SLEEPING ON IT

My world changed overnight. Last week was pretty horrible as you may have deduced by my dearth of posts. This morning, I was deep in dream about a long absent lover, when the postman knocked. They delivered Jules' book today, a week late. It's gorgeous.

As I sat down with my morning coffee and flipped on CSPAN, there was Preston Peet on the phone line at Washington Journal, making a timely point about Rush Limbaugh being an undetected functioning drug addict for all these years and the lack of opposing viewpoints in their guests. I felt it quite a blessing to wake up to a reasonable view on that program.

When I went to bed, the trees were still green but when I drove over to Ronnie's house this afternoon to help him with his computer - all of them had changed. I was unexpectedly surrounded with a riot of color. Leaf peeper alert, if you were planning to come to New England for the show, the next ten days will be optimal in the happy valley. Based on the available facts, I'm predicting really good colors but a short season. They're bound to all drop at once also.

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photo Narco News
HARD CHOICES

I'm suffered a lot of grief last week and one of the most lingering is the sudden disappearance of the Narco News Bulletin. Al Giordano is suspending publication rather than compromise his principles to obtain funding. It's hard to believe it's been only three and a half years. That sounds like such a short length of time for the amount of ground I’ve traveled with Narco News.

I've known Al for years and came to know the rest of the newsroom and many of the contributors, as an alumna of the first session of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism. It's a sad moment for authentic media movement with the loss of that colloboration but Al is already is ratcheting up the volume at Big Left Outside and the rest of the autenticas I think will eventually come together at Salon Chignon. The site will continue to keep the archives on-line in any event if you're feeling nostalgic. Buena suerte todos mi amigos.

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SCIENTIFIC PROOF

The MassCan protest received a brief mention on some radio talk shows and this piece in the Daily Free Press. Keep an eye out for the coming edition of the Boston Phoenix who will be running a something on the protest as well. The Boston Herald ran this piece detailing John Walters remarks on his misbegotten plan to drug test public school students at random.

Thanks to Pete Guithier at Drug War Rant for forwarding over the link I was looking for to this study proving drug testing in school has no effect on drug consumption.

Quoting the article in the New York Times:

But the new federally financed study of 76,000 students nationwide, by far the largest to date, found that drug use is just as common in schools with testing as in those without it.

"It suggests that there really isn't an impact from drug testing as practiced," Dr. Lloyd D. Johnston, a study researcher from the University of Michigan, said. "It's the kind of intervention that doesn't win the hearts and minds of children. I don't think it brings about any constructive changes in their attitudes about drugs or their belief in the dangers associated with using them."

The prohibitionists offer hyperbole as a justification for spending your tax dollars on these sort of invasive and ineffective programs. The science would suggest they are not worth the money. Who are you going to believe? The guy who spends his life looking for provable truths or one who depends on the drug war to keep his cushy job? Think about it.

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FREE MARKET

It's play-off season and the game is going on as I write this. It's not televised and I have to go find a satelitte TV so I leave you with this more cheering story of some courageous entrepeneurs in Ithaca who refuse to be intimidated by the operation pipe dream mentality that has currently seen 55 innocent business people indicted for selling paraphernalia. At a time when many others have ducked for cover, these patriots are fighting to keep the meaning of free in the term free enterprise.

Last word of the day goes to two of the clerks who remain unidentified by name:

"We're going to stay open until they close us down, because we're not selling anything illegal," an employee at one store said.

"You can't tell me what that's going to smoke," another said, referring to a pipe on display.

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