Jail Polanski for his rape of an eight grader - He can write his next script from jail

FACTOID:  A MAN IN HIS FORTIES RAPES AN EIGHT GRADER – JAIL HIS ASS

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES HOLLYWOOD! MAKE POLANSKI SERVE HIS TIME AS A RAPIST AND SODOMIZER OF A 13 YEAR OLD – HE DESERVES IT!  The guy gave that girl booze and drugs to make her comply, think about it – would she have complied without all the chemicals? She asked him to stop, he kept right on.
What point is it to say his Mother died in Auswitz, or to bring up his murdered wife and child? Or even that the victim has forgiven him? Those sympathy points don’t cut it -LIKE THEY ARE SAYING, HAD IT BEEN A PRIEST, THE LIBERALS WOULD HAVE DEMANDED HIS HEAD, (OR BALLS) ON A PLATTER! (And I am liberal, just not crazy forgive everyone for a crime like rape of a minor liberal)
Let Polanski write his next script from a jail cell where he deserves to be!

Bharatbook.com: Infectious Diseases Drugs Markets

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), six infectious diseases—pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS—account for half of all premature deaths worldwide, killing mostly children and young adults. What’s more, threatening pandemics such as swine flu (H1N1 influenza A virus) are adding significant pressure to already strained healthcare budgets of governments around the world. (http://www.bharatbook.com/Market-Research-Reports/Infectious-Diseases-Drugs-Markets.html)

This report provides a detailed description of the current infectious diseases drugs market and highlights the existing and developing anti-infective agents used to ameloriate diseases’ afflications on humankind. Anti-infective agents include: anti-viral therapeutics, antibiotics, anti-fungal agents and prophylactic treatments such as vaccines. Particular attention is paid to the clinical market segment and the pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies involved in anti-infective agents, with specific emphasis on each company’s sales focus, product portfolio and R&D pipeline. To date, the most successful anti-infective agents target the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV, the virus that causes AIDS), the herpes virus (HSV-1 and HSV-2), bacterial infections and hepatitis C (HCV). A number of exciting novel anti-viral and antibiotic compounds are currently revolutionizing the infectious diseases drugs market, including Truvada and Valtrex, which are anti-HIV and anti-herpes therapies, respectively. Signicant resources are also being dedicated toward hepatitis A (HAV), hepatitis B (HBV) and Staph infections, including MRSA. What’s more, this study will examine the existing and developing anti-infective agents targeted at infectious diseases that continue to devastate developing countries, including: cholera, dengue fever, meningitis, rotavirus, typhoid, yellow fever and onchocerciasis (“river blindness”).

For more information please visit: http://www.bharatbook.com/Market-Research-Reports/Infectious-Diseases-Drugs-Markets.html

Or

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Pot Dispensaries Sue L.A. Over Moratorium

Medical Marijuana Collectives’ Suit Comes As the City Struggles to Write a New Ordinance.

A newly formed association of Los Angeles medical marijuana collectives has challenged the city’s efforts to control dispensaries, claiming in a lawsuit that the 2-year-old moratorium is unconstitutionally vague and that the City Council violated state law when it extended the ban until mid-March.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, is the first to take aim at the city’s attempts to halt the explosive growth in dispensaries.  It comes as the City Council’s Planning Committee continued Tuesday to struggle with a permanent ordinance to replace the moratorium.

Representatives from the city attorney’s office, the district attorney’s office and the Police Department reiterated to the committee their contention that over-the-counter sales of medical marijuana are illegal under state law.

Most of the hundreds of dispensaries in Los Angeles currently sell marijuana that way.

At the same time, Councilman Dennis Zine and other council members repeated their insistence that any ordinance that did not allow for marijuana sales would be unworkable, as did many medical marijuana advocates at the committee hearing.

The lawsuit, filed by the Los Angeles Collective Assn.  and the Green Oasis dispensary, charges that the moratorium is “unreasonable, discriminatory and overly broad.”

It also accuses the City Council of failing to follow required procedures when it extended the ban.  In addition, it claims that the council is precluded by state law from extending the moratorium beyond 24 months.

“They’re basically operating without an ordinance,” said Robert A.  Kahn, an attorney who is representing the association and Green Oasis.

Councilman Ed Reyes, who is overseeing the drafting of an ordinance, was not surprised by the lawsuit.  “It’s another sword hanging over our head,” he said.  “Now, we have to move as diligently as possible.”

But Reyes said an ordinance was still months away.

Jeri Burge with the city attorney’s office declined to discuss the lawsuit’s claims.  “We’re reviewing it,” she said.

At a hearing Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Judge James C.  Chalfant declined to issue a temporary restraining order that would have barred the city from enforcing the moratorium.

Dan Lutz, a co-owner of Green Oasis and president of the collective association, said he was motivated to file the lawsuit after the City Council voted to shut down his dispensary, which he and a partner opened in May.

Lutz, like hundreds of other dispensary owners in Los Angeles, had filed a request with the City Council for an exemption from the moratorium to be allowed to operate, but opened without permission.

The council failed to act on these requests until June, an oversight that prevented city officials from taking legal steps to close the dispensaries.  The council has since denied every request that has come before it.

“We were being railroaded by kangaroo courts,” Lutz said.  “They were just denying them out of hand Obviously their intent was just to close everyone down.”

Spillover violence

With Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa trying to spin the appalling body count in the “War on Drugs [the United States and Canada insist can only be controlled over Mexican's dead bodies]” as evidence the “policy is working”.  Asked about that body count, Espinosa is quoted in her “exclusive interview” with the Associated Press as saying:

…  the “great, majority, immense majority” of victims are drug pushers or gangsters and foot soldiers linked to cartels.

“This is a very ugly statistic,” she said, “but a good percentage of those killed never have their bodies claimed, their families never go and get them … That is a very clear indicator that these people were involved in drug trafficking.”

I’m not sure I follow the logic of that. It may be a clear indicator that poor rural people don’t always read the crime pages of out of town newspapers, or gangsters need to call their mothers more often, or any number of things.  I just hope that a high body count isn’t going to be used as a measure of success for police actions (as it was — or is — in Colombia, leading to some … er… interesting ways to supplement income).  But, it is likely to go higher.

In Tijuana, Maggie Drake has been writing about the local police chief’s “shoot to kill” order… and the fortieth police shooting THIS YEAR in that municipio.  Tijuana is in the unhappy situation of sitting next to the user emporium (and gun supplier) of southern California, but the spillover in violence from the user community is coming from either further afield.

In Canada, increasing violence in their own drug trade is being blamed on Mexican “sucess”.  As a result of the military/police actions against the various gangster organizations that handle distribution, British Colombian cocaine dealers are feeling the pinch:

Supply lines were drying up, recalled B.C.-based RCMP Superintendent Pat Fogarty, because the cartels were too busy fighting the Mexican military.

It was translating into rip offs, or people who could not pay back what they owed — a dicey situation among gangsters that often results in bloodshed.

“This is where the tentacles of the disruption in Mexico bled over into Canada, in terms of violence,” said Supt. Fogarty, in charge of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit in B.C. He has more than 20 years’ experience battling organized crime.

Police in British Columbia say the Lower Mainland has seen a spike in gang-related violence this year over last, and most of it is gun warfare.

If the violence was kept in British Colombia, it wouldn’t be a problem, but Canadian gangsters have been showing up here lately.  This week, two Canadians were killed in a shootout that had some Canadians more upset with the local paper publishing photos of the corpses than with the fact that two more of their guys are down here in the Puerto Vallarta morgue.  Hope their familes reclaim their bodies.

Douglas Coupland--Generation X (1991)

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD SCIENCE-Villainaire (2008).

This is probably the most fascinating album that Constellation has released recently.  I’d never heard of The Dead Science, but evidently they have a few disc out already.

The main thing one notices about this disc is the lead singer.  His voice is fascinating: a sort of slow, whispered falsetto laced with an incredible vibrato.  It almost sounds like he’s struggling to sing (although clearly he isn’t).  So take this delicate voice and put it over a series of songs (each one very different) that feature rapid time changes, punk breaks, mellow guitars and/or a harp.

The music is definitely strange and yet I found it very engaging.  I also thought that I wasn’t really absorbing the music since it was so esoteric, and yet after listening to it again today I realized I knew when all the breaks and interesting bits were coming up.  The disc definitely needs repeated listens to get what’s going on, but it is a fascinating collection.

[READ: September 23, 2009] Generation X

As with many books with multiple covers, I never seem to be able to find a picture of my cover online (my copy is a nuclear green, which I’m sure I spent a few minutes selecting back then).  I bought this book in November 1992 (I know this because that was back when I wrote the date I bought a book on the inside cover of the book). I know that I loved the book when it came out because it made me an instant fan of Douglas Coupland (I bought Shampoo Planet just one month later).

And Gen X is a generation-defining book. The margins of the book are filled with cartoons and slogans and definitions of Gen-X speak.  Now, I’m not sure if anyone ever used these definitions or if Coupland made them up.  I certainly never heard anyone say them.  Nevertheless, real or not, they work well as a frame of reference for the way (some) 20somethings in the 90s thought about culture and their place in it.

And so, by proclamation, this book speaks to every slacker and is ever so grunge and slacker and ironic and slacker and…well, no.

I’m actually surprised that I enjoyed this story as much as I did back then, because I’m not sure how it spoke to my 23-year-old self.  And from a vantage point of 17 years later, I’m surprised at how earnest and honest the book turns out to be.

The basic story is that Andy, Claire and Dag are platonic friends who live in neighboring bungalows in Palm Springs, Ca.  They are all from somewhere else: Andy is from Oregon, and he was the first to move to the desert to get away from his corporate life.  Claire is part of a wealthy, multi-siblinged family who were vacationing in Palm Springs.  After talking with Andy, who was bartending at their resort, she convinced herself to drop out and move next to Andy (as friends only).  It turns out that Andy is sort of the landlord of the bungalows where they live so he was able to score her one next door. And then there’s Dag.  Dag is an expat from Ontario who also tried to escape his existence.  He’s a minor vandal (vandalizing cars with obnoxious bumper stickers mostly) and is charming and rakish and is just the kind of person who really fills out a story like this.

And so these three twentysomethings live in this land of old people: a washed out desert with very little to show for itself.  They live something of an ironic existence in that they each set up their bungalows in a certain way, with a taste for kitsch and camp.  And they have slumming jobs which give them more time to do what  they love to do best: hang out and tell stories.

It’s this storytelling which gets to the heart of the book.  For even though these are stories, and some of them are made up, the stories they tell each other are their attempts to find truth, earnestness, honesty.  No one is allowed to criticize the story while it’s in progress.  They just listen, respectfully, to each others’ ideas.

And maybe that’s why this story appealed to me so much.

Because the rest was quite alien to me.  Andy & Claire need to be away from their large families.  Dag is something of a ne’er do well.  As individuals, I couldn’t relate to them, and yet as people in search for meaning, I found them quite compelling.

There’s a nice contrast with Andy’s younger brother, who epitomizes a sort of Gen Y ethic: he always looks good, he’s more interested in material objects, he’s vibrant, and he always moves in a pack of friends.  He rarely reveals his innermost thoughts, and when he does it comes as a shock to Andy.  In some ways he’s an easy straw man against the “virtues” of Andy; but really he’s more of a foil as Andy’s brother (again, not a spokesperson for a generation).

And thus, not much happens in the book.  (It’s quite short too, a very fast read).  The main action happens at the holidays: Andy goes home for Christmas, Claire chases a man to New York and Dag stays at the bungalows.

Then before Claire returns, one of Dag’s acts of vandalism offers tension and some major black comedy.

When the three friends reconvene, they have set a plan in motion that will change all of their lives (and hopefully let them do something that they actually enjoy).

That ending seems superficial, and yet the whole point is that for a generation raised on irony, with no time for saccharine displays, it’s important that your job is something you enjoy.  It seems weird in retrospect that this is the first “generation” to have thought that.  I mean certainly the hippies had a similar idea, but the Gen X idea here is a backlash to what the hippies morphed into.

That this book supposedly speaks for a generation is absurd.  And when you take the weight of that off of the book, it holds up as a story of three friends searching for meaning in a world that has overwhelmed them.

Seventeen years later, it feels like maybe we all keep pace with the world a little better, and these characters would seem rather eccentric to us for their dropping-out attitudes (not that they didn’t seem eccentric then).  Nevertheless, the book was almost touching in its earnestness.  Perhaps we have become more irony-drenched since 1991.

Albanischer Mafia Drogen Aussenminister Lulzim Basha, wurde nun Innenminister

Lebensmaluf des Mafia Clans Lulzim Basha: Abstammung aus dem Mafia Basha Clan aus dem Mittel Kosovo und sein Betrugs Handwerk, lernte er bei den Georg Soros Ganoven Gruppen, dem Weltmarkt Führer für Geldwäsche, Drogen, Destabilisierung von Staaten um dann billig bei den Privatisierungen zu verdienen.

Lulzim Basha mit den EU Kriegs- und Geldwäsche Strategen Javier Solana, der besten Verbindungen zu jedem Balkan Mafia Clan hat und über eigene Schwarze Kassen mit 600 Millionen € verfügt. Da kann man leicht mal einen Krieg im Balkan finanzieren, den das Kick-Back im Drogen Geschäft ist gewaltig.

Viele Jahre Erfahrung wie man hohe Millionen Summen beiseite räumt mit Fälschungen und Manipulationen mit Kosovo Verbrecher Clans, als Mitglied der UNMIK Verwaltung im Kosovo.

Als Transport Minister wurde die Erfahrung umgehend in die üblichen Korruptions Kanäle im Bauwesen umgemünzt um Profite zu machen. Anklage und Gerichtsverfahren durch die General Staatsanwaltschaft von Albanien Ina Rama. Der damalige Vize Transport Minister Herr Jata und Stellvertreter von Lulzim Basha, sitzt schon 2 Jahre im Gefängnis. Die weiteren damaligen Direktoren wie auch der Juristische Direktor, welcher Verträge ausarbeitete in der Bechtel-Enke-Strauss Sache, sitzt eben und die Gerichts Verfahren laufen gerade.

Als Aussenminister Sprachrohr der Kosovo Mafia und mehrere Verhaftungen der Drogen Diplomaten im Ausland, welche trotz Immunität durch Zufall erwischt wurden.

Sein Schwager Erion Isufi, war direkt Manager beim dem Balkan Gangster Damir Fazllic, der schon als Serbischer Geheimdienst Chef in Bosnien direkt tätig war für Karadic und jede grosse Bestechungs Nummer auch in anderen Balkan Ländern organisierte.

Und wurde Lulzim Basha sogar Innenminister! US Mafiöse Kreise aus den Georg Soros Drogen und Betrugs Zirkeln, wie der US-Albanischen Handelskammer in Tirana sind die Drahtzieher dieser kriminellen Zirkeln genauso wie der AAEF.

Albanischer Diplomat wegen Heroinschmuggel verhaftet

Der Albanische Diplomat Agim Haxhiu in der Türkei hatte neben seiner diplomatischen Tätigkeit einen lukrativen Nebenjob: Er beschäftigte sich mit Heroinschmuggel. Jetzt wurde er mit 65 Kilogramm Heroin erwischtund verhaftet. Hauptberuflich war er eigentlich der zweite Sekretär der makedonisch-albanischen Botschaft.

Es ist bereits das zweite Mal, dass albanische Diplomaten in Drogenschmuggel “verwickelt” sind, denn erst voriges Jahr wurde in Italien ein Angestellter der albanischen Botschaft mit einem Kilo Kockain erwischt.

Das albanische Außenministerium teilte mit, dass Haxiu entlassen wurde, weil er seit Montag sich nicht auf seinem (hauptberuflichen) Arbeitsplatz gemeldet hatte. Seine diplomatische Immunität wurde aufgehoben, so dass jetzt gemäß den   türkischen und internationalen Gesetzen gegen ihn ermittelt wird.

Index.hu

Siehe auch Wikio (aus Balkanblog)

Albanischer Diplomat Agim Haxhiu in Instanbul verhaftet wegen Drogen Handel Diesmal hat man Agim Haxhiu Sekretär an der Albanischen Botschaft in Mazedonien tägig, in der Türkei verhaftet mit 65 Kilo Heroin.  Nur in Deutschland haben bekanntlich die Drogen Diplomaten freie Fahrt, weil es zum Geschäft des Auswärtigen Amtes gehört, das man Drogen Clans fördert und deren Kontakte ausbaut.

Albanian’s Diplomatic drug system? Diplomatic drug?

15/05/2009

In Deutsch-German

Bloggers are enraged over the latest scandal tainting Albania’s diplomatic corps.

By Balkanblogs for Southeast European Times — 15/05/09

Police say Haxhiu used a diplomatic car to travel from Macedonia into Turkey carrying 65kg of heroin. [Getty Images]

A senior diplomat from the Albanian Embassy in Skopje was arrested recently by Turkish police on drug-trafficking charges. Agim Haxhiu*, second secretary at the embassy, allegedly used a diplomatic car to travel from Macedonia through Bulgaria and into Turkey, carrying 65kg of heroin.

Albania’s foreign ministry has dismissed Haxhiu from his diplomatic post, citing “unjustified abandonment of duties”.

It is not the first time Albanian diplomacy has become entangled in a drug-trafficking case. Not long ago, Italian police arrested a driver from the country’s embassy in Rome on the same charges. Albanian bloggers are furious.

“It is shameful but not a surprise,” writes Ola at Shekulli Online. “It can’t be any different, seeing as the whole diplomatic corps was destroyed and rebuilt on a ‘client’ basis.”

Xhiri agrees, adding that arresting a single diplomat is no big deal. “What about the others who have not been caught??? They are every day in front of you, pompous and conceited …These are the so-called ‘Bosses’ whom many regard with envy.”

Albo at Forumi Shqipitar wants sterner measures. “It’s not enough to fire the diplomat. He should be extradited in Tirana and face a public trial to be an example for all the others,” he writes.

“I think the foreign ministry should reflect immediately and check the diplomatic staff in the embassies,” Urim Beshello suggests.

Related Articles

//

Albanian diplomat arrested for drug trafficking in Turkey

08/05/2009

EU concerned over possible Turkish cross-border operation; plans new accession talks this month

05/06/2007

EU’s Rehn urges Albanian politicians to work together for successful elections

26/11/2008

Drugs and diplomacy make a sinister mix

12/09/2008

Macedonia hopes for more liberalised visa regime

06/12/2006

Eri, meanwhile, thinks responsibility goes all the way to the top. “How can the foreign minister not be ashamed and resign? Albania has lost all its credibility in the world,” he contends.

But Edi doesn’t think so. “Minister [Lulzim] Basha has no reason to resign,” he argues. “First of all, he is not responsible for monitoring the job of the diplomats directly; rather, it is a special department in the ministry. Secondly, don’t forget that the minister is new and these diplomats were appointed before him.”

Guri i Kuq supports the government. “Where is the personal guilt of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who with our votes became prime minister in charge of all these officials who were not recruited in the last four years?” he asks.

Finally, Bubi Kacurel appeals to the foreign ministry. “It is no shame to declare you have made a mistake in the selection of your personnel,” he writes. “The shame is when you are trying to deceive us by telling us you fired him before he did his trafficking job.”

This content was commissioned for SETimes.com

Mistakes

nothing you can do or say
is gunna change
that I feel this way.
one mistake can mean everything,
even little cuts
tend to sting.
My stomach churns
full of pain, and sad
while my heart yearns
for a little bit of what I had.
I know it seems so small,
but what i feel is real
and i hate to wish
that my heart wasnt yours to steal.

Quitters have more vivid dreams

People who have smoked cigarettes for a long time who stop, have reported much more vivid dreams than they would normally experience. Additionally, according to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology: “Among 293 smokers abstinent for between 1 and 4 weeks, 33% reported having at least 1 dream about smoking. In most dreams, subjects caught themselves smoking and felt strong negative emotions, such as panic and guilt. Dreams about smoking were the result of tobacco withdrawal, as 97% of subjects did not have them while smoking, and their occurrence was significantly related to the duration of abstinence. They were rated as more vivid than the usual dreams and were as common as most major tobacco withdrawal symptoms.”

(source)

BARBITURAT

Asam Barbiturat adalah zat induk barbital-barbital yang sendirinya tidak bersisat hipnotik. Sifat ini baru nampak jika atom-atom hydrogen pada atom C 5 dari inti pirimidinnya digantikan oleh gugusan alkil atau aril.

Barbital-barbital semuanya bersifat lipofil, sukar larut dalam air tetapi mudah dalam pelarut-pelarut non polar seperti minyak, kloroform dan sebagainya. Sifat lipofil ini dimiliki oleh kebanyakan obat yang mampu menekan ssp. Dengan meningkatnya sifat lipofil ini, misaInya dengan mengganti atom oksigen pada atom C 2 menjadi atom belerang, maka efeknya dan lama kerjanya dipercepat, dan seringkali daya hipnotiknya diperkuat pula.

Secara kimia, barbiturat merupakan derivat asam barbiturat. Asam barbiturat merupakan hasil reaksi kondensasi antara urea dengan asam malonat.

Adapun rumus beberapa turunan asam barbiturat, antara lain : Penggolongan barbiturat disesuaikan dengan lama kerjanya, yaitu:

Nama

Substituen pada

BM

1

R1

R2

Barbital, veronal

-

Etil

etil

184,19

Fenobarbital, luminal

-

Etil

fenil

232,23

Butetal, soneril

-

Etil

n-butil

212,24

Pentobarbital, nembutal

-

Etil

1-metil butil

224,27

Allobarbital, alurat

-

Alil

alil

208,21

Aprobarbital, alurat

-

Alil

isopropil

210,23

Metarbital, gemonil

Metil

Etil

etil

198,22

Mefobarbital prominal

Metil

Etil

fenil

246,2

• Barbiturat kerja panjang

Contohnya: Fenobarbital digunakan dalam pengobatan kejang

• Barbiturat kerja singkat

Contohnya: Pentobarbital, Sekobarbital, dan Amobarbital yang efektif sebagai sedatif dan hipnotik

• Barbiturat kerja sangat singkat

Contohnya: Tiopental, yang digunakan untuk induksi intravena anestesia.

Analisis kualitatif pada barbiturat dapat dilakukan dengan menggunakan beberapa pereaksi umum dan spesifik sebagai berikut :

Pereaksi

Hasil Reaksi

Vanillin

Zwikker (campuran CuSO4 dan piridin)

Biuret (CuSO4 + NaOH)

Iodoform

Xanthydrol

Formaldehida

Buchi-Parlia

Resorsinol

Merkuri

Warna

Warna, endapan

Warna

Endapan, bau

Endapan

Warna

Endapan, kristal

Warna

Endapan

Metode penetapan kadar barbiturat dapat dilakukan dengan beberapa cara, antara lain :

Metode spektrofotometri untuk tablet

Pengukuran absorbansi barbiturat pada daerah ultraviolet dapat dilakukan dengan beberapa cara. Barbiturat dapat dilarutkan dalam basa kuat dan pengukuran dilakukan pada A max 255 nm. Metode ini spesifik jika spektra dari senyawa penganggu tidak peka terhadap perubahan pH. Pengukuran pada 260 nm lebih baik karena menghilangkan gangguan yang disebabkan oleh hasil peruraiannya.

Metode kolorimetri dengan garam kobalt

Reaksi parri dapat digunakan sebagai dasar analisis kuantitatif.

Metode asidi-alkalimetri

Semua barbiturat dapat ditetapkan sebagai asam berbasa satu. Titrasi dalam air dihindarkan karena sifat keasamannya yang lemah dan kelarutannya dalam air yang kecil. Oleh karena itu titrasi dilakukan dengan pelarut campuran air-alkohol.

Titrasi yang paling cocok untuk barbiturat dilakukan dalam suasana bebas air. Natrium barbiturat juga dapat ditetapkan secara TBA.

Metode argentometri

Dalam suasana basa barbiturat dengan perak nitrat membentuk garam yang tak larut. Reaksi yang terjadi tergantung suasana larutannya. Penetapan kadar secara potensiometri akan didapat hasil yang lebih tepat dan teliti, dengan elektroda baku perak-perak klorida dan elektroda penunjuk perak.

Modifikasi dari metode Budde telah dilakukan oleh Schulek dan Rozsa dengan melarutkan sampel dalam larutan Natrium Tetraborat 5% dan dititrasi dengan perak nitrat 0,1 N dengan menggunakan indikator kalium kromat. Reaksi pada metode modifikasi ini hanya terjadi pada barbiturat yang kedua atom nitrogennya tidak tersubtitusi, seperti Barbital.

Metode bromometri untuk gugus yang tidak jenuh

Beberapa barbiturat mempunyai substituen pada kedudukan 5 yang merupakan gugus yang tidak jenuh, seperti dial. Gugus ini dapat dititrasi kuantitatif dengan brom.

Antimicrobial Drugs

Chapter 16

Antimicrobial Drugs

Probably the first thing you ask for when you’re sick is a pill to make you feel better. Typically you don’t care how the pill works as long as it does work.
Physicians have an arsenal of substances that combat disease. These substances are chemical agents called drugs and taking drugs to cure a disease is called chemotherapy. Throughout this book you learned about pathogenic microorganisms that are harmful when they invade a body. However, there are some microorganisms that actually prevent the harmful effect of pathogenic microorganisms.
A microorganism that destroys a pathogenic microorganism and used to cure a disease is referred to as an antimicrobial drug. You’ll learn about antimicrobial drugs in this chapter.

Download Full PDF

Jack Straw... talking sense?!

The more I think about this, the harder I find it believe that Jack Straw actually wrote this: Heroin destroys individuals and communities. I mean, he is actually talking sense and he attempts to play down, rather than play up, media reactions to so-called “shooting galleries”.

To read this: “So we need to keep an open mind on alternative approaches (not dismiss them if they don’t fit with the adjective “tough”)” in a Jack Straw blog made me laugh out loud (which was kind of inappropriate as I was in the library at the time).

He mentions research into medicalisation of heroin and says that it resulted in improvements in the health and lifestyles of heroin users. He fails to mention the ’social experiment’ carried out by the Portuguese government in which drugs have been decriminalised since when, the use of drugs in Portugal have declined considerably (I am not implying cause and effect here- just commenting). The day Jack Straw says that drugs should be decriminalised will be the day I know that someone has hacked into his blog account at the Lancashire Telegraph!

Mushrooms

Alternative realities have been around since man first discovered Psilocybin Mushrooms. The magic mushroom as some call it induce hallucinations that can create an augmented reality experience. On the Erowid site users can find various experiences from people who have listed their stories. Depending on the hallucinations, one could possibly argue that drugs are a window to augmented reality. For example,

“… noticed that there was a kaleidoscopic array of colors on top of my vision, at which point I stop talking and just start taking it all in. [...] in the clouds, at first it just looked like a jumble of letters not in any particular order, I focused on them for a few minutes until they seemed to spell out “Welcome Home” at which point I decided to thank them out loud much to the surprise of my friends… “

However, the hallucinations are not controlled in anyway to create a specific experience, so are probably not a feasible pathway to proper augmentation of reality.

www.erowid.org

MACKENZIE PHILLIPS Engaged With Father JOHN PHILLIPS - MAMAS AND THE PAPAS Founder - In Long-Term Consensual Incestuous Relationship

MACKENZIE PHILLIPS And JOHN PHILLIPS

Source: People.com

“Don’t hate my father,” Mackenzie Phillips tells PEOPLE.

But in a tell-all book out Wednesday, the former childhood actress reveals that her dad, musician John Phillips of the ’60s band the Mamas and the Papas, engaged with her in a long-term incestuous relationship.

Phillips, 49, who has survived drug addiction, arrests and divorce, writes in the book High on Arrival that she was already a star playing a boy-crazy teen on the TV sitcom One Day at a Time when her father had sex with her on the night before she was to marry Jeff Sessler, a member of the Rolling Stones entourage, in 1979.

Read more HERE.

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Yowee for Yaoi Press?

Citing the Las Vegas Sun, Bleeding Cool reported hours ago that Yaoi Press proprietor Yamila Abraham was apprehended on drug charges entirely unrelated to her publication:

According to the Las Vegas Sun, Abraham was today arrested for selling and distributing excess doses of dextromethorphan hydrobromide, an active ingredient in cough mixture, masquerading as herbal extract pills called Snurf through the website www.Pleasureherbs.com.

Zerochan quickly spread the news to the Twitter community.  Reaction from those who knew Abraham was almost uniform shock.  Deb Aoki of About.com responded:

I’m stunned. But it’s citing it’s source as the Las Vegas Sun newspaper, so I fear the worst

The Yaoi Review was supportive:

As far as Yamila is concerned, let’s just remember she’s innocent until proven otherwise & assume business as usual at Yaoi Press.

Some, such as eov_ahoffman, affected a more jaded response:

Drugs and yaoi manga; who knew those two hobbies could be intertwined?

As if to verify this, a few hinted at lurid tales of their own. Otakusecret pointed out that DXM is the active ingredient in Robitussin and added,

shit I did that in college, except we called it “Robo tripping” (so that’s where those brain cells went…)

jpmeyer confessed,

i once tried to drink a bottle of robitussin.  i got two gulps in before puking.  soooooooo nasty

What will happen next?  Perhaps the final salvo should rightfully belong to Ms. Abraham herself:

Yamila Abraham (me) will be at Otakumex this weekend, Hollywood BF Oct. 4, Anime St. George 10th. FYI: Vegas News is sloppy & inaccurate.

The Moritheil Review wishes Yaoi Press all the best in these trying times, and is happy to hear that their convention schedule will be unchanged.

The scales of just is ;-)

Don’t you watch your weight? ‘I don’t have to, everyone else does it for me’ I replied.  That was a few years ago now, but being a woman ‘weight’ and size has always pretty much preoccupied my psyche.  So I could have just pressed the ‘checkout’ button…but I didn’t.  Oh no.  Patience isn’t the greatest of my many virtues.  I just couldn’t wait the 5 days or more for delivery of the magic pills of sveltness, that was going to have me fitting into that waspish, waist enhancing satin basque that has been in my lingerie drawer for several months now….UNWORN,  in no time at all.   Of course, with a little effort on my part.  That is, the effort that it takes for me to keep my mouth closed in the vicinity of delicious food and even more delicious and quaffable wine!

My legs are the problem.  Yes…no.1 is that they are most definitely not long enough…..another 10 inches would suffice.  Actually, I’d settle for 6.  Which is about the only time you’d hear me say that I’d settle for 6inches in preference to 10!!   and no.2 is the fact that they don’t work.

Well the hips are fine.  They’re damn wonderful to be honest.  Fat laden lady hips….full of marshmallow and love handles that a cowboy on a bucking bronco would be pleased to feel.  Come to think of it….I quite like the vision of a cowboy at my rear, as long as he’d remembered to remove his chaps and spurs, but i’d allow him to keep his hat on    Trouble is, i’d think of  Billy Ray Cyrus singing ‘Achey Breaky Heart’…God how i HATE that song.  ( AND, to add insult to injury, it mentions my name in the middle of it);

Oh tell your Aunt Louise, tell anything you please

Myself already knows that I’m okay

Oh you can tell my eyes to watch out for my mind

It might be walking out on me today

But don’t tell my heart, my achy breaky heart I just don’t think it’d understand And if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart He might blow up and kill this man

So, my legs….SOD THE LEGS!  ISN’T HE DAMN FINE!!!!

Right, back to the story   My legs.  So, I’m having a few problems with my legs…..again.  Unlike most people, I can’t just take myself off a couple of miles walk every day for a bit of excercise.  So that word ‘excercise’ doesn’t exactly fit too well in my vocabulary……  I shy away from it whenever possible, unless of course its a horizontal kind.  No wonder I have pretty good eyes and eyelashes (for my age)…they’re always asleep and well rested and ready for lots of excercise in the form of fluttering.  Very useful for gaining extra chocolate flakes in your 99 ice cream cones.  Well anything helps once you are post 25

In the past few months i’ve had rather too many extra flakes in my ice creams, and well, rather too many ice creams really.  Sitting about has taken its toll on my fat bum and as I can’t excercise ‘properly’ i thought that i would try the new weight loss tablets ‘ALLI’.  I’ve read about them, done my research and carefully considered them before deciding to take the plunge and purge myself of all fats.  Because thats essentially what it does……  I know that it has reported side effects which aren’t very nice, BUT if you don’t eat the fat, then you don’t have the problem…..simple!

I’m pretty good most days anyway.  I’m careful what I eat…I would say that i’m a ‘considered’ eater.  I don’t eat things for the sake of it….with the exception of malt loaf, rowntrees fruit gums, turkish delight. Those I would eat till i’m sick (Excellent diet food then!)    So, I didn’t press the ‘checkout’ button on Boots the Chemist website, I decided that I would go there instead.  Oh, BIG MISTAKE.

(When purchasing on the website you are requested to input your height and weight details, and details of any medication currently taken.  Important to note for later!)

Its embarrassing enough to decide to take these tablets.  To feel enough of a failure as it is, but to then walk into a large store and purchase them over the counter is akin to the red faced embarrasment of a teenager buying condoms or sending a man to buy tampons.  Okay, some would be okay with it, but many aren’t.  I’m not.  But my lack of patience got the better of me.    I perused the store and placed several items in my basket; a new body buff puff (absolutely essential!) deodorant, shampoo, and vitamin tablets……before advancing to the ‘diet products’ aisle.

I spotted the ‘ALLI’ and gingerly took down a sealed package from the top shelf, in the hope than no one saw me.  Feeling very guilty, like I was removing a porn magazine from the top shelf in the newsagent (not that i would know what that felt like……..).  I snuck it in my basket and managed to cover up the package, and the accompanying book, with the array of items already in my basket.  I wandered to the checkout.  Once there, the eagle eyed assistant noticed the glowing ‘fat cow’ packet in my basket, and said ‘can’t serve you with that here….you need to go to pharmacy’  !!!!!!!   So, red faced, I had to turn around and face the queue and make my way, hobbling with my stick and my basket along to ‘Pharmacy’

Now the real fun begins………

I read the back of the packaging and it states (amongst other things) that in order to take Alli, that for my height (5ft 2) that you must be above 10st 13lbs….which I am.  Good so far.  Then I give the basket to the assistant, who in turn gives it to the pharmacist.   A man, in his 40’s slightly pot bellied himself, and a jobsworth.  ‘Erm, do you know what your BMI is, as it needs to be over 28′ he asks me.   ‘no, sorry I don’t’ i replied, ‘although, I’m 5ft 2, and i’m just under 13 stones, so I’m sure its over 28….maybe 33 ish?’  I said.    He looks, quizzically.   ‘Are you on any medication?’  he says…..  I reeled off several names of medications, all of which I already knew weren’t contra indicated to the use of this drug….I HAD done my research.  ‘Okay….i’m just going to get some money, and i need you to come with me as i need to check’   he said.     Check what??????????    I followed him like a little sheep, hobbling behind.    He takes me to a large set of electronic scales.  I assume that he’s just going to insert the money and input my weight and height and it will give him the BMI reading that he talked about…..but no.   He said ‘well’

!!!!!!!!!!!  WELL WHAT?  YOU DON’T SERIOUSLY THINK I’M GETTING ON SCALES IN THE MIDDLE OF A STORE DO YOU????   and he DID!  He said ‘well if you don’t, I’m not selling you the product’ !!!!   And I am FUCKING livid!

How dare he!!!

I said to him ‘but I could have bought this online…it doesn’t ask your BMI online?’  and he argued with me that it did!!   ‘Erm, no it doesn’t'   It does ask your weight and height, but thats all.  I’d been straight with him and already told him that, but to ask me to get on weighing scales in the middle of a store was SO embarrassing.  As was him then making a scene and refusing to sell me the item.

I’m an articulate 48 year old woman that has enough problems already with self image, not only through weight, but with having to use a walking stick.  Being put through something  so demaeaning during a regular shopping trip would make me very wary again.

Maybe I best stay like I am and don my ‘wench’ outfit and get to line dancing classes (never!)…that basque is going to be damn wenchy if i get in it now….my cup will certainly runneth over!!!

Right, think I’m in need of a holiday to re balance me……Texas, cowboys & rodeos might just have the edge over New York shopping  

MALAYSIA PSYCHAITRY ASSOCIATION

http://www.psychiatry-malaysia.org/article.php?aid=48 

from MALAYSIA PSYCHAITRY ASSOCIATION

Date: 3 July 2006

Work Stress

A mentally healthy adult has a need to work. This is part of human development. Everybody works, whether you are a housewife, self-employed or an employee.

Working adults spend an average of 10 hours at the workplace. Thus, the workplace has a significant impact on an individual’s mental health and well being. A safe and healthy workplace ensures work efficiency and makes working pleasurable and satisfying. Poor working conditions on the other hand, will create a stressful work atmosphere.

A little stress at work is good as it enhances productive performance. However, when the stress becomes excessive and unmanageable it can seriously affect one’s health. Personal difficulties, family problems and stressful life events can make it worse.

What causes stress in the work place?

Job related

Work conditions, use of new equipments, prolonged work pressure, new ways of doing things

Career development

Frustrations, lack of incentives, lack of appreciation, retrenchment

Role related

Frequent changes in role, dangerous or unsafe work

Relationship

Conflict with colleagues, superiors, subordinates or people encountered at work

Organisational change

Change in organisational structure, new management, frequent take-overs, uncertainties
Symptoms that indicate you are under stress
Anxiety
Aggressiveness
Loss of appetite
Alcohol abuse
Depression
Excessive worries
Easily irritated
Fatique
Lack of concentration and motivation
Restlessness
Sleep disturbances
7 Steps on how to manage stress

1. Be realistic about your work
Accept your strengths and limitations
Develop a positive attitude towards your work
Enjoy what you do and do it as best as you can

2. Organise your work
Mange your time well
Prioritise your work and avoid a last minute rush
If possible avoid bringing unfinished work home
Know how to delegate your work

3. Sharpen your problem solving skills
Address problems rationally and plan solutions systematically
List down the main problems and possible solutions
Evaluate the feasibility of each solution
Take appropriate action

4. Have a proper attitude towards changes
Some changes are unavoidable. Be open, flexible and realistic about them
Plan your changes well

5. Practice effective communication at the workplace
Be assertive, but not aggressive
Express your ideas in a polite, firm and clear manner
Respect your colleagues’ opinions

6. Foster solcial support within the workplace
Establish friendships with colleagues
List down all the people and organisations that may be able to help you and your colleagues
Share your problems with someone whom you can confide in
Take time to listen
Do not judge your colleagues

7. Practise a healthy lifestyle
Learn to relax
Have enough sleep
Exercise regularly
Have enjoyable activities/hobbies
Refrain from tobacco, alcohol or drugs
Practise good moral and religious values
Source: A Public Health Education Information from the Ministry of Health Malaysia

How to Not Fucking Die in College: A Guide by Elizabeth Morris

People are always fucked up in college.  They stay up all night and then wonder why they can’t just bounce back and be totally productive in class.  Here is a guide to avoid this.

1) Drink water. No, not coffee.  WATER.  It’s the original beverage.  It’s what 2/3s of your body is made up of.  Is your body made up of coffee?  As much as you would like to believe it is, it is not.  WATER WILL FIX SO MANY OF YOUR PROBLEMS.  It’s harder to fall asleep in class when you have a ice cold Nalgene of water in front of you, forcing you to have to pee every so often.  Keeping hydrated prevents you from being sick, prevents you from being hungry when you’re not (aka when it’s 11 pm and you really want to eat three Easy Macs), and prevents headaches, and just generally makes your body feel better.  Nalgenes in the 1 liter size are my water bottle of choice because two of them equal the standard “8 glasses” of water a day deal.

2) Go the fuck to sleep. Yeah, it’s college, and your mom isn’t going to tell you to go to sleep, and you have a lot of reading to do, and lol it’s so funny when you don’t sleep and then go to class and can tell everyone you didn’t sleep.  Guess what?  Your body will hate you.  There’s this neat thing called the Sun.  Your body reacts really well to being awake when the Sun is up.  It does not react well to being awake exclusively when the Sun is set.  That’s why a lot of people get really depressed in the winter—because the Sun sets so early, and they want to go to sleep at 6 o’clock, but cannot.  So rather, I should specify—go the fuck to sleep at a decent hour and get up sometime relative to when the sun rises.  Then, if you do end up being overwhelmed by work and have to stay up late, you will be able to fall back into your schedule.

3) For the love of God, EAT. Your body needs food.  Your body needs REAL FOOD.  Not easy mac, not one salad with some honey mustard and three crackers, not pizza all the time (or at all hours of the night).  It needs some solid, hearty meals. Vegetables! Whole wheat!  Cheese! Milk! Protein! Bananas! Grapes!  Food will help you stay awake.  Food will help your body not get sick by making it strong.  Your brain likes it when it has nutrients to—Oh I don’t know—stay alive.

4) Don’t do drugs. Coffee is cool and everything, but even if drink only one cup every day, you’re forcing your body to do things it doesn’t want to do.  Again—if you do have a night when you have to stay up late, when you decide to get a fresh brew in the morning, it will actually help you wake up.  Coffee will not let you stay awake indefinitely.  Sorry, kids.  Adderall will probably let you stay awake indefinitely, but it will also make you not do number three, so none of that either.  On the flip side, if you’re stressed out, do not drink an entire bottle of raspberry-flavored liquor.  Don’t!  Besides, you are more than likely not 21 and getting caught just is not worth it.  Neither is the hang over which will prevent you from doing all of the first three items on this list.

5) Miscellaneous. Don’t go to Applebee’s for half-price appetizers three times a week.  Don’t fuck every person you meet who is willing to fuck you too.  Don’t do every quiz on facebook.  Don’t drink anything with the number 99 in the name.  Don’t watch youTube, in general.  Don’t “pick five” things fifty times.  Don’t do anything associated with Farmville. Don’t go to any sites that involve fucking my life, texting, or photos of the generally unattractive in strange situations.  Instead, do your work.

6) Don’t stress out about your work too much.  “Oh. Em. Gee.  This is probably the worst three-page paper that I have ever written in my life! I’m going to cry for awhile and then e-mail my professor and see if he’ll let me do it over, or perhaps let me do an even harder more extravagant project to make up for the new level of low that I have just reached.”  Whoa!  Well, it might not be a classic essay that should be added to the curriculum, but at least you did it, so stop stressing.  Besides, it’s only worth maybe 5% of your grade.  I’m not saying don’t do your work, but if you keep up on things, you’re allowed to slip up once. Or twice.  Or maybe 10 times.  You’ll probably still get some sweet grades just as long as you’re diligent and punctual.  Work done on time is always better than work done with an extension when you should have been doing other work and now you’re just even further behind.

7) Hug everyone. It will make everyone much happier.

EL mito de Angelo Millones cayo. El Boster arrestado!

Ja. Me alegro. Son muchas las muertes y vidas destrozadas por este pedazo de cabrón por empujar por cuanto roto su “preciado” producto. Aqui el reportaje de endi.com (as is a las 3:12 am):

“Por Limarys Suárez Torres / lsuarez1@elnuevodia.com

El más buscado del narcotráfico, Ángel M. Ayala Vázquez, mejor conocido como ‘Ángelo Millones’, fue arrestado la noche del viernes por un grupo interagencial federal y estatal, mientras se encontraba en un negocio de Bayamón, confirmaron hoy varias fuentes de El Nuevo Día.  El arresto de Ayala Vázquez, también conocido como ‘Buster’ dentro del género del reguetón, fue diligenciado por agentes de la Administración federal Antidrogas (DEA, por sus siglas en inglés), del Negociado Federal de Investigaciones (FBI, por sus siglas en inglés) y del ‘Strike Force’ de Bayamón, quienes hace meses seguían de cerca sus pasos.  Las autoridades supieron que ‘Ángelo Millones’, de 35 años, tenía planes de abandonar el País para evitar su futuro arresto, por lo que actuaron con celeridad.  Al presunto capo se le atribuye controlar por más de una década el trasiego de sustancias controladas desde Bayamón hasta Arecibo y en áreas de Guaynabo, San Juan y Carolina. “No podemos negar ni confirmar esa información”, fue la reacción de los portavoces de la DEA y el FBI, Waldo Santiago y Harry Rodríguez, respectivamente.  Por su parte, la fiscal federal Jacqueline D. Novas admitió haber recibido numerosas comunicaciones para que las autoridades federales confirmen la detención. Aún así indicó que “la fiscal federal, Rosa Emilia Rodríguez Vélez, y los miembros del ‘Strike Force’ no emitirán en estos momentos ningún comentario sobre este asunto”.  El pasado 16 de junio las autoridades federales y locales propinaron un golpe millonario a la organización que se le atribuye al detenido, cuando confiscaron bienes y propiedades en 25 localidades de Bayamón, de donde es oriundo Ayala Vázquez.”

Wow. Como poco a poco se ha ido desmantelando la nargo-ganga de este cabron. Le fueron matando poco a poco su circulo intimo de matones y ahora, pa’ la carcel. Pero claro, esto es producto de otro cabron que tenia informacion vital y la ofrecion a cambio de que no le hagan nada. Pero como los federicos no son nada de bobo, le tenden la trampa para que cuando lo vayan a tumbar de unos años, no se les haga tan dificil como se les hizo con el Boster. Y ahora Boster, ¿quien te saca de la carcel a ti? Ninguno de los huelepinga que tu rociabas con billetes van a tender la mano para poner tu fianza. Como dicen en mi pueblo: el que siembra vientos, cosecha tempestades.

“No podemos negar ni confirmar esa información”, fue la reacción de los portavoces de la DEA y el FBI, Waldo Santiago y Harry Rodríguez, respectivamente. Por su parte, la fiscal federal Jacqueline D. Novas admitió haber recibido numerosas comunicaciones para que las autoridades federales confirmen la detención. Aún así indicó que “la fiscal federal, Rosa Emilia Rodríguez Vélez, y los miembros del ‘Strike Force’ no emitirán en estos momentos ningún comentario sobre este asunto”. El pasado 16 de junio las autoridades federales y locales propinaron un golpe millonario a la organización que se le atribuye al detenido, cuando confiscaron bienes y propiedades en 25 localidades de Bayamón, de donde es oriundo Ayala Vázqu

Roll out

the extra strength vikes (thanks, Dr V) and the benzos. your author here will spend her weekend in a severe narco-haze pickling her liver with all the alcohol that can be consumed.

you know, I thought that I’d ease into my future homelessness.

…or die.

Which ever comes first.

you know, because I’m fine with either… or else I will be when my aforementioned cocktail kicks in.

Return of Stout a good thing?

Is 2010 the year that former RC mayors return?

As of last month, former Mayor Bill Alexander was still planning to run for the City Council next year. Last week, former Mayor Dennis Stout said he’s thinking of running against District Attorney Mike Ramos.

Stout cites allegations against Ramos of prosecutorial misconduct and inappropriate relations with his colleagues as reasons he might run.

To that, Supervisor Paul Biane said thanks, but no thanks. Biane pointed to sexual harassment allegations that Stout faced himself while he served as district attorney.

“While the District Attorney’s office does have some problems that need to be addressed, I believe incumbent DA Mike Ramos is far better qualified to lead this vital County crime-fighting agency,” Biane said in a statement.

The Daily Bulletin was also unenthusiastic about a Stout comeback as expressed in an editorial that found fault in his reasons for running. Stout defended himself in yesterday’s guest column and used the opportunity to bash on Ramos some more.

What do you think? Should Stout run?

Dear Pixie: Mood Enhancers

 

Dear Pixie,

I’ve read on your profile that you don’t like to play if people are drunk.  I appreciate that so much!  Why do so many people have to be wasted to play?

Thank you!  Awesome blog!

Thank you!  I don’t want to give anyone the idea that we are sober freaks, because we certainly aren’t!  LOL  Hell, we’re out drinking ever Friday and Saturday night!  It’s more a matter of degree depending on what our plans are for the evening.  We’ve had a couple experiences where we drank to excess with couples and, as a result, some regrettable things happened.  Nothing too serious, but things which wouldn’t have happened had everyone been far more sober.   Don’t get me wrong, both Hubby and I love to drink (even to excess), but we won’t play hardcore if anyone has been drinking too much.  To be perfectly honest, we both enjoy playing when we’ve had a bit too much, but the problem is that every time we’ve played while thoroughly drunk, the other guy has tried to do things which he knew were out of bounds. 

I think all of us girls know that guys tend to see us as red meat anyway, but when we’re drunk they see us a perfectly grilled porterhouse!  So, for me, it comes down to keeping my wits because I won’t trust a guy to keep my best interests in mind while in the moment – even more so if he’s been drinking excessively.  It’s simply my preference in a full swap situation.  Now, when I know that we’re in a situation where full swap isn’t going to happen, then we’ve been known to get pretty well hammered and have had a great time partying.  Certainly, some of the hottest girl-play I’ve ever had has been while everyone was fairly well lit.  LOL!!

 I think some people need to be wasted and some want to be wasted to play.  The reasons probably vary for everyone.  Take my Hubby for example.  The more he drinks the more fun he becomes because he’s a naturally reserved kind of guy.  Of course, if he knows we may be playing, he won’t drink too much.  But, he doesn’t have to drink a drop to play either.  I’m naturally bubbly and can party almost as hard sober as I can drunk.  I personally believe that if someone MUST be wasted to play, then there is something wrong and they are probably in the lifestyle for the wrong reasons.  A lot of the girls we see only play with other girls once they are drunk – bar-bi’s.  Not me.  I can be ready to go at 10am on a Sunday morning, sober as can be – for the right hot girl!  In fact, day time girl play is always a very welcomed treat!  ;)  LMAO! 

So, I guess it’s a matter of preference.  We’re not compatible with couples that need to be absolutely hammered, especially if they are looking for full swap.  Hubby and I are also not into drugs, which are not unusual – at least from our observations.  I tend not to play with girls who are wasted unless I’m fairly well hammered too.  For the most part, we’ve really enjoyed the early evening, totally sober, experiences we’ve had with couples.  But, if we’re in a girl-girl only situation or doing some softer kissy/touchy stuff with a couple(s) at a club, then we don’t have a problem drinking our fair share.  Either way, we don’t need to drink at all to have a good time, but there are certainly many people out there who can’t play without drinking to excess too.

The Entheogen Journey

“The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious–fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.”

• Thomas Huxley, The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature (1885)

When I was quite young, I witnessed what drug abuse can do to one, so there was no need for anyone to tell me to stay away from drugs. I loved to party, but when it came to experimenting with recreational drugs, I let the others do their thing. As I grew older and my interest in spiritual plane started to emerge and crystallize, I kept meeting people who claimed great leaps in personal and spiritual growth from having had entheogenic experiences.

They were talking about the ancient practices of using native plants to induce altered states of consciousness for the purpose of spiritual growth and enlightenment.

And this I wanted to experience.

I put a great effort into learning about these ‘plant teachers’. The more I learned about them, the easier it became to acquire them.

Over the past years I’ve had several such experiences which have transformed me immensely. My life now is healthier and I am more balanced due to the wisdom I received from the plant teachers. They work by increasing one’s awareness and letting in profound insights. Usually those are the insights that are too simple to consider otherwise.

I would like to emphasize two things. First, these experiences are not pleasurable at all. In most cases, you are likely to feel nauseous and may vomit. Sometimes you’ll have diarrhoea. This is a part of the cleansing process, at the beginning of the trip, just before you face ‘the Teacher’. Which brings me to the second point. The plant teachers’ power lies in the fact that they completely open you up to the infinity of the spirit, increasing your awareness to unimaginable hights, and making it possible for you to learn by erasing all traces of ego consciousness.

The impact of such experiences on one’s mind is impossible to put into writing. Sometimes an hour of profound revelation gets cut down to one sentence. Entheogens teach through first-hand experience and their teaching cannot be put into words. Pathetic attempts to do so have been undertaken by loony enthusiasts like me, but so far, they have all been classified as science fiction… The Matrix, for instance…

Some Questions About the 'War on Drugs'

In a letter appearing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Robert Sharpe, a policy analyst for Common Sense for Drug Policy, writes:

The U.S. could learn from Mexico’s decriminalization of drugs.

The U.S. drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. There were 872,720 total marijuana arrests in 2007, almost 90% for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend scarce public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis.

The end result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use. The U.S. has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. An admitted former pot smoker, President Obama has thus far maintained the status quo rather than pursue change. Would Barack Obama be in the White House if he had been convicted of a marijuana offense as a youth? Decriminalization is a long overdue step in the right direction.

Don Boudreaux poses a different question, “one that exposes the huge disconnect between most people’s live-and-let-live attitudes about drug use (or at least about the use of pot and cocaine) and the harsh penalties often imposed on users.”

Suppose Barack Obama (or Bill Clinton or George Bush) had admitted, say, to committing armed robbery – or even to picking pockets – while in college.  Whether convicted or not for such crimes, is it conceivable that the electorate would dismiss these past offenses as being nothing more than understandable youthful antics and conclude that he is, at bottom, a decent-enough chap worthy of the White House?  Of course not.

So why does government continue to waste vast quantities of resources hunting down and punishing people for drug use – actions that most of us obviously regard as being not especially heinous or harmful to society?

Latest edition of NIDA NewScan, 9/11/2009

Online at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2009/NS-63.pdf

Articles in this issue:

• Disparities, Variability Found in Methadone Maintenance Dosing Patterns
• Marijuana Prevention Campaigns May Have Undesired Effects on Marijuana Use
• Crack Cocaine Use Hastens Progression of HIV Infection to AIDS
• Few U.S. High Schools Use Evidence-Based Drug Prevention Curricula
• Gene Changes Linked to Nicotine Dependence and Success With Smoking Cessation
• Electronic Diary Captures Moods and Cues Leading to Heroin and Cocaine Use
• Aging Population of Steroid Abusers May Face Underrecognized Health Problems

Miami Vice (25 years ago today)

Miami Vice premiered on NBC 25 years ago today, on September 16, 1984.  The show that became synonymous with the decade of the 80s both reflected the visual and emotional aesthetic of its times as it simultaneously shaped them.

It was a seemingly superficial concept, encapsulated by Brandon Tartikoff’s two-word vision of “MTV cops.” But the end result was much more than that.  While music and stylized cinematography provided high-profile features of the show, its stories helped reshaped what adult TV looked and felt like.  Michael Mann, executive producer of the series, chose to set the show in Miami, giving it ample opportunity to showcase women in bikinis, neon lights, and nightclubs.  It also provided a dark, gritty, urban backdrop and the specter of drugs.

And Latinos.  Latinos (as actors or characters or both) figured prominently in the show from day one.  Lead actor Philip Michael Thomas was not Latino, but he played “Ricardo Tubbs,” a former NYC cop who has Latin roots of some kind.  In the first four episodes, Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez was played by Gregory Sierra.  He was replaced with Edward James Olmos in the role of Lieutenant Martin Castillo.  Saundra Santiago played Detective Gina Calabrese; while bit player Martin Ferrero appeared frequently as Izzy Moreno.  Taking place in Miami, and frequently revolving around the business of drug smuggling, Latinos appeared in most episodes as shady, dark figures and other kinds of criminal-looking types.

Surprisingly, the show never finished a season higher than the ninth spot in the overall ratings, achieving that feat in its 2nd season.  It tapered off big time in the ratings after that, finishing 23rd, 36th, and 53rd in the final three seasons, respectively.  But the ratings don’t reflect the show’s impact on the culture.  Don Johnson became a household name after 1984.  The theme song by Jan Hammer went to number 1 on the charts.  The show spawned original hit singles from Glen Frey, and made bigger hits out of songs by Phil Collins and Dire Straits.

And the stories!  My favorite episode just might be “Out Where the Buses Don’t Run,” the third episode of the second season.  From beginning to end it suggests what made the show great–the style, the music, the actors.  And the plot is just about as dark a story as I had ever seen on TV.  The complexity it represented stuck with me, but not half as much as the final scene.  I can still remember watching it.

If you want to spend the time, the entire 48 minute episode can be viewed below from Hulu.

“Out Where the Busses Don’t Run“, posted with vodpod Read more LATINO LIKE ME.

i want..

morgan was asking for wants on twitter:

and at first i said “@morganirene twitter doesn’t have enough characters for all of the things I want..”

then after therapy i started thinking that i maybe need to be a little selfish and want some things for myself and i decided to give it another shot.

“I want: to be put first, jeans that don’t fall down, a stressfree living situation, people to lower their expectations of me. also: a birthday redo, a perfect fall day in the city w/my loves, my nikon, my apartment to clean itself, & a wormless pup.”

but i also want:

• to get stable enough to be ok working full time
• to get a job i like, full time
• or even two jobs..
• a laptop
• to go back to school for sign language
• love with no bullshit.
• more orgasms
• m to quit with the pills
• people to stop backstabbing at my jobs
• my dog to stop BARKING everytime i leave the room and his separation anxiety as well
• to be truly happy.. i want to feel lighter and positive and repaired.
• to live in the city because i feel at home there.
• sex, sex, holy hell i’d love some sex.
• my sister to finally take responsibility for her life
• some support
• to learn how to say no more often
• people to stop taking advantage of me
• therapy to work
• a full night’s sleep.. it makes me giddy to think of what could happen if i’d remember what it was like to feel rested.
• to go out of town once a month [even if it's to the city.. just away from here.]

maybe visualizing it will help me get there..

Rejecting Cancer Saftety Fears

Fears about the cancer causing effects of the second most prescribed group of drugs in the Western world have been put to rest, following the largest ever study into their use. ‘Proton pump inhibitors’ (PPI) are the most usually used therapy for chronic acid reflux, or ‘heartburn’, a painful burning sensation in the chest, neck and throat which is experienced by almost a third of people in developed countries. Regular and prolonged…….Read more

Hips and Such

Well, people, I have been not too dependable as a blogger.  This may be because I have been trying too hard, or because the sun has been shining too brightly, or, well, you get the idea.  I don’t know what’s up with my writing but I have decided to try to put in at least 300 words per day.  This is a measly number, I realize, but I have read that this is a recommended minimum when writer’s block-or whatever-has reared its ugly head.  Pretty ugly, the thing.

So, here I go.  Hmm.  Well, let’s see.  I haven’t really talked much about my actual life, now have I?  I know that I mentioned my hip replacement surgery, didn’t I?   Well, I’ll have you know that the whole thing went fabulously, at least that’s what they tell me.  I certainly felt fabulous when I woke up with morphine coursing through my veins, well actually the surgeon inserted some sort of drug-delivery device in my spine which kept me flying for around 18 hours.  Nice.  I was awake within 3-4 hours and ready for a meal.  And boy, was I in a good mood.  I could not stop chattering every time a poor unsuspecting nurse entered my room.  They were appropriately kind and I guess they enjoyed some of my banter, for they gave me a get-well card when I was discharged.

Of course the needle madmen/women were at me every few hours, which I actually didn’t mind, not even one little bit, but when the physical therapist arrived, my sweetness and light turned to drudgery and pain!  I knew they were coming, and damn it, they did.  Oh, never believe the apparent benevolence on their professionally encouraging faces!

“And how are we feeling today, Ms. Rogers?  Ready to give it a try?”  They meant that walker I’d seen lurking on the other side of the room.  ”Of course,” I complained, thinking about the impossibility of moving my leg off the bed in the first place, much less walk on the poor thing.  Well, let me tell you, it was no walk in the park; actually it was a walk to the bathroom.   The indignity of using a walker-poorly-was just about more than I could stand.  But, whatcha gonna do?

Well, once we returned home my hubby ‘tricked out’ my walking aide, strapping on cup holders and a sort of satchel for my morning paper and other sundries.  Which proved invaluable-for one week!  Yes, at 52, age was finally an advantage, and I began lurching around the house on my own.  My animals were frozen in absolute terror most of the time, but I learned to veer somehow and  squashed nary a one!  My biggest challenge became regaining my grace. Yeah, right.  I kept telling myself to stop walking like a duck.  And, what do you know, my hubby told me just today that I walk just like I used to.

Fabulous all around.  And, hey, this post has more than 300 words.  Yeah for me!  I’ll banish the ugly thing one of these days.

Bye!

Lesson One: People will believe anything about Amy Winehouse

For the lazy celeb journalist, Amy Winehouse is a god send. There’s no need to even back up any stories about her since the public will swallow anything. All you need is a seed of an unverified rumour and a wild imagination.

Cue example 1:

Amy Winehouse - wedding singer, baby-desirer and divorce-seeker all in one week.

The Sun says on 13.09.09:

Amy Winehouse is being a wedding singer for £20,000 at a Greek wedding in Hertfordshire.

This is good – it follows her character arc as ’singer on a downward spiral’ without going into the over-used areas of drugs or broken marriage.

This also perfectly backed up by this anonymous, untraceable person:

A source said: “Amy agreed to do it because it was a nice little earner and didn’t involve a lot of travel.”

And finally, Hertfordshire. Beautifully vague. Kinda believable.

Example 2:

The News Of The World on 05.09.09:

Amy and Blake are back together.

News of a celebs splitting up with or getting back together sells papers, guaranteed. No matter how feeble the story. There is a vague mention of an unnamed bar in Old Street, and a strange lack of photos, but hey ho.

Example 3

The Sun on 1.09.09:

Amy paints freckles on her face in bid to get back her husband.

Again this mysterious unidentifiable ‘pal’ is back:

A pal said: “She painted the orange marks on her nose and wore a tiger-print top so that Blake would notice.”

Extra freckles added by Starsuckers courtesy of Photoshop

[Via http://starsuckers.wordpress.com]

Baby hippo Matilde arouses tenderness

Contradictions of life. Colombia’s most famous drugs trafficker Pablo Escobar left the country with a very special plague: a little less than 30 hippopotamuses. South African experts have advised to kill some animals and to try to sterilize the rest. But a month ago a hippopotamus girl was born: Matilde, and she seems to have been rejected by her mother.Of course such a small cute hippopotamus arouses tenderness and concern. But she will grow up and cause as many problems as the rest.

The other Matilda seems to be wandering still along the Magdalena river, in spite of some advertisement of the Environment Ministry that she might have been killed. With her probably is small Hip, who is growing as well, but who seems to have the luck to be adopted by a natural park.

Let’s see what happens to little Matilde. For now she is been taken care of.

[Via http://wiesubags.wordpress.com]

(New Scientist) Better world: Legalise drugs

Far from protecting us and our children, the war on drugs is making the world a much more dangerous place.

SO FAR this year, about 4000 people have died in Mexico’s drugs war – a horrifying toll. If only a good fairy could wave a magic wand and make all illegal drugs disappear, the world would be a better place.

Dream on. Recreational drug use is as old as humanity, and has not been stopped by the most draconian laws. Given that drugs are here to stay, how do we limit the harm they do?

The evidence suggests most of the problems stem not from drugs themselves, but from the fact that they are illegal. The obvious answer, then, is to make them legal.

The argument most often deployed in support of the status quo is that keeping drugs illegal curbs drug use among the law-abiding majority, thereby reducing harm overall. But a closer look reveals that this really doesn’t stand up. In the UK, as in many countries, the real clampdown on drugs started in the late 1960s, yet government statistics show that the number of heroin or cocaine addicts seen by the health service has grown ever since – from around 1000 people per year then, to 100,000 today. It is a pattern that has been repeated the world over.

A second approach to the question is to look at whether fewer people use drugs in countries with stricter drug laws. In 2008, the World Health Organization looked at 17 countries and found no such correlation. The US, despite its punitive drug policies, has one of the highest levels of drug use in the world (PLoS Medicine, vol 5, p e141).

A third strand of evidence comes from what happens when a country softens its drug laws, as Portugal did in 2001. While dealing remains illegal in Portugal, personal use of all drugs has been decriminalized. The result? Drug use has stayed roughly constant, but ill health and deaths from drug taking have fallen. “Judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success,” states a recent report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington DC.

By any measure, making drugs illegal fails to achieve one of its primary objectives. But it is the unintended consequences of prohibition that make the most compelling case against it. Prohibition fuels crime in many ways: without state aid, addicts may be forced to fund their habit through robbery, for instance, while youngsters can be drawn into the drugs trade as a way to earn money and status. In countries such as Colombia and Mexico, the profits from illegal drugs have spawned armed criminal organisations whose resources rival those of the state. Murder, kidnapping and corruption are rife.

Making drugs illegal also makes them more dangerous. The lack of access to clean needles for drug users who inject is a major factor in the spread of lethal viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C.

So what’s the alternative? There are several models for the legal provision of recreational drugs. They include prescription by doctors, consumption at licensed premises or even sale on a similar basis to alcohol and tobacco, with health warnings and age limits. If this prospect appals you, consider the fact that in the US today, many teenagers say they find it easier to buy cannabis than beer.

Taking any drug – including alcohol and nicotine – does have health risks, but a legal market would at least ensure that the substances people ingest or inject are available unadulterated and at known dosages. Much of the estimated $300 billion earned from illegal drugs worldwide, which now funds crime, corruption and environmental destruction, could support legitimate jobs. And instead of spending tens of billions enforcing prohibition, governments would gain income from taxes that could be spent on medical treatment for the small proportion of users who become addicted or whose health is otherwise harmed.

Unfortunately, the idea that banning drugs is the best way to protect vulnerable people – especially children – has acquired a strong emotional grip, one that politicians are happy to exploit. For many decades, laws and public policy have flown in the face of the evidence. Far from protecting us, this approach has made the world a much more dangerous place than it need be.

[Via http://bbvm.wordpress.com]

Top ten best excuses in criminal cases

(the blog doesn’t contain any information learned through attorney client conversations)

1. License case: “It wasn’t me, my brother did it, my brother did it” The defendant doesn’t have a brother.

2. Assault and Battery Case: “The guy walked into my fist. I tried to stop him, but he kept running into my fist!”

3. Shoplifting case: “I was going to return it if it didn’t fit, really I was.”

4. Conspiracy case: “it was entirely my wife’s idea, I will testify that way if I need to.”

5. Assault with Dangerous Weapon: “The cops must have planted my fingerprints on the weapon.”

6. Drug case: “I was only given $5,000 to drive this bag from one location to another, how was I supposed to know there was something illegal in the bag?”

7. Minor in possession of alcohol: “Yeah, we had the alcohol, but I wasn’t given my Miranda rights, so that means a dismissal right?” The police saw the person drinking in the car and there were no statements to be suppressed.

8. OUI case: “I drank a lot, but I wasn’t that drunk because I got to the car and I was driving.”

9. Drug case: An overweight person claimed that she didn’t use crack cocaine. While pointing at herself she stated, “look at me, does it look like I use crack!”

10. My favorite: A doctor gets arrested for trying to elicit sex from a prostitute. “I was doing research on STDs.”

You never know what you are going to encounter. The majority of people that I meet are not like this, but there are a few that keep things interesting. Some people I believe have convinced themselves of this other alternate story to the point that they can’t be considered lying anymore. Finally, I do have to say I enjoy this job. With these experiences, how can I feel any differently?

[Via http://attorneychan.wordpress.com]

Shock me like an electric feel.

Tired, shrouded in a hangover that doesn’t pass. I miss E. I miss feeling safe all the time.

 

Been kicked around so long,

You’re starting to get used to how it feels.

The taste of blood that’s in your mouth,

There’s still somehow it always heals.

I don’t know how you keep on getting up

From all those ghostly blows

And all that pain that lingers,

Deep down in the darkness where it grows.

And there you sit on high,

All tucked away and locked up in the clouds,

Waiting for someone to finally

Come along and take you out

Into this bitter world

That also often treated you so cruel.

When they turn away,

You know that they will say that you’re a fool.

And so patiently,

You waited for a love to come along

Take you out into this bitter world

So often done you wrong.

There you sit alone

And there you shed a solitary tear,

Listening to a song

You think that no one else would ever hear.

I know how hard it is

To keep your head up, kid.

I know hard it is,

But keep your head up.

 

When will it stop?

[Via http://anylandingisagoodlanding.wordpress.com]

Health Therapy for Erectile Dysfunction

Therapy for Erectile Dysfunction (impotensi) usually tend to use drugs such as viagra, levitra, and cialis.

This medication works by relax musculature in the small penis, so it can increase blood flow to the penis, which then can be expected to enable the occurrence of ereksi.But impotensi in conditions that are severe, medication can not afford to keep fighting impotensi. Even for people with heart, such as drugs is not recommended. Implantasi penis can be a wise choice. This method is done with a small elastic insert pipes into the penis, right in the Corpora cavernosa. In the normal condition, Corpora cavernosa akan blood filled erection time, so that the penis expand and harden.

Read More …

[Via http://searchmore.wordpress.com]

Upcoming Interview

The following below are responses to a series of questions I will be asked during a video interview about the affects of anti-depressants. The video is going to be a simple short video for you-tube, non-profit and solely for educating anyone interested on the impacts of anti-depressants and such. Because not all of my answers will make it into the video, I took the time to fully answer them in text, as I write much better than I speak. Enjoy and feel free to leave any comments.

_________________________________

Did you have thoughts of suicide (or a suicide attempt) while on antidepressant medication?

While on antidepressants, I was known to myself as nothing more than a face in a crowd, moving through the motions of a scandalous teenage world…hoping that one day I would know how to feel again. Everyday a white erase board became one of the most entertaining objects to stare at. Problem is all I could envision upon this whiteboard were math problems. There was nothing more to think about while on this cocktail of thoughtlessness. The only time I had alone…I spent scratching at my chest in anger, screaming at the top of my lungs to music, and cursing the one they call “god.” So, did I have thoughts of suicide on anti-depressants; More than you can imagine. Did I attempt to kill myself; No. But I did from time to time, hit my head multiple times, along with the scratching of my chest. So technically, either way, there was a form of self mutilation.

In retrospect, do you see a connection between the medication and the suicidal ideas?

At times, the thoughts I had seemed to derive off the knowledge that I was on Prozac. In my head, I was saying, “I am on an antidepressant, so this means I must be pretty depressed.” And I think that is the exact place where these thoughts seem to begin to evolve. Accompany this with the medical terms, “severe depression” and “suicidal ideology”, and you have yourself what seems to be a severe mental problem, when really they are all just a phase that became drugged and prolonged. It is because we know we are on something for something like this that our imagination begins to run wild into a deep forest of feelings containing desperation and deprivation, continuing to snowball into this “Oh my god, my life sucks” thought. These thoughts probably wouldn’t be there without these medications also having a presence. I am speaking on behalf of a teenager put onto a medication. I believe the same can’t be said for a young child at the age of five or six. They are much younger and lack an understanding that teenagers have about certain things. If you put a child on some type of drug like this at such a young age, they will grow thinking this drug is a necessity for their life, and without it, they aren’t the same. They don’t even know what this drug does but they see it as something there to help them, which means later on, they will want to know what is wrong, probably fight to get off the medication after they find out and if they fail, angst thoughts will evolve into something much more because of their new knowledge of it. It is a weird cycle of evolving misunderstandings that some may look back on and learn from as I have done or some may never understand that part of their life.

Any friends/others you’ve observed with similar reactions to that kind of medication?

Throughout the years on these medications, I had met many a person on many medications for depression and ADHD. The ADHD ones, while on their medications, seem to be very “Eh, whatever” about anything not seen as a necessity, lacking motive to do much other than what they had to. Their attitude towards life isn’t that great, either, though they may have a perfectly enjoyable life. Some seem lazier than others but all have the tendency to ask “why” about things they don’t understand, argue their points, and then speak their mind on the overall subject. All these views are over the past three to four years I have been watching and analyzing the medicated teenager. It seems as though the ones strictly on just Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall or whatever, still have a mind of their own and do their own thing. But what is interesting are the ones on both an amphetamine and antidepressant. They seem to do what ever anyone else around is doing, enjoying it, laughing with it and all but put them alone, and they don’t do anything constructive or seemingly enjoyable. It’s like a light bulb that is waiting for someone to turn it on.

What’s it like not being on anti-depressants?

To not be on anti-depressants…isn’t easy at first. The time when my thoughts of suicide were most intense was when I was off of them combined with the pressures of the world around me. Like I said, the anti-depressants didn’t make the thoughts go away but instead regulated them. So when I had initially taken myself off of them, I literally had no control and seemed to be attacked every class period by thoughts of hurting. But this is all because, over time, I had forgotten what is was like to be “okay.” I had not realized until later that I was “okay” the whole time, and that these drugs were preventing my ability to grow mentally/emotionally. Almost the same can be said for when I relieved myself of Ritalin and all other ADHD medications. I literally had forgotten how to learn and focus on my own. Ritalin and others actually do work like they should, it’s just their side-effects cause many things ranging from lack of appetite to depression. Combine that with an anti-depressant and you have someone deemed as “emotionless.” That to me doesn’t really mean lack of all emotion but rather more of an apathy towards emotion as a whole. You still feel it, but it takes more of the good things in life to matter and less of the bad. You overall are disoriented as a human being and have little control over your mind. Psychologists and therapists may beg to differ…but who better to tell you than a person five years off medication he was on for eleven. There are no professionals but the ones like me. There are no voices to listen to other than ours. I have rebuilt my processes and conquered the turmoils of these unnecessary drug’s after effects.

How has being off them enhanced your ability to create — to paint, to write, to do music?

When I think of how these medications affected my creativity…I curse them more than anything else in this world. Before the anti-depressants, my body had become incredibly accustomed to the “dosage of speed”, as I like to call it, given to me daily. I had grown eventually to discover my creative side, which didn’t really surge until the death of my father. But come time when Prozac came into my life, nothing really mattered in terms of writing or drawing because I didn’t want to do it any more. And when I did, all I could create were these horribly in-your-face, cliché thoughts of violence towards religions and people including myself and close ones. So, there I was, unable to escape from these thoughts, and when I thought I was escaping, I really was just making them more visible by putting them on paper. This “coping skill” was more of an excuse for my angst to show. I remained this way until I finally took myself off these medications. The art that followed…there was none. I couldn’t even remember how to put words together to make decent poetry, let alone draw. Since then, I have rebuilt my process of creativity from scratch. And this is frustrating. This is frustrating because I could be at a higher level in terms of art right now. Who knows, I could be a master of still life drawing already, because at the rate I was going, it seemed inevitable, it was all I wanted to do. Though I am frustrated, I am also grateful. I am grateful because I am at a better understanding of where to go in terms of art now. I have also found a form of art that I have more in common with, one which I can truly express myself with; Abstract Expressionism. Furthermore to expand my self expression, I am now working on installation projects and such that pertain to my teenage years and major events amongst them to let others have a better understanding of the world’s impact upon me. So all in all…the medications have both hindered and propelled my art and knowledge of it. Hindered by holding me back at the times in which I was on them but propelled me since the knowledge to follow the period of recovery has given me a better understanding of who I am and what I need to do to get to where I want.

[Via http://mdetelj.wordpress.com]

Maia Campbell Update!!

 

Posted today by maiastruth on blackweb20.com:

In part:

“…Last night I received a wonderful email from a friend of her late mother, Bebe Moore Campbell. Nancy Carter, executive director of NAMI Urban Los Angeles (NAMI Urban Los Angeles (NULA) is the urban affiliate of NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness), thanking BlackWeb20.com for the coverage and the compassion shown towards Maia. 

Nancy explained that Maia has been diagnosed with bi-polar/manic depression. And because substance abuse is involved she has co-occurring disorder, which has symptoms similar to schizophrenia.

In short, Maia is mentally ill and has a substance abuse problem.

Nancy shared some important and good news: Maia is in treatment.   And she said that there is hope for Maia’s recovery but the prayers of “50,000,000″ people can make the difference, (…the power of prayer is awesome!) because Maia doesn’t like to stay in treatment, and her treatment involves drug withdrawal as well as treatment for her disorders.  (I hope she hangs with it…)

Withdrawal is the hard part.  I think once she gets thru a 3-5 day detox, she should be ok…I surely hope so.

Let’s just keep prayin…

[Via http://benzbaby.wordpress.com]

Roche Management: Shuffle at the Top

Roche has shaken up its senior management, replacing retiring executives with a younger crop of managers. (Read the details from Roche here.)

Roche said earlier this year that 62-year-old Bill Burns, head of the pharma division, would step down at the end of 2009. Today, Roche tells us the man replacing him is Pascal Soriot, who has recently led Genentech’s integration into Roche.

Soriot is a Frenchman who trained as a veterinary surgeon. The 50-year-old has risen quickly at Roche since joining the company a few years ago from Sanofi-Aventis. But he has big shoes to fill. Burns led a long period of growth at the pharma division, and has been a favorite with analysts and investors, who say they appreciate his straightforward manner and wit.

A Scot, Burns has long been one of the more colorful characters at the reserved Swiss company. The Health Blog caught one of his wittier quips during Roche’s second-quarter results presentation in July, when he pooh-poohed the industry’s new focus on selling low-cost generic drugs in emerging markets.

“Several of our competitors are talking about the emerging markets as if they have discovered a new vegetable,” Burns told analysts gathered in London. “We have been there a long time,” he said, with “modern, high-tech products making a real difference in medicine. We are not looking to license in other people’s tail-end products and pretend that it is a strategy.”

Burns is stepping down from day-to-day management, but will be nominated to join Roche’s board at the annual meeting next year.

Photo: Associated Press

[Via http://drugsinus.wordpress.com]

Prospects and Television

Tommy Vision (aka TV) spotted my Thrasher sportage from the front of the bus and upon exit at the same stops downtown, shared stories about his coverage back in ‘91 when he lived in SF. He was a bouncer at a club where he was shot in the neck (scar to prove). The New York native told us about his travels as we walked south on 1st until his portage eastward. Good to meet you man.

…

Underground Seattle is secret.

prospects

The gentleman fixing the flower pot had just boosted heroin in the bathroom. City life, so trife. and true.

[Via http://clocktowerfun.wordpress.com]

Monday - September 7, 2009 - 11:09 AM

For the past two days I have been having the worst anxiety attacks.  It’s been hell.  I stopped taking the amps but the anxiety is still there.  I am wondering if it has to do with the Wellbutrin the doctor put me on.  I have been popping Klonopin like no tomorrow and it doesn’t seem to help.  Sleep is the only thing that brings relief.  And I haven’t been sleeping well.  I feel like I have to catch every breath I take.  My body is shaking from the chills.  I haven’t had a bowel movement in 2 days.  My urine is bright yellow.  WTF? 

I am suppose to go somewhere today.  A friend – lobster dinner and I do not even want to go.  I can’t bring myself to get dressed.  It took everything I had to brush my teeth and wash my face this morning.  I really need relief…NOW.

No good news to report other than the fact Dealer #1 called and I didn’t pick up. 

For the record the sun is shining brightly and for me it feels like winter.

[Via http://msjunkie.wordpress.com]

Reading and Listening: Pot, Robots, Booze and Girls

As you may have noticed, I haven’t updated for a while. Uni and journalism work is taking up the majority of my brain capacity at the moment. Instead of leaving this blog dormant, I’m going to try and regularly write about two things I love doing: reading books and listening to music. Here are my picks for the moment.

Reading

Dopeland by John Birmingham

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote

Listening

The Girl and the Robot by Royskopp and Robyn

Born Slippy by Underworld

Dopeland

A book which is one third experiences, one third law and historical research and one third ramblings, John Birmingham’s “Dopeland” is an adventure into the taboo world of pot smoking in Australia. Myths are dispelled and there are plenty of surprises to be had. The stereotype of a no-hope slacker with ornamental wizard bongs rarely arises. Instead there are stories of ordinary suburbanites, policemen, politicians, lawyers and yes, writers, enjoying a puff of the ol’ peace pipe. Though it’s just not a book about drugs without obligatory appearances from crazed bong engineers from Amsterdam, dodgy characters from Nimbin and Brisbane uni students.

The history of pot, from ancient Indian myths and Neanderthal ancestors smoking up in caves to modern drug law and culture, is a refreshing read if you’ve only been exposed to “drug education” at high school.

This South Park clip is very similar to how my high school educated us about drugs.

Birmingham has researched everything thoroughly and writes about different cannabis species and the best places to get munchies like one reviews fine wine and restaurants. Lots of fun.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

I had no interest in the story, based on various snippets I’d seen of the Audrey Hepburn movie adaption. To me, it was just another stock-standard Hollywood romance story with a pretty lady in it. Until I read the back cover at the bookshop. Holly Golightly wasn’t a dull princess like I thought, but “pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires”. I felt like I could relate, though maybe if you replaced “Mafia gangsters” with “drug-addled chefs” and “playboy millionaires” with “alcoholics”. Ah, the joys of being a bar chick.

If you’re a gal who’s a bit out of the ordinary, you might find yourself relating to Holly. I’m no stunningly beautiful, classy lady like her, but I too enjoy cats, playing guitar, eating breakfast at silly hours of the morning and occasionally making bad life decisions based on my heart.

I ended up enjoying Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Because we all know a Holly Golightly. She’s that sweet, pretty girl who is aware of her own attraction yet doesn’t fully grasp the power she has over men. I’ve worked with a few girls like this in the pub. They’re the ones who have hordes of regulars gazing starry-eyed at them over the bar and get lots of tips.

The Girl and the Robot

“Fell asleep again in front of MTV / God, I’m down at the bottom / No one’s singing songs for me / I can’t wait for tomorrow”

Click here to watch the video

The song opens with a digitalised choir, reminiscent of the Eurythmic’s “Angel”, but with modern flourishes of house and electro influences. Swedish pop babe Robyn’s sugary sweet vocals disguise the lyrics – the words of a slightly obsessive girlfriend.

At first I took the lyrics metaphorically; the age-old tale of a sad gal who just wants her working “robot” man to come home for some good old fashioned lovin’.

But after watching the video clip, it looks like she really did mean a robot…

Born Slippy

“I just come out of the ship / Talking to the most / Blonde I ever met / Shouting / Lager lager lager lager”

This song popped up in Triple J’s Hottest 100 of all Time and I’ve been a bit obsessed with it ever since. Echoes and ambience seamlessly transforms into a thumping dance track with chaotic drum beats. A drunk or a madman shouts his ramblings about women, drugs and booze.

To me, the song evokes strong imagery of the Valley on a Saturday night – the homeless and the alcoholics, banished to the streets, come into contact with the so-called “civilized” side of society. For a moment, in between wandering from train stations to pubs to cabs to kebab shops, the two sides unite in inebriated madness.

The DJ at work played this song late last Friday night. It is the perfect song to listen to at 4.30 in the morning.

[Via http://elliefreeman.wordpress.com]