from a KFC in Southfield, a relatively prosperous suburb of Detroit. Nearly one-fifth of its 90 or so students are former auto-industry workers. These recent enrollees — and the more than 1,000 people who have completed courses at Med Grow since it opened in September — are betting that studying such topics as bloom cycles and advanced pruning techniques will help them succeed in what may be one of the few growth industries in Michigan, home of the nation's highest unemployment rate: 14%. With medical marijuana fetching as much as $500 for 1 oz. (28 g), providing it to a mere five patients could generate $10,000 a month in sales.
Six-week courses at Med Grow cost $475, and the school is planning to open campuses in Colorado and New Jersey within roughly the next year. Meanwhile, the nation's first marijuana school, the three-year-old Oaksterdam University, has expanded from Oakland, Calif., to locations in Los Angeles and one in Flint, Mich., and may open more. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Great American Pot Smoke-Out.")
But as Med Grow founder Nick Tennant can attest, it's not easy being a leader of an emerging industry. Tennant, a very lean, very blond 24-year-old, grew up in the Detroit suburb of Warren and watched the auto-detailing business he started after high school founder along with the region's economy. Then, in 2008, a surprising majority of Michigan voters approved a measure to allow people with cancer, Crohn's disease, AIDS and other ailments to apply for state-issued cards to grow or obtain marijuana. He recalls thinking, "You could sit there and watch the industry evolve or step into the game."
So he wrote up a business plan for a marijuana-growers school and approached his car-detailing clients as potential investors. Many thought it was a joke, but enough took him seriously. He declines to say how much money he raised.
The next step was finding a landlord. One told him flatly, "I don't want to take on the risk." To which Tennant replied, "If you want to let your building sit vacant, go for it." He eventually settled on 5,000 sq. ft. (465 sq m) in an office building in Southfield, a half hour's drive north of downtown Detroit.
The first thing you notice when you walk into Med Grow is the pungent smell of marijuana. One of the school's two grow rooms showcases a single massive marijuana plant that, in terms of height and canopy, is about the size of a kitchen table.
Watch TIME's video "An L.A. Medical Marijuana Odyssey."
See pictures of stoner cinema.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1997455,00.html
Thursday, June 17, 2010
ELECTRONIC REEFER?
An electronic cigarette, also known as an e-cigarette or personal vaporizer, is a battery-powered device that provides inhaled doses of nicotine by way of a vaporized solution. It is an alternative to smoked tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. In addition to purported nicotine delivery,[1] this vapor also provides a flavor and physical sensation similar to that of inhaled tobacco smoke, while no smoke or combustion is actually involved in its operation.
An electronic cigarette takes the form of some manner of elongated tube, though many are designed to resemble the outward appearance of real smoking products, like cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Another common design is the "pen-style", so named for its visual resemblance to a ballpoint pen. Most electronic cigarettes are reusable devices with replaceable and refillable parts. A number of disposable electronic cigarettes have also been developed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Terence McKenna by Robert Venosa
Time for the monkeys to move into hyperspace!
Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored."
—Terence McKenna
One of the principle philosophical underpinnings for our assumption of 2012 being a planetary tipping point comes from our years of working with the late Terence McKenna. In 1996 we presented the Terence McKenna Prophets Conference Timewave Zero tour of America beginning at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York then moving across the country, ending at UCLA in Los Angeles . Combine fractal mathematics with the I-Ching into a computer program created with a giant punch card computer at Berkeley in the 1960s, and you come up with a graph of history measuring novelty (new things and events) vs. habit (nothing new). From this you come to a Zero Point on December 21, 2012, which as we know happens to also be the end of the Mayan long-count. Interesting.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=
So, back in the 90s we brought together for an exciting weekend workshop on Maui, Hawaii Terence McKenna and leading fiction author and close friend of our's and McKenna’s, Tom Robbins. Participants came from around the world for this one time mind boggling event, which we agreed not to record. But here is some of what Tom Robbins wrote about McKenna in the forward to McKenna’s book The Archaic Revival which is reminiscent of the Maui gathering
“Our problems today are more complex and more threatening than at any time in history. Sadly, we cannot even begin to solve those problems, because our reality orientations are lower than a snowman’s blood pressure. We squint at existence through thick veils of personal and societal ignorance, overlaid with still more opaque sheets of disinformation, thoughtfully provided by the state, the church, and big business (often one and the same). The difference between us and Helen Keller is that she knew she was deaf and blind.
“Radical problems call for radical solutions. Conventional politicians are too softheaded to create radical solutions and too fainthearted to implement them if they could, whereas political revolutionaries, no matter how well meaning, ultimately offer only bloodshed followed by another round of repression.
“To truly alter conditions, we must alter ourselves—philosophically, psychologically, and perhaps, biologically. The first step in those alterations will consist mainly of cutting away the veils in order that we see ourselves for that transgalactic Other that we really are and always have been. Terence the Tailor has got the sharpest shears in town. And he’s open Sundays and holidays. Once the veils are severed, we, each of us, can finally start to attend to our self-directed mutagensis.
“The flying saucer is warming up its linguistic engines. The mushroom is shoving its broadcasting transmitter through the forest door. Time for the monkeys to move into hyperspace! It’s going to be a weird, wild trip, but, guided by the archaic, Gaia-given gyroscope, we can commence the journey in a state of excitement and hope. With his uniquely secular brand of eschatological euphoria, Terence McKenna is inviting us to a Doomsday we can live with. Be there or be square.”
—Tom Robbins
From the Grasslands to the Starship by Terence McKenna
23-25 July 2010
Conference Information: www.greatmystery.org/events/
In-Depth Post-Conference Workshops 26-27 JULY 2010
Exhibitor Information: www.greatmystery.org/events/
Download an Event Flyer to share with friends Color or Black/White.
The purpose of this GROUNDBREAKING conference is to explore a radically different, more optimistic interpretation of the Mayan prophecy – as referring to the end of the world as we have known it. In addition to predicting a physical destruction of the material world, the Mayan prophecy might refer to death and rebirth and a mass inner transformation of humanity. The conference brings together JOSE ARGUELLES, FLORDEMAYO, ANDREW HARVEY, BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, JOHN MAJOR JENKINS, JOHN KIMMEY, JOHN PERKINS, DANIEL PINCHBECK, LLYN ROBERTS, RICHARD TARNAS, and MIGUEL ANGEL VERGARA and in the beautiful setting of Vancouver, Canada. Following the conference will be in-depth post-conference workshops. We hope you can join us for this powerful and inspiring event.
ADDITIONAL WRITINGS
Closing Of The Cycle : The Last Days and What Is To Be Done by Jose Arguelles
Guardians of the Light by John Perkins
The Revolution that the Divine Mother is Preparing by Andrew Harvey
Reflections on John Kimmey by Hannah Janulewicz
The Dalai Lama and The Economic Hitman by John Perkins
Our Crisis Is The Birth Of A Cocreative Universal Humanity by Barbara Marx Hubbard
Our Moment in History as an Initiation for Humanity by Richard Tarnas
The Hinge Of A Transition In Our Species’ Awareness by Daniel Pinchbeck
Gazing Into The Cosmic Center December 21, 2012 by John Major Jenkins
An Alliance of Prayer, Education and Healing for Our Mother Earth by Flordemayo
2012 Planetary Evolution by Barbara Marx Hubbard
A Radioactive Nuisance to All Those in Power by Andrew Harvey
1000 Days to Zero Point 2012 by Jose Arguelles
The Eternal Fire of Transformation by John Major Jenkins
Planetary Whole System Design Science by Jose Arguelles
Sacred Activism and the Birth of the Divine Humanity by Andrew Harvey
Something Monumental Is Going To Happen by Mayan elder Flordemayo
This Is It by John Eesawu Kimmey
2012 and Other Indigenous Prophecies for Transformation by Llyn Roberts
How Do We Get Ready for 2012? by Barbara Marx Hubbard
It Happened In Cancun a preview for Vancouver
2012 : The Primal World Ensouled - Richard Tarnas
The True Meaning of 2012 by John Perkins
CONFERENCE SPONSORS
New Awareness - The Review for Spiritual Seekers.
Banyen Books & Sound - A Watering Hole for the Spirit on the World Wide Web.
Conscious Living Radio - To expand your consciousness.
Reality Sandwich - Evolving consciousness, bite by bite.
Lilipoh ~ the spirit in life
Gaia Media - For a holistic and up to date understanding of our existence and the potential of human consciousness.
Shaman Portal - The global resource for all things shamanic.
http://www.greatmystery.org/
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Robert Anton Wilson & Marijuana Brownies.
http://www.rawilson.com/sexdrugs.html
And the Beast said:
"By their pee shall ye judge them,
and by thy pee shall ye be judged.
And all will be divided by their pee.
And in the snow shall their names be written."
- The Book of Urinomics 1
They listen to you through your telephone without its even being off the hook, and record you through satellites that can peer down any street, anywhere...They kick your door in any time they want to. All they have to yell is "DRUGS!" and your spouse is in jail, your kids are farmed out to the state, your car and house are suddenly theirs...Nobody up there is a friend of yours; nobody up there wants you to have what you would call freedom. The purpose of "government" is to produce consumers and workers who will keep the cost of labor down, and the profits high for the owners...For this has become so crooked and perverse a nation that your precious bodily fluids are no longer your own, and not even your bladder or bloodstream are private. There is no place where they may not watch.
. . . The FDA's strong-arm tactics are used to intimidate and terrorize Americans into toeing their police state party line on healthcare and medicine. The FDA's purpose is not just to destroy the business and lives of their targets, but also to spread fear and terror throughout the land so that others who may be tempted to rebel against the agency will remain meek and submissive.
http://www.rawilson.com/sexdrugs.html
Medi Pot Bust People's trust, L.A LAW style.
"It is the day of reckoning for a vast majority of medical marijuana dispensaries that will be out of compliance with a new city law that takes effect Monday. More than 400 of the 583 pot shops in the city are expected to be outlawed by the ordinance, which only allows the 130 or so surviving marijuana establishments that registered with the city before its 2007 ordinance to stay open. --http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/marijuana/medical-marijuana-closures/
City prosecutors release list of 439 medical marijuana dispensaries that must close
June 8, 2010 | 11:32 amThe Los Angeles City Attorney's office on Tuesday released a list of 439 marijuana dispensaries that have been ordered to shut their doors after a new city council ordinance went into effect beginning this week.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/city-prosecutors-release-list-of-439-dispensaries-ordered-to-shut.html
"A city ordinance is shutting down 439 medical marijuana dispensaries across the Los Angeles area, according to the L.A. Times. The restrictions come after a boom in the number of locations over the past two and a half years.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/06/08/why-is-los-angeles-shuttering-marijuana-dispenseries/
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sharing drugs as 'atoms' and sharing drugs as 'bits'
Preferably data gained using human subjects and social data fields, reaching back to the long history of human drug interfacing, not results from tests on Rats and a small groups of test-subjects from Oxford and Cambridge breeding programs.
The Digital Economy Bill has defined another 'war' with the culture of 'self owning ones' by threatening to punish shared digitalis.
My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality?' Many of my stories and novels deal with psychotic states or drug-induced states by which I can present the concept of a multiverse rather than a universe. Music and sociology are themes in my novels, also radical political trends; in particular I've written about fascism and my fear of it.
- Statement of 1975 quoted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography (1981) vol. 8, part 1
"Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works, Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences and addressed the nature of drug abuse, paranoia and schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
New rules on illegal filesharing: three strikes and you're blacklisted
Persistant filesharers now run the risk of being added to a 'copyright infringement' blacklist, under new rules being put into place by Ofcom following the Digital Economy Act.
Now that the Digital Economy Bill (as was) has passed into law, and the new coalition government has announced that it has no plans to repeal it, the responsibility rests with Ofcom to draft a code of practice enforcing it. The code of practice will be subject to consultation before being finalised, but at present Ofcom is working on a proposal which would force ISPs to keep records of people accused of illegal filesharing. After three such accusations, details of that user will be placed on a blacklist. Once blacklisted, user identities can then be applied for via court order by any copyright holder making a piracy allegation; allowing legal proceedings to be launched against the accused.
Each accusation of filesharing will result in a warning letter being sent out, and Ofcom is hoping that these letters will be sufficient to 'significantly reduce' copyright infringement; although if after a year no significant reduction is seen the regulator will consider more stringent measures such as temporary disconnection.
ISPs will have to keep details of filesharing accusations for a period of one year from the time that they are made, so that three accusations in a twelve month period will trigger the blacklisting. There is also a procedure for anyone believing they have been falsely accused to contest the accusation anonymously via a tribunal; which could result in rights holders and ISPs being forced to pay damages.
At present the requirement to keep tabs on filesharing accusations won't apply to ISPs with fewer than 400,000 customers, or mobile broadband providers.
McLuhan's TETRAD of MEDIA EFFECTS (Cyber-neuropsychology)
Tetrad of media effects
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Generally speaking, a tetrad is any set of four things. In Laws of Media (1988) and The Global Village (1989), published posthumously, Marshall McLuhan summarized his ideas about media in a concise tetrad of media effects. The tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology/medium (put another way: a means of explaining the social processes underlying the adoption of a technology/medium[1]) by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously. McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium:
- What does the medium enhance?
- What does the medium make obsolete?
- What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
- What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?
The laws of the tetrad exist simultaneously, not successively or chronologically, and allow the questioner to explore the "grammar and syntax" of the "language" of media. McLuhan departs from his mentor Harold Innis in suggesting that a medium "overheats", or reverses into an opposing form, when taken to its extreme.[2]
Visually, a tetrad can be depicted as four diamonds forming an X, with the name of a medium in the center. The two diamonds on the left of a tetrad are the Enhancement and Retrieval qualities of the medium, both Figure qualities. The two diamonds on the right of a tetrad are the Obsolescence and Reversal qualities, both Ground qualities.[3]
- Enhancement (figure): What the medium amplifies or intensifies. For example, radio amplifies news and music via sound.
- Obsolescence (ground): What the medium drives out of prominence. Radio reduces the importance of print and the visual.
- Retrieval (figure): What the medium recovers which was previously lost. Radio returns the spoken word to the forefront.
- Reversal (ground): What the medium does when pushed to its limits. Acoustic radio flips into audio-visual TV.
See also
Liberal Cannabis Party Hash Egg
"What we haven't tried, is the Dutch system. The Liberal Democrat system, of allowing adults in the UK to make an educated choice over whether they decide to use alcohol, or cannabis.Lets face facts here. Its a choice 4 million take every single day and regardless of how the law stands.
Cannabis use at a personal level has been decriminalised for 30 years in the Netherlands, and in that time they have constantly languished at the BOTTOM of the league for European drug addicts, and contrary to the best efforts of the United Nations "bookery cookery ".
Furthermore, they have no problems with drug factories setting up in residential areas because if the locals want to buy cannabis they can simply head down to their local "government licensed" premises and buy it, paying tax as they do. --http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/20080207151/cannabis-news/no-evidence-for-cannabis-reclass-nick-clegg-mp.html
CANNABIS CULTURE - UK's Liberal Democrats, polling higher than ever in the lead-up to a federal election, want to remove criminal penalties for cannabis possession and allow Dutch-style cannabis cafés.Internal party policy documents leaked to the UK's Daily Mail suggest permitting possession, social supply to adults and cultivation for personal use. The release of the documents follows an internal party vote to make it "no longer a crime for the occupier or manager of premises to permit someone to use cannabis on those premises."
According to the Daily Mail, "cafe owners could allow customers to smoke the drug outside or buy ‘hash brownies’ and vaporised cannabis." --http://cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2010/05/04/Liberal-Democrats-Want-Legalize-Cannabis-UK
Harm reduction (or Harm minimisation) refers to a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with recreational drug use and other high risk activities. Harm reduction is put forward as an useful perspective alongside the more conventional approaches of demand and supply reduction.[1]
Many advocates argue that prohibitionist laws criminalize people for suffering from a disease and cause harm, for example by obliging drug addicts to obtain drugs of unknown purity from unreliable criminal sources at high prices, increasing the risk of overdose and death.[2] While its critics are concerned that tolerating risky or illegal behaviour sends a message to the community that these behaviours are acceptable.Firey Tongues
John Sinclair Radio Show #325 (Firey Tongues 2010)
John Sinclair Radio Show #325
The John Sinclair Foundation Presents
Virije Tongen, Ruigoord
Sunday, May 23, 2010 @ 5:00-6:00 pm [20-1021]
Amsterdam, NL.
Today Steve the Fly, Raymond Wiley & I took the 82 bus west to Ruigoord, the venerable alternative art & cultural community just outside of town, where I participated in the Vurige Tongen (Fiery Tongues) poetry festival with MC Hans Plomp and poets Jordan Zinovich, Jim Christy, Baden Prince jr., Ted Jackson, Robert Priest, Kain the Poet, and Eddie Woods, whose readings were crudely recorded by the Fly and edited for this episode of the radio show, interspersed with pertinent recordings by Thelonious Monk and a single cut by John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars featuring Wayne Kramer.
Playlist 325
[01] Opening Music: Thelonious Monk: Epistrophy
[02] John Sinclair Intro & Opening Comments with Steve Fly Agaric
[03] John Sinclair & His Blue Scholars: Cow
[04] Intro > Ted Jackson: Birthday Poem
[05] Ted Jackson: Van Gogh
[06] Thelonious Monk: Thelonious
[07] John Sinclair Conversation with Raymond Wiley
[08] Thelonious Monk: Rhythm-A-Ning (fragment) > Hans Plomp Intro >
[09] John Sinclair: a monk suite for ruigoord
[10] Thelonious Monk: Well You Needn’t
[11] Robert Priest: Reading the Bible Backwards
[12] Robert Priest: Conversation with John Sinclair, Steve Fly & Raymond Wiley
[13] Thelonious Monk: In Walked Bud
[14] Hans Plomp Intro > Kain the Poet: The Fear of Isolation
[15] Eddie Woods: For Roberto Valenza
[16] Closing Music: Thelonious Monk: Epistrophy
Hosted by John Sinclair for Radio Free Amsterdam
Recorded by Steve Fly Agaric at Vurige Tongen, Ruigood, Amsterdam
Produced, edited & assembled by John Sinclair at Fly Agaric Studio,
Amsterdam, May 24, 2010
Remixed & re-edited by John Sinclair at Fly Agaric Studio, May 26, 2010
Annotations corrected May 27, 2010 with special thanks to Eddie Woods
Posted by Larry Hayden
Executive Producer: Larry Hayden
Special thanks to Hans Plomp, Ted Jackson, Steve Fly & Raymond Wiley
© 2010 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
