here's a poem i wrote the day the cops that beat rodney king got acquitted and the riots started:

THE VERDICT

if you make a tool
& it does the job
& you use it
long as you can
till it gets old
& starts to fall apart
& doesn't work well
& even makes you risk
getting hurt
if you use it
what do you do?

you take a good look
& see if you can fix it
& if you can
you fix it
& if you can't
you throw it away
& make a new tool

4/92

in simi valley in april 1992, 3 LA cops were found not guilty and the jury failed to reach a verdict for the fourth. the riots that followed caused 53 deaths and 2000 injuries and destroyed 600 buildings.

regarding the march 1991 incident, wikipedia says:

King was taken to Pacifica Hospital immediately after his arrest. He suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken right ankle, and numerous bruises and lacerations. In a negligence claim filed with the city, King alleged he had suffered "11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken [bones and teeth], kidney damage [and] emotional and physical trauma." Blood and urine samples taken from King five hours after his arrest showed that he could be presumed intoxicated under California law. The tests also showed traces of marijuana (26 ng/ml), but no indication of PCP or any other illegal drug. At Pacifica Hospital, where King was taken for initial treatment, nurses reported that the officers who accompanied King (including Wind) openly joked and bragged about the number of times King had been hit. King sued the city over the beating, settling for $3.8 million.

his book, just published in april to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the trial, will undoubtedly and ironically be a bestseller.


‎"Can we all just get along?"


RIP

bbc
unholy alliance?

Mexico church divided over drug wars

Some 50,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006 and the Church has been accused of failing to speak out over the fighting.
...
"The Church has had an ambivalent response to the drug war and the incredible amount of violence going on in the country," says John Ackerman, Professor of Law at the Autonomous University in Mexico City.

Since the Christian Democrats came to power in 2000, the constitutionally separate relationship between the Catholic Church and the government has been progressively narrowing.
...
He says Pope Benedict will find in Mexico a clergy deeply divided over its position on the fighting.

"The general impression is that those Church leaders who have spoken out against violence and in favour of a change in policy have all been relatively low-level leaders. The one exception is Bishop Raul Vera," says Professor Ackerman.

Bishop Vera is a silver-haired, balding priest who is quick to laughter, but equally quick to criticise.
...
"The president's war against drug trafficking seems to us to be more of a war against the people than a war against the cartels," he says, stabbing his finger in the air.

"The cartels have multiplied, the number of dead has risen exponentially, corruption is deeper every day - we see it. So when we hear the president of the Republic saying his strategy is working, we think he's either in an ivory tower and has no idea what's actually going on, or basically he's a liar. I'm going with the latter!"

But his anger is not just reserved for the state. He is equally critical of some of his colleagues in the Catholic Church.

One of the most serious charges against the Church is that there are some parishes that have actually profited from the drug violence in the form of donations from drug barons or cartels.

"We have to be very careful about who we accept donations from, particularly to fund structures of the Church. Very careful indeed," says Bishop Vera.

It is alleged that drug money has swelled the coffers in parishes where the drug lords exert control.

"There was once a rather embarrassing bishop who said something absurd," remembers Bishop Vera. "He said that money from drug trafficking was purified when it entered the Church. Of course it's not! The money from drugs is intrinsically stained with blood and we can't use it. We mustn't." [more]

npr/ap

Music Superstar Whitney Houston Dies

Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday. She was 48.

The Beverly Hills Police Department say Houston was found dead Saturday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The cause of death has not been reported. Her body remained in the hotel and Beverly Hills detectives were investigating.

Houston's death came on the eve of music's biggest night — the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday's ceremony.

The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy.
- Whitney Houston in a 2002 interview

"I am absolutely heartbroken at the news of Whitney's passing," music producer Quincy Jones said in a written statement. "I always regretted not having had the opportunity to work with her. She was a true original and a talent beyond compare. I will miss her terribly." [more]

rip

Study: A Joint May Be Easier On Lungs
Than A Cigarette

Smoking marijuana has just got to be bad for the lungs, since it's been made abundantly clear that cigarettes wreak havoc. Or so it would seem.

But the record on marijuana and lung health has been confusing at best. The latest study is typical: It shows that pot smokers' lung function actually improves, at least if they're not smoking a lot. [more]

till killing stops

boycott mex dope

sure, ending the war on drugs and stopping the flow of arms across the border would be best, but until those unlikely events occur, we can help somewhat by getting our illegal drugs somewhere else!

GOP Sen. Pat Roberts:
Obama should "take a valium"

"Maybe if he would just take a Valium and calm down and come on down and talk to us it might be helpful," said Roberts, who added that Mr. Obama's last meeting with Republicans was simply a "lecture." [more]

is that pat roberts' problem? he's a valium freak?

valium (along with librium, xanax, tranxene, dalmane, ativan, lunesta, ambien, and a bunch more) is a benzodiazepine, or BZD. results of a recent study suggest "long-term use of BZDs is associated with an increased risk for dementia."

i'd watch it, pat. remember what happened to ronnie. uh, you do remember, don't you?

guardian.co.uk

stillbirth = murder?

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals. [more]

Major panel:
Drug war failed; legalize marijuana

NEW YORK (AP) — The global war on drugs has failed and governments should explore legalizing marijuana and other controlled substances, according to a commission that includes former heads of state, a former U.N. secretary-general and a business mogul.

A new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy argues that the decades-old "global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." The 24-page paper will be released Thursday.

"Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won," the report said.

[more]

Global drugs policies criticised in new report

A group of prominent politicians, including several former heads of state and the previous Secretary General of the UN, has strongly criticised anti-drugs policy around the world. A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy says the war on illegal drugs has failed.

The former President of Colombia, Cesar Gaviria, is member of the Commission. He told the BBC that a number of countries around the world needed to start treating drug abuse as a health issue, rather than a criminal problem.

[more]

J&J recalling more Tylenol from closed plant

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said it was recalling more than 700,000 bottles or packages of Tylenol and other consumer medicines made at a now-closed plant, the latest in a litany of recalls by the company.

J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit recalled one lot of Tylenol 8 Hour Extended Release Caplets, or 34,056 bottles, from retailers, the company said.

The company cited a musty odor that has prompted many other J&J recalls. The product was made at its Fort Washington, Pennsylvania plant before J&J closed the facility in April 2010.

[more]

kids learning something after all

Teen marijuana use up, alcohol use down

WASHINGTON – America's teens are using more marijuana and less alcohol, according to an annual government study of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders across the country.

Some 6.1 percent of high-school seniors reported using marijuana this year, up from 5.2 percent in 2009, according to the Monitoring the Future survey released by the National Institutes of Health.

Marijuana use by 10th-graders climbed from 2.8 percent to 3.3 percent, and for eighth-grade students it edged up from 1.0 percent to 1.2 percent.

"These high rates of marijuana use during the teen and preteen years, when the brain continues to develop, place our young people at particular risk," said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

On the other hand, binge drinking is on the decline. While 23.2 percent of high school seniors reported having five or more drinks in a row, that's down from 25.2 percent a year earlier. The binge rate for this age group peaked at 31.5 percent in 1998.

[more]

the second interview below (from earth day) is so good they replayed it today!

The Future of the Oceans

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Illustration of fishing down the food web by Hans Hillewaert / Wikimedia.

Hour 1 This Earth Day we thought we would get an update on the health of the world’s oceans. Rising temperatures, increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and over-fishing are threatening marine life.  Many of ocean’s plants and animals are endangered and could face extinction, including blue fin tuna, certain shark species, polar bears, and coral reefs. This hour, we’ll talk about ocean conservation and the marine life that’s most at-risk with Boris Worm, marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and Carl Safina, President of the Blue Ocean Institute.

Listen to the mp3

Author Charles Bowden calls Ciudad Juarez 'Murder City'

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Hour 2
Ciudad Juarez is just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. What once was a border boom town after NAFTA spurred the building of factories is now best known for a horrific wave of violence that continues to escalate. The city’s murder rate soared from 207 in 2007, to 1,660 in 2008, to 2,660 in 2009, and is on an even higher pace this year. CHARLES BOWDEN has written a new book, Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields, that offers bloody testimony to an epidemic of drug-trade-fueled murders that has turned Juarez into one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Listen to the mp3

AP IMPACT: US drug war has met none of its goals

MEXICO CITY – After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

This week President Obama promised to "reduce drug use and the great damage it causes" with a new national policy that he said treats drug use more as a public health issue and focuses on prevention and treatment.

Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars and in percentage terms; this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget.

Kerlikowske, who coordinates all federal anti-drug policies, says it will take time for the spending to match the rhetoric.

[more]

Pa. man had marijuana stuck on forehead, police say

The case gives new meaning to the term pothead.

Or dope.

Cesar Lopez, 29, was in a Lebanon, Pa., convenience store early Saturday morning, staring at the inside of his baseball cap near a restroom.

What the Lebanon man was probably looking for wasn't in the hat, because it was stuck to his forehead, according to police.

A uniformed police officer who happened to be in the store plucked a small clear-plastic bag of what appeared to be marijuana from above Lopez's brow.

"Is this what you're looking for?" the officer asked.

Lopez was charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana and released.

The bag had probably been tucked inside the sweatband of the cap - a common place for concealing drugs and paraphernalia - before it became dislodged, according to Chief Daniel Wright.

yup, that's where i always put mine....

• Blasts hit near Bhutto convoy, killing at least 108
Explosions

• Who is guarding the private security guards in Iraq?
Probe

• US says opium funding up to 40 percent of Afghan insurgency

• Jeb Bush's sons split on GOP presidential picks
'08 campaign

• Wall Street ends flat after Bank of America profit tumbles

• Study: HPV test more accurate than Pap for cervical cancer

· AP: Blackwater Contract Unlikely to be Renewed in May

· NYT: Sen. Obama Campaign Finance Report Incomplete

· Sec. of State Rice Plans More Palestinian-Israeli Talks

· House Fails to Override Pres. Bush's SCHIP Veto
trillions for "defense," but not one red cent for our future.

• New insurgent weapon a nightmare for US troops in Iraq

• China offers to hold peace talks with Taiwan
17th Congress

· White House Praises Chinese Call for Peace Agreement With Taiwan

• Afghanistan struggling with growing heroin-addiction problem

• Wall Street retreats over bad debt worries
Bank bailout

• First baby boomer files for Social Security
Boomer burden

• New study seeks to find genetic links to homosexuality

· Illinois Affiliate of SEIU Endorses Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

· Pres. Bush Predicts "A Fiscal Showdown" Over Spending Bills

· White House Says Pres. Bush Willing to Negotiate Over SCHIP

· Sen. McCain (R-AZ) Would Exclude Russia From G8

• Animal world beginning to get caught up in steroid scandals

The steroids scandals have claimed the latest and perhaps most unlikely suspect yet.

The sport of bull riding may start drug testing some of its athletes – not the riders, the bulls.

As if the four-legged beasts that weigh up to 2200 pounds don't have enough testosterone, some bull owners allegedly are injecting the animals with anabolic steroids.

Teams Focus on Poppy Eradication in Afghanistan

The cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan is at a high, despite a push to eradicate them.

NPR.org, August 31, 2007 · The cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan is at an all time high. The United Nations says the country is expected to produce nearly 9,000 tons of opium this year — nearly all of the world's supply.

Officials say the multi-billion dollar trade is spurred by the Taliban and by corrupt members of the Afghan government. But US officials insist they can win this war — especially with the help of provincial governors like the one in Badakhshan, a province where opium cultivation has plummeted.

Planting season starts next month. And as Friday prayers wind down on a recent afternoon in one town, a US-funded poppy elimination team pressures farmers not to plant opium poppies.

Farmers in Jurm pour out of the mosque and walk to the police compound to meet with the anti-drug team.

"Don't grow poppy and you'll get development projects like roads," says Mohammed Akbar, a member of the task force. "Besides, when you grow poppy, you don't have room for other crops like wheat and grain. That drives up the cost of feeding your families and livestock. Then, when we destroy your poppies, how will you pay your landlords?"

It's a tough sell. Especially when the farmers say they've seen little in the way of development projects year after year. They complain that even the small hydroelectric plant being built nearby will light only one light bulb per household here.

Record Crop for Afghan Opium Poppies

Morning Edition, August 27, 2007 · A UN report says 95 percent of the world's opium comes from Afghan fields and poppy production there is expected to top all records this year. Mark Schneider, a senior vice president with the International Crisis Group, talks with Renee Montagne.

just buy up the crop, damnit!

frederick barton, an afghanistan expert with csis, said on c-span this morning that we ought to "shake up" the afghan opium market by spending $300M to buy poppies in the two provinces that grow half the country's crop.

that sounds like a modification of a proposal to buy up the whole crop made by ray takeyh, cfr's middle east studies director, four months ago, and—i immodestly add—by this blog a year and a half ago.

a partial buyout might be a useful experiment, but it could be risky.

i'm tempted to say anything's better than what we do now, but when you play with something as volatile as opium, you play with a potential firestorm. shaking up the market would almost certainly mean a price rise, not only in afghanistan. a higher world price of opium and the heroin made from it would lead to more crime by users and traffickers.

but buying up the whole crop would have that effect too, as would eradicating it, so i think we ought to run barton's experiment and see what happens.

my, my. mike yon has a fervent defender. i envy him. (i have one too, but mine has a cooler head.)

but it's interesting how someone can zero in on a word or two and miss the point of a sentence.

so let me say to "huntress":

first, thanks for all the info about mike. however, i based what i wrote only on what he said in the c-span appearance, tho i did include a link to his website for anyone who wants more.

second, i'm going to delete one copy of your comment. you didn't need to post it twice.

third, i have no time to respond to everything in your rambling diatribe, but i will answer a few key points.

..."hawks" and "doves" as you would call them - but I prefer the correct terminalogy - those that lean right politically and those that lean left....

that's incorrect. at various times and places, "hawk" and "dove" get tied to the right and left, but it's not a necessary bond, and it's quite possible to be an independent hawk.

I can support our troops, understand that our enemy wants to kill YOU, and choose to support the use of force to prevent that from happening. That doesn't make me a "hawk" .

again, you're mistaken. supporting the use of force as an instrument of national policy does make you a hawk.

...are you simply so steeped in your biased hatred for the right, that you view anyone who supports our war against an enemy who wants to KILL YOU as being 'hawkish"?

i'm biased, but i don't hate anyone. i disagree with and oppose the right wing on the basis of evidence and reason, not emotion. but, yes, i do "view anyone who supports our war" as hawkish by definition. we make war not on terrorism but on iraq and afghanistan. we fight not defensively but preventively, yet our attempt at prevention only loses us friends, makes us more enemies, and makes us less safe, because it causes suffering and death of innocent folk, like all wars, which is why we must do everything we can to win without fighting and go to war only out of absolute necessity.

I can be fiscally conservative, believe in the importance of a relationship with God, support a womens right to choose, and support gay marriage, while not supporting stem cell research as outlined by the democrats, sI can upport the war against terrorism, and yet donate my time and energy to organizations that work to change the social consciousness through non military options. So am I "right", "left", "hawk' or 'dove'?

tough question. virtually everyone in the country claims to be "fiscally conservative" these days, so it's irrelevant. have you noticed when you pray you talk to yourself? if you oppose embryonic stem cell research, you're somewhat confused, possibly brainwashed. the current "war" against terrorism gets waged in a counterproductive manner that will almost certainly result in devastating blowback over a period lasting several decades, so supporting it enables insanity. congratulations on the rest, two of which are "left," and one of which is "dove," i think.

You pass erroneous judgement on Mike, claiming it to be fact, based on a strategic decision to have this important piece published in The Weekly Standard....

i haven't passed judgment on him at all, certainly not in any negative sense. perhaps if you temporarily suspend your passion and go back and reread both pieces in their entirety, you'll get the context of the introductory remarks that so discombobulate you. as for "claiming it to be fact," no, as i said in my second post, it was my "impression." i've always expressed my opinion freely in this blog and will keep doing so. mike can publish wherever he wants. i only mentioned it because the standard is known to have wanted us to invade iraq very early on—even before bush ran for prez. that, combined with mike's desire for a successful war effort, provides an interesting contrast with what follows it: "...he talked about how bad things are getting in afghanistan and predicted it will get much worse."

you seem to think that's an attack. far from it. i'm glad to see someone with his background realize what's going on.

So your "fact based" pronouncements about where Mikes work has been published have so far been completely wrong..

again, i only went by what he said on c-span. don't take my word for it. listen to the program again if it's still available.

This is why nothing you put forth about AFG or anything else of that matter can be considered with any seriousness.

like when i called him "courageous" and "informed"?

also, see what the CFR's ray takeyh said about opium from afghanistan.

You twist or deny facts to suit YOUR agenda.

my "agenda" is to fight fear and to foster liberty and justice for all. make of it what you will.

i can understand your concern over my opinion. after all, this is such an influential blog. its readers are among the most important residents of the planet.

ray takeyh, middle east studies director of the council on foreign relations and author of hidden iran: paradox and power in the islamic republic, agrees with me.

during a CFR panel discussion this past week he mentioned that iran has a substance abuse problem:

I think that there’s a serious drug addiction. The estimates are about 2 million Iranian youth are addicted to largely the narcotics that are coming through Afghanistan. And there’s been a lot of cooperation between Iran and the United Nations and others in terms of how to deal with the question of narcotic exports and drug addiction and interdiction of that. It’s particularly the Afghan-Iranian border, which is largely a no-man land.

Those efforts have been going on in the U.N. How can the United States help? Buy up the Afghan drug crops.