MarksterBlog

Thursday, end of day commute home, we were entertained by a sixty-something Korean woman, dressed in black, entering the train car and proceeding to serenade us in Korean sprinkled with very bad broken English imploring us to worship Jesus Christ and to have a good day. All done with very formalized hand and body gestures. In some ways, it was very beautiful, and in some ways it seemed very sad. She sang and danced for us for several minutes, then got off the train – I assumed to get on another car and repeat the performance.

DEA to halt medical marijuana raids
Holder confirms states to have final say on use of drug for pain control

By Alex Johnson – Reporter, msnbc.com
updated 2:42 p.m. PT, Fri., Feb. 27, 2009

Supporters of programs to provide legal marijuana to patients with painful medical conditions are celebrating Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement this week that the Drug Enforcement Administration would end its raids on state-approved marijuana dispensaries.

Federal raids on medical marijuana distributors continued at least into the second week of Barack Obama’s presidency, when federal agents shut down at least two dispensaries in California on Feb. 3.

Holder was asked about those raids Wednesday in Santa Ana, Calif., at a news conference that was called to announce the arrests of 755 people in a nationwide crackdown on the U.S. operations of Mexican drug cartels. He said such operations would no longer be conducted.

Read full article…

CIA Awkwardly Debriefs Obama On Creation Of Crack Cocaine
February 26, 2009 | Issue 45•09 (the Onion)

WASHINGTON—In his first meeting with president-elect Barack Obama, CIA crime and counternarcotics analyst Timothy R. McIntire haltingly explained to the nation’s first African-American commander in chief the highly classified origin of crack cocaine and the resultant epidemic that swept across U.S. inner cities. “Well, you see, sir…thing is, we needed money to help those Contras back in ‘85, and we never really expected…so we distributed it, and…shortsighted…and, ha, well, Christ—is it hot in here?” McIntire said between exaggerated coughs. “Yikes, okay. See, it was a very tense time—not that that makes it right—and, uh, bottom line is, we’re a different agency now.”

McIntire went on to disclose several other secret CIA operations, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the recruitment, four years earlier, of a Kenyan grad student for a clandestine program at the University of Hawaii.

Take it for what you want…

Excerpts:

The Mexican Connection

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing’s army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the “differences” seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing “preparations of hemp, or loco weed.”

However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church’s reaction to this may have contributed to the state’s marijuana law.

Jazz and Assassins

In the eastern states, the “problem” was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong’s “Muggles”, Cab Calloway’s “That Funny Reefer Man”, Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag”).

Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”

Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the “assassins.” Early stories of Marco Polo had told of “hasheesh-eaters” or hashashin, from which derived the term “assassin.” In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler’s garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler’s wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.

By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.” Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.

Read whole article…

Read some stuff about Harry J Anslinger:

Marijuana is taken by “…..musicians. And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type…”
HARRY J ANSLINGER
Commissioner of the US Bureau of Narcotics 1930-1962

SSDpedia

Marijuana – The First Twelve Thousand Years

Marijuana Smoking Doesn’t Kill – WebMD

No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest

By JIM DWYER

Published: February 17, 2009

In the map of New York’s most forsaken places, it would be hard to top the Freeman Street stop on the No. 2 line in the Bronx, late on a February afternoon. Around 4:30 last Thursday, Robert Taylor stood on the station’s elevated platform, taking a picture of a train.

“A few buildings in place,” he noted. “Nice little cloud cover overhead. I usually use them as wallpaper on my computer.”

Finished with his camera, Mr. Taylor, 30, was about to board the train when a police officer called to him. He stepped back from the train.

“The cop wanted my ID, and I showed it to him,” Mr. Taylor said. “He told me I couldn’t take the pictures. I told him that’s not true, that the rules permitted it. He said I was wrong. I said, ‘I’m willing to bet your paycheck.’ ”

Mr. Taylor was right. The officer was enforcing a nonexistent rule. And if recent experience is any guide, one paycheck won’t come close to covering what a wrongful arrest in this kind of case could cost the taxpayers.

Read in full…

An open letter to Kellogg’s re: Michael Phelps

Dear, Kellogg’s.

I’m writing this letter to express my disappointment in your company in firing Michael Phelps as a spokesperson for your products because he was photographed while enjoying some marijuana.

I respectfully would like to communicate my opinion on this matter because I think it’s of great public interest.
First of all, although it is true that Mr. Phelps broke the law, I think any reasonably intelligent person would admit that it’s one of the most fucked up and corrupt laws that we have today in this country. Marijuana is relatively harmless and certainly far less dangerous than a host of other things that are not only legal but also readily available, like alcohol and prescription drugs. The only reason it remains illegal to this day is because it’s a plant and you can’t patent it and control it’s sale, and because if it were legal it would greatly affect the demand for a host of prescription drugs that rake in billions of dollars each year for pharmaceutical companies.
That’s it.

Marijuana has never killed anyone EVER in over 10,000 years of use. We’re not protecting people from themselves, we’re not saving the children – it’s just a horribly illogical law that is in place because of corruption and propaganda.
The fact that it’s against the law is just a disgusting reminder of how retarded our system is, not a reasonable reaction to a proven threat to society.

read…

Londoners: rally today at Scotland Yard 11AM to preserve the right to photograph!

POSTED BY CORY DOCTOROW, FEBRUARY 15, 2009 10:07 PM

Just a reminder for you Londoners: the National Union of Journalists and the British Journal of Photographers are having a photo-in today at Scotland Yard, a demonstration against the outrageous new law that can put you in jail for ten years for taking a photo of a police officer “a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”

We’ll be gathering at Scotland Yard today at 11AM, cameras in hand, to make the point: Nineteen Eighty-Four was not a manual for statecraft.

Read…

Photos…

New York Times Editorial Opinion

Is the Supreme Court About to Kill Off the Exclusionary Rule?

By ADAM COHEN
Published: February 15, 2009

In 1957, the Cleveland police showed up at Dollree Mapp’s home looking for a bombing suspect. Ms. Mapp would not let them in without a search warrant, but they entered anyway. The police did not find the bomber, but they came across a trunk containing “lewd and lascivious” books and pictures.

Ms. Mapp was convicted of possessing obscene materials, even though the evidence was taken without a warrant. She was tried in state court, like the overwhelming majority of criminal defendants. So it did her no good that federal courts had applied the so-called “exclusionary rule” since 1914 to bar the use of illegally seized evidence.

In 1961, in Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme Court reversed Ms. Mapp’s conviction and adopted the exclusionary rule as a national standard. The court acknowledged that the rule might let some criminals go free, but it underscored that it was more important to compel the nation’s police forces to obey the law.

———————–
Despite Justice Scalia’s claims, police misconduct is rampant. In the last few years, the Atlanta and Oakland police departments have had major scandals over officers’ lying to obtain search warrants. In this same period, of course, the federal government engaged in an illegal domestic wiretapping program, the extent of which is still unknown.

The exclusionary rule does more than simply put a check on police misconduct. It protects the integrity of the judicial system. If courts put people like Ms. Mapp in prison based on the actions of lawless, marauding police officers, respect for the law suffers.

———————-
As important as it is to convict criminals, the Supreme Court in Mapp rightly insisted that the Constitution must not be trampled in the process. “Nothing can destroy a government more quickly,” the court noted, “than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.”

Red entire article…

The crash of 2008 continues to reverberate loudly nationwide—destroying jobs, bankrupting businesses, and displacing homeowners. But already, it has damaged some places much more severely than others. On the other side of the crisis, America’s economic landscape will look very different than it does today. What fate will the coming years hold for New York, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas? Will the suburbs be ineffably changed? Which cities and regions can come back strong? And which will never come back at all?

by Richard Florida

Read..

Many people love the Honorabl, Representative Ron Paul, MD. I am not a libertarian, but what Dr. Paul says here has merits.

Here some reasons why