RATTLE THE CAGE

The Brain is an Engine,

2010-12-14T23:17:00.006-06:00

the mind is the work the engine produces.

The operation of an engine is relatively simple. A highly energetic force acts upon a specific pre-fabricated mechanism that translates the energy into mechanical action, like the rotation of a crank shaft.

Likewise, in the brain, a specific neurotransmitter acts upon a specific pre-fabricated neuro-receptor, and a mechanical action takes place. The action is repeated, over and over, through molecular metabolism, creating a neural circuit across an integrated web of neural fibers. Something is learned. A new thought is born. A home run is hit. A new child is born.

The brain is an engine, the mind is the work the engine produces.

There are a broad range of neurotransmitters produced endogenously in the human body. Modern science hasn't fully charted all the neurochemicals that we produce in our bodies everyday. To further compound the situation, plants produce chemicals that act as human neurotransmitters, and many of these chemicals effect the nervous systems of dogs, monkeys, mice, spiders, and ants, and just about every other aspect of the food chain. This is no coincidence. There is a reason for this.

These neuro-chemicals represent keys that unlock specific networks within the central nervous system. Using the engine as a metaphor, these various chemical keys represent different pistons upon which the brain as an engine can drive the actions of the mind. So, what we would call, "the mind," is the action of multiple pistons operating multiple axes in sync to produce a harmonic standing wave that becomes the carrier wave for everything we call "reality," our identity, our language, our memory, our worldview, as it is perceived through the five senses.

(it's okay if you want to stop and re-read that last part.)

The brain is an engine, the mind is the work the engine produces.

But the brain is not just a mechanical engine, manufacturing chemical pistons and then recycling them over and over. The engine of the brain is also electrical.

Using fMRI's to study the metabolic action of the brain is great and all, but really, it's like trying to record the beauty of your favorite 1080 dp HiDef movie using an old VHS camera. There are details in the electric wave action that can't be recorded at the relatively low samples rates of modern technology. Still, it is possible to model electrical wave actions using mechanical analogues. Perhaps a good place to start is to model the action of sound waves, specifically within acoustic chambers that shape resonant frequencies.

Electrical waves resonate with each other just like sound waves do. Imagine standing in a concert hall. A man is standing next to a synthesizer, and he presses a key. You hear a low booming sound, continuous, sustained. It fills the air of the hall, and you feel the vibrations in your gut. The Man with the synthesizer rolls the pitch of the booming sound up a note, then two note, then three. The air of the hall screams as the walls vibrate with the harmonic frequency of the synthesizer. The acoustics of the room, as defined by its architecture, reflect and amplify the sound wave, making it much louder, and producing a standing wave that rattles the walls and makes your ears hurt. Then, the man rolls the pitch higher, and the standing wave disappears. The walls stop shaking. The volume of the soundwave returns to normal.

Electrical waves can do the same thing, just like the sound waves. They can modulate one another to produce higher frequency harmonics resulting in a peak harmonic standing wave that is defined by a specific material architecture.

The brain is an engine. A hyper-dimensional, multifaceted electrical and mechanical engine that revs up to reach peak operational workload and produce a range of harmonic standing waves. These standing waves act as a carrier wave for the functions and quantum-computations of the mind as information is received through the five sense.

And if that doesn't blow your mind, this will. You, as you currently know you, are a singularity. That's right, you are a point of infinite subjective regression generated by the standing waves of your brain-engine, and you will defy any attempt to be completely measured objectively. Kinda like a black hole, only instead of consuming matter and energy beyond all recognition, you produce almost unlimited potential for creative expression as you define reality out of the chaos.

Chew on it. Let it idle.

If your curious about more, stay tuned. Next time, I will examine a method by which to map the pistons that drive the engine of the mind. I'f I ever get around to it, I might include blow-out charts. Wouldn't that be fun.

Why ask questions?

2010-07-26T21:32:00.000-05:00

Why do American drivers step on the brakes when the traffic light turns red and press the gas when the light turns green?

Why do psychologists define so many mental disorders when science doesn't fully understand the human mind? And why do psychiatrists prescribe so many medicines for the diverse and growing mental disorders that no one seems to fully understand?

Why do the banks get to gamble with our homes, jobs, and savings, utterly lose, and then get rewarded with tax-payer money for their disastrous efforts?

Why is a major natural medicine for the treatment of cancer and neural disorders banned in our free country?

Why are the prisons over crowded?

Why do the Drug Cartels keep getting stronger?

Why does the Military Industrial Complex keep getting bigger?

Why are there so many homeless in a land of bountiful dreams?

Why are the public schools failing?

Why does it have to be so hard to be a teacher?

Why do the religions fight each other?

Why is Reality on television?

Why does Rush Limbaugh have a job?

Why don't Americans know how to grow their own food, or find the wild food that grows all around them?

Why don't Americans choose better food to eat?

Why don't we know how to take better care of our health? Why must we be dependent on the free market or the government for healthcare?

Why is the American family unit in decline? Is it the decline of the extended family and the economic reality of a Two Working-Parent Household, or is it just Gay Marriage?

Why bother asking these questions if one doesn't bother to look for the answers?

Comprehensive Incendiary Devices

2010-01-16T22:16:00.000-06:00

If you haven't figured out by now, the monkey is holding a gun, and he shoots idea bullets. Large Caliber. But, as the war on ideas evolves, this monkey must advance to the use of guerrilla tactics displaying concussive blasts of C.I.D.'s (Comprehensive Incendiary Devices). Unlike Idea bullets, which have only a single impact occurrence, the blast of the C.I.D. continues to propagate outward, striking multiple targets with the sprayed shrapnel of deep thought provoking new ideas.

I know, it's ridiculous to fight a War on Ideas. Wars on Nouns all too often become sloppy and dangerous. But so many people are doing it, why shouldn't I? It is, after all, the American Way.

The Restoration of Human Heritage Act (Part Deux)

2009-12-22T22:59:00.002-06:00

This Act asserts that all people share a deep biological relationship with plants, and that no plant is to be prohibited under a Constitutional government that protects the fundamental rights of a people.

This Act asserts that the prohibition of plants is a destructive force that censors science, medicine, and the economy.

This Act asserts that no Constitutional government can misdefine the properties of plants so as to render them arbitrarily "dangerous" and/ or criminal.

This Act asserts that no Constitutional government can prosecute its citizens according to a subjective definition of terms.

This Act asserts that the citizens of a Constitutional government possess the sovereignty of mind, and that such citizens are free to think as they choose so as to speak, worship, publish, and petition said Constitutional government for grievances as promised under the 1st Amendment.

This Act asserts that a Constitutional government acknowledges the progress of scientific research, and the sovereignty of religious personal belief and identity.

This Act removes the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, and all related acts of legislation related to the regulation of plants and plant drugs.

This Act establishes a new classification system that protects the right of a people to grow the plants of their choice, while protecting the rights of science, medicine, and the free market to pursue the safest and most productive use of previously controlled substances.

This Act reaffirms that a people are intimately bound to the Earth, and that it is in the best interests of a Constitutional government to allow its citizens the freedoms and dignities of human life.

This Act seeks to restore the heritage of We The People.

Good Things Are Worth Fighting For

2009-12-04T22:28:00.000-06:00

Sacred Weeds (and Fungi too!)

2009-11-21T20:27:00.000-06:00

A brilliant series of programs that will be valued by future generations for their insight and groundbreaking cross-disciplinary dialogue and research.

Enjoy!

BLUE LILY - Nymphaea caerulea

SALVIA DIVINORUM

FLY AGARIC - Amanita Muscaria

HENBANE - Hyoscyamus niger

Going Rogue

2009-11-20T12:11:00.002-06:00

Contrary to what certain beauty pageant winners from Alaska believe about going rogue, doing so requires something more than just saying stuff.

Going Rogue requires an understanding that the status quo is flawed, and that the solutions to fixing the status quo lie in those lesser know regions of epistemology that the status quo has overlooked.

Going Rogue means rejecting certain maladaptive modes of modern society in favor of more traditional modes that have been successful for many millennia.

Going Rogue means leaving behind the corrupted theories of entrenched interests in pursuit of progressive and pragmatic theories that conform to natural laws and cycles.

Going Rogue means not stopping at the accepted ideas, but continuing forward to challenge the accepted ideas and explore the mechanisms behind the unaccepted ideas for the benefit of cultural progress.

Going Rogue means "Saying No" to laws that defy constitutional purpose.

Going Rogue means using an illegal plant to heal the sick, feed the poor, provide shelter for the homeless, cultivate farmland, produce biofuel, and add a new agricultural base for the economy.

Going Rogue means saying "fuck you and your insane ways, I'm doing something better, just watch, and you will learn."

Sarah Palin isn't going rogue.

But someone is.

Dear President Obama,

2009-11-13T00:34:00.002-06:00

Heck of a job, huh?

Hundreds, thousands, millions of voices resound with advice, and cry out for resolutions to problems that we can't collectively comprehend.

Where to begin? (hint, it's clear you're still trying to figure this out).

It's simple. Junk in, junk out.

Sincere voices aside, our nation is one drowning in junk. Not just material junk, but economical, theoretical, and epistemological junk.

Junk sells. But if one were to eat junk their entire life, one would not be healthy. One would probably die prematurely, a consequence of mental and physiological deterioration, and one would become junk food for maggots. Not a pretty picture.

So, in these times of military quagmire, economic recession, government deficit spending, declining social healthcare, and the rising cost of life, it is imperative that you learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff, the crap from the compost, and the jewels from the junk.

My guess is that the solutions you seek will come from places you have yet to find. Go look for them, and be prepared to leave the box, for the box is where everyone else keeps their junk.

I'd tell you more, but I don't have your job.

Good luck, and may the force be with you.

Capitalism is the Antichrist

2009-11-09T00:43:00.000-06:00

Isn't it obvious?

Jesus Christ didn't say, "before I heal you, you need to pay me, and I need to see proof of insurance."

I am reminded of the Mark of the Beast, 666, and how this is a metaphor for the buying and selling of human life. Only $9.99. The Author of the Book of Revelations writes in the manner of a prophetic dream. Symbols are metaphors, and the mark of the beast symbolizes the worst kind of enslavement. My Social Security Number is certainly the mark of a beast. I'm still trying to figure out which one.

Capitalism is an -ism, which is in effect a belief system, like Mormonism, Catholicism, Mysticism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, etc. Capitalism is the religion of wealth. Wall Street is it's Holy City. Like any -ism, Capitalism originates in the human imagination, and it seeks to control human society and consciousness.

In Capitalism, advertising propaganda abounds. What is less obvious to the distracted eye are the low wages of the people that sell the vitally nonessential material prejunk. I call it prejunk because although these things start off fancy, trendy, pricey, and new, after the passage of five to ten years, the new stuff becomes what it was ontologically destined to be. Junk. But, hard working people continue to spend their survival tokens on this prejunk in attempts to fill the hole in their lives created by the need for more stuff. Most call this the progress of technology, which it might be, but it sure does create a lot of $hit. And mono-cultural consumer zombies.

All the wars since World War II have been fought in the name of Capitalism. Back in the day, we had our arch nemesis, the Communists, who represented the antithesis of capitalism. Many skirmishes were fought, many lives lost. But thanks to that great patriarch Ronald Reagan, the Capitalists won and paved the way for Free Markets to take over the world. Then, all of a sudden, the Terrorists attacked (they don't like Capitalism either). America was plunged into another decade of war so that we could spread Free Markets to consume the governments of Middle Eastern shepherds (they stand between us and the oil beneath their dirt poor feet).

Speaking of poor and hungry people, imagine how much food we could provide if the $400 billion a year that Americans spend on the military went to feeding and providing medicine to the poor instead? I know, these are wussy thoughts that don't reflect the animalistic and sometimes violent requirements of modern security. The last perfect hippie that preached love and fed the poor without charging money was executed on a cross, or so they say.

Now, I'm not saying Capitalism doesn't have its upsides (for I am well aware of these).

I'm just saying, if there ever was the perfect antichrist, Capitalism is it. Now whether or not I actually believe this is another thing...

2009-11-04T22:13:00.000-06:00

At the speed of light, the universe is black and white.

A Crash Course on Plants

2009-10-17T19:52:00.000-05:00

Plants are those green things that grow all around us. If you live in the city surrounded by inorganic matter, plants are those green things that protrude from the sidewalk and fight against all odds to live within the hostile urban environment. Plants are truly amazing things.

You see, were it not for plants, humans would die. In fact, we would not even exist, and neither would the animal kingdom. The earth would be another gaseous rock in the solar system hostile to all but the most primitive forms of life...

kinda like Rush Limbaugh.

Simply put, the entirety of animal life on Earth has evolved thanks to the supportive diversity of the plant kingdom. With this in mind, it's not really that much of a stretch to say that animals, and the social intelligence of animals, have evolved symbiotically with plants. For while it is true that plants have shaped animal evolution, likewise, animals have shaped plant evolution. The fact that plants produce animal neuromodulators is itself a strong indication of our mutual symbiosis.

Modern anthropologists classify humans as "Homo sapiens" within the taxonomy of the animal kingdom. Although this nomenclature nicely describes our humanity in the scientific sense, I prefer to use the term "Homo botanicus" because, really, the "sapiens" began once we became gardeners. And so, it came to pass that humans began using plants for spices and not just emergency foods. We began using plants for fibers and dyes, and textiles, and shelters. We discovered how to turn plant parts and substances in commodities, and economies. We learned how to eat better foods, ferment better drinks, and "clean" the air around us (i.e. incense). And all this was fine and dandy, but like in Genesis, someone ate from the tree of knowledge, and the human experience became radically different.

Somewhere along the way, we began realizing how to use plants as medicines, and for vehicles to access the "spiritual" depths of the human psyche. Thus, certain nightshades containing cholinergic tropane alkaloids became tools for accessing lost ancestors and the gods. Certain mushrooms and cacti became known for opening doorways to the spirit realm and peeking at enlightenment. People began sculpting iconic deities in the shape of poppy pods. And certain plants in the taxonomic family Cannabaceae became valued for their fibers, food, and medicines.

It's hard to say what came first, knowledge, or the cognitive capacities for knowledge. Regardless, plants had a lot to do with how we humans and our distant ancestors evolved. And this is why we should not take them for granted.

If all of this is new news to you, then you probably live among inorganic matter, and you probably receive most of your information from other inorganic matter that is regulated, in some way, by the economy and government. I don't hold this against you, though. I'm just saying, maybe one should step outside of the censors.

If you would like to learn more, the easiest thing to do is start growing plants, and pay attention to them, because they will teach you what you need to know. This is both good for the plants, and it'll make you, in the truest sense, more human.

If all of this is not news to you, then I'm sorry for wasting your time. But I still hope you grow a plant anyway.

Dear Drug Warriors,

2009-09-08T15:57:00.000-05:00

Things you should know, and that you should know better.

1- you should know that many of the drugs that you bust people for are produced naturally in the human and mammalian nervous system (this is, after all, why drugs work in the first place).

2- you should know that the reason why plants produce animal neurotransmitters is because plants and animals have shared a biological-evolutionary symbiosis for hundreds of millions of years.

3- you should know that humans have used plant metabolites (i.e. 'drugs') since the dawn of our existence on Earth, and humans will probably continue to do so until our dusk. This is, in truth, one of those very facts about our biological existence that makes us uniquely 'human.'

4- you should know that many political schemes and governing bodies throughout history have sought ways to regulate the human use of plant metabolites, usually at the expense of individual liberty. America's war on drugs is just one more system of "witch burnings."

5- you should know that the politics of the war on drugs represent a game of mis-definition and mis-information design to empower the elite at the expense of the poor. You need only look at the demographics of your own prison statistics to see evidence of this. If that isn't enough, study the demographics of the many healthcare systems in America.

6- you should know that by supporting the war on drugs, you are supporting a deceptive political scheme that violates the fundamental laws of the federal constitution and arbitrarily criminalizes and incarcerates the citizens of the U.S.

7- you should know that when you're out on the beat, with your life on the line, you run the risk of giving up your life for a lie.

8- you should know that the bad logic of the war on drugs is a mere side effect of the larger deterioration of the civil infrastructure of our nation. The cost of living, food, and medicine is going up, the gap between the rich and the poor growing greater, wages are falling, the quality of primary education on the downslide, and the stability of the family unit is in decline.

9- you should know that the future of our nation depends on how we think and act in the present. How we think and act in the present depends on what we have learned from our past, and if you haven't noticed it yet, what we recall from our past is often censored, or at the very best, filtered.

10- the most valuable commodity on earth is the human mind. Corporations and businesses spend billions of dollars every year on advertisements designed to influence individual "consumer" behavior. Wall Street occultists play close attention to the vital signs of the "consumer"; when the consumer buys needless things, the economy booms. When the consumer stops buying needless things, the economy busts. No wonder the public schools try to generate good consumers. Alas, some people don't want to be consumers, but it's hard to be a good American nowadays if you're not a consumer, so some people "drop out." When they start using drugs to regulate their own cognitive anxieties, we call them criminals. So, the pot smoker goes to jail, but the guy that starts a needless war and kills over 100,000 people on the other side of the world gets to retire at his ranch house. The latino boy in Austin that ran from cops because he had a bag of weed in his pocket gets shot, but the bankers that led the nation into reckless spending and debt spree using ambiguous financial assets receive tax-payer bailouts and bonuses.

you should know... better, because sooner or later, people are going to realize that they've been had, and then the real $hit is going to hit the fan.

So, dear drug warrior, what do you fight for?

Why we're screwed (to put it kindly)

2009-08-12T22:43:00.000-05:00

If you watched the news tonight, then you've probably heard about the fanatical musings of those wrapped up in the debate about healthcare reform. It seems few people actually seem to understand what is going on, and even fewer understand how to fix it. It doesn't matter though, those pills just keep getting more expensive.

If you've been asleep for the last ten months, you missed the tax-payer funded bailouts of the reckless elite. Many average Americans lost their homes and their dreams because they got sick, but for some reason, the bankers couldn't find it in their souls to sacrifice that million dollar bonus to protect the economic infrastructure of America.

And you must be in a consumption-induced zombie state if you didn't think about how inflation would effect your wages and the price of your food. Don't bother to worry about when our government goes bankrupt either. A good consumer zombie won't even notice.

But that's not all...

All these economic woes may have made you forget that our public schools are leaking young minds like a bullet ridden canoe. Their aren't enough teachers to educate all those kids, which itself wouldn't be a bad thing, except that our society is witnessing the destruction of the family unit, as seen in the increase in divorced and single parent households.

Hey, it's hard to raise a family when both parents have to work 40+ hours a week just to pay the bills. It's a good thing we have well funded public schools... oops.

And don't even bother with "higher" education, not if you aren't prepared for a mortgage of academic real estate that won't really accrue equity over time.

If you have children, tell them that flipping hamburgers is a good career, because otherwise, they might end up smoking and selling weed to cope with the bull $hit of society, and then America will put him or her in jail where they belong.

Oh, and don't forget about the War on Terror (another devastating noun) and our occupation of two foreign nations.

You see, it's not that I'm a pessimist. I don't want to be. I want the best for this country, but sadly, society is what we make it to be, and we get what we deserve.

Societies that can't raise children, provide food, shelter, security, clean water, and sanitation usually end up collapsing. Societies are bound by certain laws of physics too.

History doesn't have to repeat. We can change things. We can address all the problems described above, and the only thing this will cost is the metabolic energy generated when neurons fire. This is because to solve all these problems, we need new knowledge. In this respect, that which limits us lies only in ourselves.

The American Way

2009-06-21T00:48:00.001-05:00

Got cancer? Don't try to heal yourself the natural way, the corporate lobbyists won't be having it, and neither will the fascist kleptocracy called the U.S. Congress.

Wanna live a healthy life without pills? Good luck. It's practically illegal to heal yourself outside of the pharmaceutical totalitarian complex.

Having a bad day? Try one of the many legal prescription and for-profit mood enhancing pills. If they don't work, you doctor will give you more.

Can't afford your home because of the medical bills? Well, no one said living was suppose to be cheap, and everyone has to make sacrifices, except the bankers.

Whatever you do, DON'T use plant medicines, that will inevitably land you in jail.

If America today seems a lot like a novel by Aldous Huxley or George Orwell, you are too smart for your own good. Go watch some reality TV or something, and take some pills while your at it, followed by a round of Budweiser and cigarettes.

Don't think, just consume. It's the American way.

Prose

2009-06-20T18:30:00.005-05:00

I admire Jesus Christ.

His prose, his philosophical posturing.

Jesus is an idealist's idealist... committed to the cause of peace, love, and truth, even though it cost him his life.

In many ways I aspire to these same things, except, unlike Jesus, I cuss. It reminds me that I am still human.

And what does it mean to be human?

to love, to hate, to make love, and war, and defy fate, to draw, to lust, to create and inspire, yet still with the full capacity for grotesque and distorted acts that defy rational comprehension...

and that's just in one human day on earth.

I think the best thing that I learned from organized religion is that it is always best to doubt, and question, for we are all flawed, and incapable of perfection... although we still try.

So, fuck the system, the system is flawed. Life is all around us and it is way more meaningful.

Kinda like prose of Jesus, only more human.

A Good Thing...

2009-05-17T17:57:00.002-05:00

It's a good thing that we wage war in the name of peace.
It's a good thing that we kill in the name of justice.
It's a good thing that we create criminals in the name of the Law.
It's a good thing that we use toxic chemicals to kill medicinal plants.
It's a good thing that we encourage children to use synthetic drugs to treat mythical mental diseases.
It's a good thing that we give people no other choice than to buy expensive medicines that require more medicine to work properly. It's a good thing when banks take the homes of people that can't pay the mortgage and the medical bills at the same time.

It's a good thing that living and obtaining an "education" are too expensive for many people in America.
It's a good thing that we are locking up people that are caught using one of humanity's oldest medicinal flowers.
It's a good thing that our society drives people insane with stress so that they can slowly kill themselves with tobacco, alcohol toxification, junk food, and television, (if the stress doesn't kill them first).
It's a good thing that we are poisoning minds with flouride and chlorine in the drinking water.
it is a good thing that we are spending money we don't have.
It's a good thing that we are bailing out private banks at the expense of the public trust. The benefits are two-fold, we establish a kleptocractic-oligarchy, and we destroy multiple economies. A very good thing for establishing a single global currency: one God to rule them all.

It is a good thing we're not smart enough to foresee our own future.
It is a good thing we know little about our history.
It is a good thing we know little about natural life.
It is a good thing our survival is dependent upon the elite.

This is why revolution is a bad idea...

smart people know best

2009-04-22T13:52:00.002-05:00

the nature of reality

The Wire part 1

The Wire part 2

Bull $hit Science

2009-03-21T21:46:00.005-05:00

government science

more government science

even more government science

your tax dollars at work. yep, lots of herbicides can kill plants, even drug producing ones. It seems making certain plants illegal places a lot of money into the hands of people that make herbicides. After viewing the government's "medical science library", I have to scoff and say no wonder our nation is phucked up.

Bull $hit science only benefits the puppet masters.

Evil?

2009-03-17T19:36:00.002-05:00

So, what is more evil?

A man that grows an herb that God created and sells it to cancer patients?

or

A "constitutionally sound" government that encourages its citizens to believe in "freedom" while blatantly lying about the definition of this herb so that it can incarcerate gardeners and people who are sick?

$

Obviously, the U.S. government is more evil here. And I mean, this is classic satanic evil, not the kind of "war is a necessary evil" kind of evil.

Well, I hate evil, and all this really makes me kinda hate my government. This begs the question, what is the next step?

K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E.

2009-03-14T19:55:00.002-05:00

We are happy to announce a new program to treat ignorance. As we all know, ignorance is a dangerous threat to the future of American security. Ignorance is prolific, spanning every facet of American society, from the individual citizen all the way up to Congress. More people die from ignorance every year than die from cannabis, peyote, and salvia divinorum combined. Ignorance is a serious problem, and now, we can do something about it.

We have a program that we have started call K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. that seeks to minimize the plague of ignorance. K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. accepts all people, regardless of race, creed, and religious or sexual preferences. We have provided a map on the K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. website for Political Conservatives that have a hard time finding our location.

We believe K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. should be free, so we do not bill those that seek treatment for ignorance. All that we ask is that you take the first step. However, if you leave K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. and return to the ways of ignorance, we are not responsible for any detrimental action thereof.

So, if you or a loved one are struggling with ignorance, and you are seeking help, please take the first step and seek K.N.O.W.L.E.D.G.E. This is not an easy step, but one that, when taken, can radically change your life, and our society, for the better.

"Don't let words have power over you."

2009-03-12T11:05:00.000-05:00

Why I am a gardener.

2009-03-08T18:23:00.005-05:00

Life is more complex than we can imagine.

I plant a seed that I can barely see, and it sets root, grows leaves, and exists only to flower and produce more seeds. But this plant is more complex than this. DNA allows this plant to convert sunlight into energy, and energy into chemistry.

And oh, what a chemistry.

Most plants are nutritious in some way, containing vitamins, proteins, minerals, and other building blocks for the animal body. The problem is, many plants are toxic when consumed. Thus, the herbivorous and omnivorous animals of the Earth develop manners to deduce food from poison. The deer do this, as well as the apes. Humans are no different.

Plants are amazing genetic beings, if for no other reason than they provide a world suitable for animal life. And there are so, so many of them, more than modern science can classify. Thus, gardening is not just about caring for plants. Gardening is a ritualistic living metaphor that seeks to understand the basis of all animal life while also seeking the mysteries of the vast unknown.

Don't get me wrong, caring for and about plants is a big part of the living process. When a plant is thirsty, the gardener provides water. When the plant is hungry, the gardener provides food. In return, if health allows, the plant blooms in a slow motion burst of vibrant color and geometric design that never fails to attract the aesthetics of the eye... or more importantly, the Mind.

Just as a flower blooms with vibrant color and geometric symmetry, so too does the human mind. The flower flushes with precisely organized chemistry, some of which we perceive as color, scent, and taste. The human mind flushes with a strikingly similar chemistry, some of which we perceive as consciousness. I have yet to fully grasp the beauty of that kind of ontological complexity, but I know this to be true, that plants are very important, and we know very little about the nature of them. Then again, we still don't know all that much about the nature of us.

So, in a not so out-of-the-box way, gardening is about seeking a better understanding of our human past, the evolution of human consciousness, the foundation of all animal life on Earth, and the mysteries of the vast unknown.

Oh, and those plants are frickin' cool too.

Rx for America

2009-02-25T00:00:00.003-06:00

1. First, we must admit that we have a problem, and a major one at that. In fact, the more one examines this problem, the uglier it gets. The American Cosmos might collapse, and my typing right now could be a waste of my time, but you gotta have faith sometimes.

2. The next most important step, beyond everything else, is we must ensure that all Americas have clean fresh water. Even if this means building desalinization plants along the coast and piping fresh water inland, so be it. Life will be bad if we run out of clean water, let's prevent that from happening first.

3. It would be most advantageous to use vacant real estate and parks as gardening areas to grow fruits and vegetables. Next to water, access to food will be the most important demand of civil society. Without food and water, only chaos grows.

4. We should learn how to grow our own fuel. This is not all that difficult, and there are a wide variety of plants to choose from. The best biofuel plants would grow fast, require little water or fertilizer, and if possible, draw nutrients from deep within the soil via long taproots, and then deposit those nutrients on the top soil via composted leaf remains. This is the ideal plant, and it actually exists, but it is currently illegal to grow in the U.S.

5. Equip trucks, tractors, and automobiles with engines that run on the biodiesel and green ethanols produced from the above ideal biofuel plants.

6. Establish economies and markets that promote the scientific and medical uses of natural plants (but we have to legalize them first).

7. Encourage Americans to work with the neighbors to build community gardens, and community composting parks. Encourage the spread of botanical knowledge, so that more citizens can be take more responsibility for their lives.

8. Reduce government spending by reducing the number of incarcerated nonviolent plant-related "drug" abusers. Reduce the number of "crimes" by reforming bad laws, thus avoiding the latent criminalization of a significant minority of Americans who's only crime was smoking the flowers of a plant that God made by mistake

9. Remove the driving impetus for the escalating increase of civil violence in Mexico. Narco-trafficers are waging war against the Mexican government. The Narco-trafficers get their money to buy guns by selling illegal drugs, and then they buy the guns in America, before taking them back to Mexico to shoot Mexican police. Part of admitting we have a problem is biting the bullet to say "we don't know what we're doing here, and we're in trouble." Making "drugs" and "plants" illegal only benefits governments and organized crime (the narco-trafficers). It would be hard for the narco trafficers to make money to buy guns to wage war on the mexican police if their "drugs" could be prescribed by a doctor and bought at Walgreens or grown at home as the plant God intended.

10. Legalize Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. If a single bullet started World War 1, imagine what a plant can do.

Ah, Mexico...

2009-02-24T23:40:00.001-06:00

My Apologies to Glenn Beck.

2009-02-15T18:24:00.004-06:00

I use to avoid listening to Glenn Beck. Now, today, I'm not going out of my way to listen to him, but concerning the above issues, he is straight on.

It's too bad he thinks no one else is thinking about the Fall of Mexico.

Tabernaemontana divaricata

2009-02-06T20:23:00.016-06:00

One of the many great botanical ironies of the 21st Century.

If you frequent plant nurseries, keep your eyes out for this plant, also called Carnation of India and Crepe Jasmine.

This plant thrives in part sun, part shade, and performs well as a large house plant in front of a bright window. It blooms prolific white flowers through most of the year, and can tolerate dry soil conditions if necessary.

Tabernaemontana divaricata is an important medicinal plant to the rural folk of western India where it is native. There, the leaves, blooms, and extracts have been used since ancient times to heal nervous disorders, headaches, and infections among many other ailments. Western science has found that this plant produces over 66 different alkaloids, which are nitrogen-based molecules that bind to key receptors in the animal nervous system that drive nervous function.

One may ask why any plant would produce substances that mimic the action of endogenous animal neurotransmitters... this is an important question, with an even more important answer, but don't bother asking it, because most people in America don't give a crap and are happy to remain ignorant about these matters.

You, dear reader, are different, though, simply because you are reading this.

Because you are reading this, you now know that Tabernaemontana divaricata also produces the illegal alkaloid Ibogaine. You have probably never heard of Ibogaine as a drug because it is not very common in the States (it's not alcohol-based). Ibogaine is a tryptamine alkaloid that doubles as an opiate receptor agonist. In other words, it can trick the human nervous system into thinking it has an opium fix. The handy part of all this concerns the use of Ibogaine as a treatment for heroine addiction. A daring few researchers have spent decades examining the effects of Ibogaine on opiate-addicts with encouraging results. Ibogaine's action is multi-faceted: on one level, it helps ease opiate dependence, on another level, the tryptamine action of Ibogaine sends the "patient" into a mild, yet euphoric state of mind for an extended period of time during which most patients experience a period of life recollection and cognitive "cleansing" that enables a stronger recovery. And all this, with ONE application of Ibogaine. Not repeat use necessary, and no new addiction required.

So, why would such a potentially useful plant alkaloid be illegal in the United States? Because Ibogaine as a "drug" is named after the plant it was discovered in, Tabernathe Iboga, an evergreen shrub from Africa. This plant is illegal to cultivate in the United States under the Controlled Substances Act. In fact, if you read the C.S.A., you find that many "drug" producing plants from Africa are illegal (damn Africans...). However, the world possesses tens of thousands of "known" plant species that produce "drugs". I wonder why Congress made the ones from Africa and Asia illegal, and not the ones from, say, Texas, like Datura innoxia, Argemone mexicana, Sophora secundiflora, and Peyote (oh wait, that Red Skin cactus is illegal too, good thing too, America can't have its citizens thinking like Injuns).

And along comes Tabernaemontana divaricata. Actually, this plant has existed for a long time. "White" Europeans (the same ones that write "White" history) only discovered the plant roughly 150 years ago. Back in the late 1960's, when the Controlled Substances Act was written, no one in Congress knew that Tabernaemontana divaricata produces the alkaloid Ibogaine. There just weren't enough black people using it. And so, today, the African Ibogaine-producing plant is illegal, and the Indian version is a good buy at Home Depot.

The Fall of Mexico

2009-02-04T19:04:00.008-06:00

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/04/mexico.general/index.html
Mexico drug fighter killed after less than a day on job

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164890,00.html
Kidnapping, Murder Sweep Nuevo Laredo

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/node/651
Nuevo Laredo: a case study in macro narco-economics

and that's just the beginning.

The Mexican government is showing many of the signs of a failed state including the increase in civil violence, organized crime, and poverty.

Ironic that while America is preventing two Muslim states from failing on the other side of the Earth, we would, by legal default, encourage the failure of a major nation sharing our southern border. And what are the benefits of creating a failed state on our southern border? Well, there aren't many.

And why is America creating a failed Mexican state?

Because, everywhere you see civil instability, violence, and brutal political slayings in Mexico, you find illegal drug cartels. And why do these illegal drug cartel-families have so much power? Because, they control the value of the drugs they sell. Illegal drug cartels determine the value of the drugs they sell because national governments like the United States of America ban these products from legal trade. Prohibition only benefits two parties: government, and organized crime. While both parties jockey for power over the trade of illegal drugs, everyone else gets screwed.

I won't get into the biological complexities of why plants produce human neurotransmitters here, or why these plants have been valuable commodities for human economies since before the recollection of history. Instead, I'll just conclude that we Americans have created on our worst problems.

We won't change or fix anything until we first understand where we went wrong.

We may never do that.

Salvia divinorum part II, the awakening.

2009-01-28T19:42:00.004-06:00

As an avid gardener, and student of ethnobotany, I grow Salvia divinorum to better understand how this plant interacts with its environment. I have learned that this plant requires cool humid air to thrive, that it is naturally fungal-resistant, and that it does not produce seed. Salvia divinorum is native to the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is a true-cultigen, in that is does not produce fertile seed, and it was basically invented by horticulturally advanced Mesoamericans some 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. It is like Corn, and many other food crops that have been intensively bred over generations to express highly selective genetic traits at the expense of natural reproduction. These plant species become dependent upon human cultivation for survival.

Salvia divinorum is the only known species in over 900 different species of the Genus, Saliva, that botanically produce the secondary metabolites we call "Salvinorin A and B." Salvinorin A is the primary metabolite responsible for the "hallucinogenic" effects of the leaf matter. The Salvia plant itself uses Salvinorin A as an adaptive advantage, in that many modern botanical studies conclude that Salvinorin A is both anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial, anti-viral. Not surprisingly, the Mazatec people of Oaxaca use Salvia divinorum in prominent medical and divinatory rituals , and these rituals date back to Pre-columbian times.

Salvia divinorum carries the taxonomic species name "Divinorum", not because it is hallucinogenic, but because the ethnobotanists that named the plant found it by studying the divination rites of Mazatec shaman. In the Mazatec sense, Salvia divinorum is a vehicle for healing. In this sense, it is a gift from God, which maybe why the Spanish name for Salvia divinorum is Yerba de Maria, and Yerba de la Pastora (in both meanings, the Herb of Mary, the mother of God).

As an amateur scientist, determined ethnobotanist, and devout seeker of truth, I am deeply sickened at the thought that people in high places (like law enforcement and certain House Representatives) would promote laws that only distort the truth, undermine civil liberty, and ultimately, disregard the U.S. Constitution. Salvia divinorum is an ARTIFACT of pre-Columbian horticulture. This plant has many great potential uses, and ultimately, if some dumb kid want to get off on it, well, it's not the plant's fault... the fault resides with our own ignorance regarding such matters:

This is what happens with a Pre-Columbine divine shamanic plant falls into the hands of a postmodern high tech society with little real connections to the Earth:

The Mazatec shaman uses Salvia divinorum to heal the sick following the rites of many thousand generations of medical plant knowledge. The American teenager uses Salvia to get an out of this world, "I can't believe this is legal" kick:

The fact remains that the "pre-historic" people who invented salvia knew far more about the plant world than modern Americans.

And the fact remains that government censorship undermines the progress of knowledge.

Human Sacrifice

2009-01-17T18:46:00.008-06:00

It is 609 A.D. You are in the north Yucatan. You stand at the bottom steps of the Priest's Temple, and await the beginning of the sacred ritual. Behind you, a priest wearing the monstrous mask of the Western Wind God moans an ancient chant about passage to the underworld. Behind the Priest, the Sun dips below the horizon. The Underworld begins to appear through the fog of twilight as millions of points of light come into view.

A Second Priest wearing the mask of the Eastern Wind God approaches you, and wraps your body in the smoking copal of purity. He chants a second song about the passage of the ancestors through the underworld. Then, a third Priest of the Northern Wind God steps in front of you and blows a billowing dust from his hand into your face. Stunned, you inhale the dust. You are terrified...

The three Priests catch you as you fall, and lift you back up to your feet. They lead you to the steps of the Priest's Temple, and loom over you until you begin to walk up. You are unsteady, and losing clarity, but you can still see the nine levels of the pyramid around you. The stairs are lined with the monstrous faces of the divine.

Behind you, the Three Chac Priests sing separate songs in a cacophony of anxious ceremonial music. In the delerium, you remember a song from your childhood:

"The Winds blow, Yet still no water...."

Above you, you see a river of white smoke that crosses the night sky from horizon to horizon.

"The circle is gone, We are wrong..."

The White River churns with swirling eddies and vaporous whirlpools.

"Return the blood, Return Great Corn Father..."

You can see a grey foggy streak down the middle of the White River that empties into a Black Hole. This is the road to the Underworld, the road to the ancestors. It is the road of your dreams.

"And the cycle will be won."

You reach the top steps and hear the song of the Priest of the Eastern Wind God. He greets you as you step onto the grand temple mount. The air is thick with the smoke of burning copal and a scent that you know quite well... the smoldering ashes of bark paper soaked in human blood.

Behind the Priest of the Eastern Wind God, a second figure rises to his knees wearing a giant serpent mask lined with vibrant feathers. His face is paralyzed in a state of ecstatic trance. The King is drawing together the realms of the Earth and the Underworld, thusly preparing a tunnel for your passage into Xibalba.

The Priest of the Eastern Wind God steps before you and spews smoke into your face. You can not resist. You inhale deeply. You will help make the cycle complete.

You look up at the White River in the night sky. The world begins to spin.

The King steps forward, and lifts his royal obsidian blade to your throat. You dare not look at him. You gaze at the White River as the world spins above your head. A twirling, White Road, writhing like a cosmic rope, descends from the Black Hole, and hovers just above your head. Then, in a brilliant flash of light, the Sky Serpent roars out from the Earth beneath you, and swallows you whole. This is your passage to the Underworld.

**************************************************************

It is 2004 A.D. You are a seventeen year old kid in the poor suburb of a major city. You try to avoid being in gangs, but that makes you lonely. So, with no money for college and no hope of a good job, you join the Army. This was a very positive, character building experience for you except that now you are lying half dead on some damn street in Baghdad. You are surrounded by your Brothers, who hurry to your side to try and save you. The bomb was too close, though, and you know you're not going to make it. Your cognitive faculties begin to fade, and you try to tell them that everything will be alright... the shot of morphine eases the pain, and you drift away into the freedom of Heaven.

**************************************************************

It is 2006 A.D. You didn't mean to kill those girls. You just had too much to drink, lost control, blacked out, and woke up with blood on your hands. You hate yourself. And now, the State is going to kill you.

You are stretched out on a medical bed. The medical technicians tap your veins with three long needles... Three needles for three drugs, the safest constitutional method for killing someone.

You do not fight. You have had seventeen years to face this death. You are fulfilled knowing your death brings Justice.

*************************************************************

It is 2007 A.D. The Competition has edged into your market, and you gotta send a message.

You set up the sting. Your partner calls into the Pawn looking for the Acapulco Gold. The meeting location will be at the Bosque Park at 10:00 p.m. You count every minute until the meeting time, but you only pack one bullet. One shot is all you need.

At 10:00 the Pawn shows up. Your Partner gets out from his car and approaches the Pawn. Together, they walk into the park.

You sit in your own car and wait. You count more minutes. Finally, your Partner leaves the park alone and walks to his car. His car starts, and he drives away.

You count more minutes, waiting for the Pawn to reappear. You've thoroughly cleaned and checked your gun by the time the Pawn returns. Spotting your optimum chance, you start your car and casually approach the Pawn as he walks down the sidewalk. you roll down your power windows, and take carefull aim. One shot... Message sent.

*************************************************************

It is 2009 A.D. Zealous Fundamentalist are driving fear and panic and turning people into Lethal Enemies. The Supreme Nuclear Weapons of the Sun God are pursued by many zealots for the powers of Security and Wealth. The Wealthy are rich because most are still poor, and the Resources of Life, that being energy, food, water, are beginning to run scarce. It would only be a matter of generations before the powers of the Supreme Nuclear Weapons of the Sun God were unleashed to burn and poison the face of the Earth... in the name of Security.

The Book of Quixotic Council

2009-01-05T17:14:00.008-06:00

"In the Beginning, there was nothing.

There was no beginning, there was no end, because time had yet to be dreamed. In the Beginning, there was infinity, and within infinity there was infinite potential. But, within infinite potential, there was also infinite entropy.

Thus, the VOID cooled and rained LIGHT. As Light precipitated from the Void, MATTER condensed from Light to give birth to the Universe.

The Universe is the product of infinity modulated by entropy. Therefore, the Universe carries infinite potential both internally, and externally relative to the Void.

And so it came to pass that the Universe with infinite potential cooled, and settled into galaxies, stars, and planetary systems. Great stars burned and recycled molecular matter, only to fling this new organic carbon-based matter into the far reaches of empty space. Entropy tightened the reins of gravity to further compress matter from energy. On one rocky planet, the third of many in orbit around an average Sun, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen collected, setting the stage for the existence of LIFE.

Life, like matter, is the product of energy and entropy. In a Universe of infinite potential, it did not take long for molecules capable of reproduction to rise from the ashes of the Big Bang. And so it came to pass that organic molecules constructed of masses of matter could convert sunlight into energy, eat other masses of molecular matter, fold iron-molecules into weapons of death, and invent scientology.

The Nothing did not look at it's creation to admire its existence. It was nothing. So, the bipedal primate-animal called "Man" was called by Entropy one morning to go into the forests of Life and find spirit. Starving and weary from the cold, Man found the Sacred Bread growing on the fecal remains of the Great Meat-Bison. The Man consumed the flesh of the Sacred Bread, and saw visions of the Gods and Great Ancestors proclaiming that all things were made for the purposes of Man. And thus, Nothing became God, Entropy became the Spirits, and Man became a glorified primate-animal.

And so it came to pass that with this gift of "the spirits", Man began to diversify and settle into villages and kingdoms. The world unfolded before him with great new potentials. A rock became gold, a seed became money, and art flourished like the Royal Gardens. The Chief God of Wealth was worshipped across all lands, but the gods of Entropy became angered, and squeezed the kingdoms so that they would war with each other. Thus, great armies were raised to kill and control the descendants of Man.

A thousand generations of war had passed before the descendants of Man created great rocks that would drop from the sky and unleash the power of the Great Sun on all people. This was done in the name of security, and none but the fewest of Man's descendants would survive the burned and poisoned earth. Ten Thousand years would pass before Man would re-awaken, and rebuild his lost world.

During those ten thousand years, a Shaman appeared before a family of human hunter-gatherers. The Shaman was saddened by what he saw. The family was hungry, and alone. The land was poisoned, and struggling to return to life.

"What have you done?" the Shaman asked. The family was gripped in silent fear.

"You know nothing. You should love everything," the Shaman chided. Then, he inhaled, and breathed in all the poisons and ashes of death that oppressed the Earth. Then the Shaman died, and his body vanished into the air. The family could not believe what they saw, but the Earth returned to life anyway..."

(taken from the opening text of "The Book of Quixotic Council" published by the Elite Tribal Council of Pharmaceutically-Assisted Elders, Czichaltlan Albitza, Chile, 1969 A.D.)

the reins of the psyche; the bar of freedom

2009-01-02T18:38:00.007-06:00

A brief recollection of history might be helpful in understanding how governments adopt religious movements and then use religious symbolism to manipulate public perspective.

Let's see, Hitler is the primo go-to example, as he embraced local "pagan" and "christian" religions to militarize the nation for war. How he excluded Judaism is beyond me...

Then, there was the Emperor Constantine who, while facing the decline of his nation due to an influx of "christian" cults from the Middle East, daringly declared Christianity to be the religion of the New Rome. This New Roman government still exists, although it doesn't have the power it once had. Back in the day, we had The Dark Ages.

In fact, the governing bodies of the nation of Israel are not different. Back in the day (i.e., the Bible), "The Law" was consistently at odds with "pagan practices." Today, Israel is at war with a people that worship the same God (different name), and share the same sacred ancestral father (Abraham). Judaism and Islam are practically brothers, but it's not in the interest of government to abide this way.

Oh, the list goes on: Communist China and Buddhism, The British versus Hinduism, The Babylonians, the Egyptians, The Zoroastrians... and to just spray pepper spray in the face of religious freedom, the same is true of ALL the New World civilizations too, like the Olmecs, The Maya, and the Aztecs. Sometimes, humans are just... human, even if we don't know it.

Now, one may wonder why "The Law" has always been interested in co-opting religious movements. It's because the human mind is a very powerful, complex, and valuable thing. We are genetically designed to abide by strict social hierarchies, so much so that we rarely become aware of it. In the natural world, this is an adaptation. In the social world, this is an opportunity for individuals to obtain and maintain great social power. As people go, there will always be those seeking more control. Often, they do not see that the only thing they truly have control over is their own mind, and even that is sketchy.

We humans have inhabited Earth for a very long time. What we call history is just a very brief and highly biased account of our time on this living planet. Beyond religion and government, the path to spiritual enlightment is through the forests of knowledge, and in this respect, our ancestors set the bar.

more...

2008-12-31T02:21:00.002-06:00

E=MC(squared)
pretty much sums it up.

all life is matter, all matter is energy.

problem solved. this means no more war, no more poverty, and no more slavery, oppression, famine, disease, or suffering...

of course there's more...
there is more to life than war, or poverty, or suffering.

More is also love, forgiveness, tolerance, scientific discovery, and the realms of the spirit.

Life is more than morality, ethics, politics, economics, or the law.

Human life is defined by knowledge, thus, knowledge is a very powerful thing.

Ultimately, in human life, nothing is more than knowledge.

So, who controls what you know?

do you want to know more?

PAIN

2008-12-13T18:43:00.002-06:00

If the idea of an abortion pains you, then you're really going to hate this.

Somewhere, right now, a children starves to death with no hope of having food.

Right now, in the rural hillsides of the Middle East, another child is being trained to attack an occupying military.

But that's life. Right?

Somewhere in Southeast Asia, a young girl turns to prostitution for survival.

Somewhere in Camden, New Jersey, a young boy, without a job or an education, joins a gang and learns the ropes of the illegal drug trade. He learns to carry a gun to protect himself, but in reality, his odds of survival would be better if he were an American soldier serving in Iraq.

But that's life, right? Nothing we can do about it.

Somewhere in upstate New York, a 65 year old widow in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease must choose between paying for her medication and paying for her mortgage.

Somewhere in Colorado, a brilliant gentleman, husband, and father of three is wheelchair-bound, facing a life with multiple-sclerosis. He can not use one of the most appropriate natural medicines for his medical condition because the government he served as an Air Force colonel has made it illegal.

But now, there is something we can do about that...

The Freedom of Thought

2008-11-29T18:43:00.003-06:00

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This is the most important commandment of the Ten Civil Commandments of the U.S. Constitution (otherwise known as the Bill of Rights). In fact, this commandment is so important that:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (Commandment #2)

Well, that's the theory anyway.

The Freedom of Thought is inherent to the 1st Commandment. One can not establish a religion, exercise religiously, speak, write, assemble with others, or complain to the government without first making a cognitive choice to do so. This cognitive process is called thought, and it represent the very foundation of the 1st Commandment.

So, we are allowed to think freely, right?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Think again...

everyday, your mind is bombarded by cultural information that shapes the way you think. This information shapes your world-view. This information programs your mind for specific modes of thought. This information influences the way you perceive reality. This information is more than just language; it is: math, music, science, religion, economics, semantics, and light.

Don't believe me? Just turn on the TV, and watch as hundreds of businesses pay big bucks for advertisements that try and do ONE thing:

influence your mind.

Can one have a free mind with thousands of economic entities competing for control of one's behavior?

Can one have a free mind when the daily stress that one's mind experiences is only allowed to be treated by government-approved "medicines"?

Can one have a free mind when one's life depends on arbitrary, inflationary money?

******

This is why the U.S. Constitution is more myth than reality.

but it doesn't have to be this way...

Land...

2008-11-16T18:47:00.002-06:00

this land is your land,
this land is my land,
knock down the forest,
pave all the farm land.
build concrete towers,
jack property values,
this land was made for you and me.

this land is your land,
this land is my land,
was once a forest,
now a media island.
you'd own your home
'cept for that no-down loan,
this land was made for you and me.

this land is your land,
this land is my land,
and no one knows,
the future stock trends,
so I'm going to eat well,
while I can.
this land was made for you and me.

this land is your land,
this land is my land,
now those who loan
have screwed the home land.
can't right a song
'bout bankrupt forests,
this land was made for you and me.

this land was your land,
this land was my land,
now it seems lost,
in financial jargon.
not gonna get guns,
I'm gonna start a garden,
cause this land was made for you and me.

We can what?

2008-11-08T21:10:00.002-06:00

Oh no, SOCIALISM! be afraid, be very afraid.

Obama is going to take your money and give it to the poor.

be very afraid indeed.

you didn't notice when socialism took over education. you didn't notice when socialism took over public security. you didn't think about it when socialism took over the postal service. you were looking the other way when socialism took over your mind.

"spread the wealth?" the onslaught of socialism in America? if you believe this, you were probably government educated (or worse, educated by someone who was).

wealth is an illusion. the plague of blindness is already widespread. the "Pink Panic" will pass in time to be found empty. Obama will mostly likely not take your money and "spread it around." But, that's not the point.

Today, tomorrow, and in the future, our nation must survive. If it does not, we can expect dwindling food and fresh water supplies, and hyper inflation, and in increase in waste, disease, crime and social conflict. These are the trends that follow failed states. We should not be blind to the facts: all governments are subject to entropy.

Today, tomorrow, and in the future, our nation must regulate the consumption and production of energy while managing our waste byproducts. Using cow shit to generate electricity is one thing; Using a nuclear reaction to do the same creates volatile, mutagenic toxins that take thousand of years to break down. If humanity's future depends upon each nation's ability to "beat up" an enemy, then humanity has no future, folks.

nevermind "spread the wealth." that's like treating a mosquito bite while letting the gaping hole in your stomach go gangrenous. Here is what WE CAN DO:

the restoration of human heritage act

for other things we CAN DO, see below:

genesis

2008-10-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

1:11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

1:12
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

1:29
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

1:30
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

OPERATION: HEMPSTEAD

2008-10-10T22:07:00.005-05:00

Location of the third Presidential debate of the 2008 campaign.

Sit tight, because things are about to get even more painful.

I'm sure Obama and McCain will mention the crash on Wall Street. Certainly, they will talk about heartbreak on Main Street, as the price of food goes up, retirement savings vaporize, and homes fall apart.

Meanwhile, banks fail, jobs are lost, and everyone still alive "hunkers down" like a Galveston beach house before the economic Ike.

"We'll come out of it," they will say. But not until after crime goes up, the dollar drops, and many, too many, dreams are lost. And that is if our government doesn't go bankrupt first. What was it about the American dream?

(I think I forgot while watching Reality TV.)

And so they face off, the daring Obama and the intrepid McCain, in the land of Hempstead.

Will it be obvious to them?

Will they think about it as they talk of reviving the America workforce and economy? Will it flash through their minds as they duel tax revenue versus deficit spending? Will the thought of it scream out to them as they bemoan the cost of healthcare?

If this one slips through unnoticed, it'll be the Mother of All Ironies.

There is a reason why the town of Hempstead, New York is named after an illegal plant.

Never mind the tens of thousands of incarcerated citizens that were busted for smoking it. Never mind the sick citizens that have found an "evil" plant to heal themselves with. Never mind that this plant represents a medical tool that can be used to treat a variety of major and minor sicknesses, including cancer. Never mind that this same plant can be used to manufacture paint, clothing, paper, food, building materials, rope, canvas, and biofuel.

Oh, and never mind that Cannabis sativa L. was grown in Hempstead to fuel a prominent regional economy.

The important thing is that at one time, Hempstead farmers were forced, by law, to grow hemp in rotating cycles to rehabilitate poor soil.

Well, never mind all that. Just throw it out with the American dream.

We should just remain scared.

Ultimately, the important thing is that BOTH Obama and McCain have very little hair.

Justice, U.S.A.

2008-09-28T23:21:00.006-05:00

another bailout.

more taxpayer money going to the sloppy rich.

I always knew the American government was phucked up, now I have proof.

(well, it's not like I never had it before)

maybe, now, the "average" American can understand it.

after four years blogging, all I can say is:

WELCOME TO YOUR OWN $HIT SHOWER, AMERICA!

watch out for the fan...

Today, we pay for our ignorance.

Tomorrow, we pay again.

but it's not like we don't deserve this.

Thus, down falls the House of Cards.

What makes me sick is that Americans are too stupid to think their way out of this mess. (go ahead, show me that I'm wrong here...)

And now, the $hit flies home.

Welcome to Justice.

everything I needed to know about morality I learned by being an American

2008-09-19T21:49:00.004-05:00

10. Life begins at conception when it is the most innocent. Once life is born, it isn't worth much unless it works hard and follows the law. If life does not do what we say, then we can kill it.

9. murder is wrong, but killing thousands of people with high tech killing machines is just a political consequence of moral authority.

8. Terrorism does NOT include Mutually Assured Destruction or the threat of nuclear holocaust.

7. Jews are not as bad as Muslims, although the Christians are the dirtiest bastards of them all.

6. I have the right to own a small firearm precisely tuned to kill another person at a close distance, but I can NOT own certain types of plants. That would be too dangerous.

5. A college degree is less important than being an actor, or a professional athlete. The most important thing is to get lucky in business.

4. Everyone must pay to learn. If you don't pay to learn, and fail to get your receipt, then no one will know if you actually learned anything or not.

3. Being poor is just being lazy. If you are poor, you deserve it. Go buy an education... oh wait , you have no money... hahahaha!

2. It's just a grim reality that to gain something we have to screw someone else over. It's just the only way to live (and don't bother looking for a better way, there is none. trust us).

1. The sick, the physically disabled, the mentally ill, the dying... they all owe it to the medical system to pay the bills for all the pills. And if they try to get their medicine from demon plants that God made by mistake, then they deserve to lose access to our for profit pills and rot in prison.

0. Lying is wrong, unless you're in politics... then you can get away with it.

Wall Street Panic

2008-09-17T21:24:00.003-05:00

the funny thing about wealth is that it is all in the imagination.

really, it is.

(and if you need a minute to think about this... go ahead).

so what is going on on Wall Street?

Let the specialists speak. They don't really know. That is the problem.

No one knows the future, and all of a sudden, we're ALL becoming aware of this... again.

It's like, we settle into these comfortable lives and establish routines. The Amygdala regions of our brains take over, and life becomes easy, predictable... a "no-thinker."

But humans have lived on this earth for at least 60,000 years. America has existed for just a blink of that time. What we call "civilization" is only a few thousand years old.

I'm not saying that an apocalypse is near. Not at all. But one thing is for certain: we all need to be reminded of our connection with the earth, for that is the foundation of our civilization.

Economics... it's just a religion, really. Our biological existence as humans is something else entirely. Everything has a cost. For biology, it's entropy. For economics, it's fear. Both are intertwined within the human experience.

As for me, I'm not worried. I could live off of the weeds if I needed to. I don't want to do that, though. Despite my ranting and raving, I actually like America. I like the idea that we can still choose our destiny, to a certain extent. I like the idea that we have the right to believe what we want, unless you believe cannabis is a medicine. I like the notion that I can have the successful life that I work for, unless you don't have a college degree.

Well, America ain't "The Great Experiment" for nothing. Perhaps now we will be reminded of this.

We are human, not because we are wealthy, but because we love and learn.

...and you don't need college to learn that.

you must read this too!

2008-09-12T12:27:00.002-05:00

Ooops. Uncle Sam is in the banking business...

2008-09-07T12:01:00.003-05:00

So we the tax payers now own two more banks!

Isn't it great that we have a government willing to use tax payer money to save the rich folk from their errors in judgement?

I think its just fabulous.

I'm looking forward to my next $50 million dollar check from Uncle Sam. I'm sure you are too.

But what happens when Uncle Sam runs out of money? Who suffers then?

Maybe then, Uncle Sam will see the benefit of the extra $4oo billion in tax revenue received from the legalization of an important botanical resource.

eh... I doubt it.

(m.)F.D.A.

2008-09-05T22:02:00.010-05:00

so the FDA posted a list of potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals here:
F.D.A.

BUT, the FDA doesn't want you suddenly stop taking these meds if you use them.

In other words, the FDA doesn't want you to be rash about the potentially dangerous drugs you are using. Too many corporations, CEOs, and share holders would lose money. So, keep using the potentially dangerous drugs and wait for more conclusive data before you stop taking those pills.

MEANWHILE:

A medically valuable, non-toxic plant is still illegal, the cause of incarcerations, and the primary target of the War on Drugs.

This is why the FDA stands for (mother-)Fucking Department of A$$holes.

Gawd, when is the ignorant double standard going to end?

...and can I just say that it blows my mind how Americans tolerate this kind of bureaucratic irresponsibility...

I mean, really.

Really?

I like plants

2008-09-05T11:08:00.003-05:00

10-First of all, plants don't grovel at your feet when you call them. YOU have to go to them.

9-Plants feed on sunlight and carbon dioxide. They produce metabolites, sugars, alcohols, and oxygen as their waste byproduct. If only we humans could be so lucky (fortunately, plants are quite adept at converting OUR waste into substances that plants can use to produce their waste... it's almost like it was planned or something...)

8-Plants don't need sex to propagate, although the sex helps...

7-plants produce food, fibers, medicines, drinks, salsas, and drugs. what would rock and roll be without plants?

6-plants are the foundation of all animal life on earth (not really, this is a hoax... not).

5-plants are the foundation of all human economies (just ask Uncle Sam).

4-plants are the foundation of most ancient religions (and calendars, not to mention human civilization).

3-and thanks to the censors of history, "modern" humans have a great deal to learn about plants. Sure, pharmaceutical companies pay botanists and anthropologists to travel to remote jungles to identify the plants used by native healers. Sure, most of the pills of "modern" medicine are plant-derived substances. Sure, we humans settled into cities because we learned how to grow a few important food crops in large scale agriculture systems. but we are still poor in what we know.

2-There is much much more to learn. We must learn it before we "domesticate" those jungles that protect valuable plant medicines. We must learn that it is just plain ignorant to make plants illegal. We must learn how to use important botanical resources responsibly, and not politically (please inform the O.N.D.C.P.).

1-plant knowledge is recession proof. when the house of cards falls, the weeds take over. during those times, it will be valuable to know how to use those weeds.

What is at stake?

2008-09-04T12:27:00.003-05:00

Many have commented about this recently, especially those trying to get elected.

What is at stake?

Lot's of things come to mind, but perhaps the most important is the FUTURE.

Of course, "the future" brings up numerous complex possibilities...

Personally, I don't think anyone really knows what's at stake. I don't, but I'm going to try...

let's see... the future. where's my sastun?

the future begins with the mind. for without the mind, the future is only entropy. So, what is at stake is OUR MINDS. (Now, that makes more sense to me.)

The mind is at stake. The mind *may not* exist without the body. Therefore, if the mind is at stake, then it follows that the body that supports the mind is at stake too.

So, what is at stake is our minds and our bodies. Well, that certainly influenced my vote...

but wait, things still aren't that simple. Human bodies require constant supplies of energy (nutrition), and regulated exposure to human waste (the more minimized, the better).

What is really at stake is our minds, bodies, and the environments that support our minds and bodies. But "environments"... boy, that word has baggage.

Don't get confused by the semantics. The point is, we all know too little about all of the above to secure our future.

So, what's at stake?

You must read this...

2008-09-01T21:43:00.001-05:00

One Day

2008-08-26T00:45:00.003-05:00

Another day, another bank failure.

Stocks have just dropped... again. The Bear is sleeping.

The house three doors down has a FOR SALE sign, just like the one across the street.

The neighbor was laid off from work, and unable to find more.

Budgets are cut. Jobs are lost.

The cost of gasoline goes up.

Bread costs three dollars a loaf, and milk costs as much as gas per gallon.

But NBC has a new REALITY TV show... something about people jumping through a moving wall.

Then one day.

The supermarket is low on food.

The government has limited what you can withdraw from your bank.

You are out of work. Your house is no longer yours, and it sits, empty.

Your kids are hungry.

What do you do then?

Will you be willing to think outside of the box?

Will you be willing to grow your own food?

Will you be willing to hunt for your own food?

What if you get sick? There are no more pills. What will you do?

Thankfully, humans have been through all this before.

The plants that our ancestors used for food, shelter, clothing, fire, and medicine STILL EXIST (at least, we haven't wiped out most of them yet).

So, now, you're homeless. You are hungrier than your kids. Your spouse is sick.

Which plant will you use?

Will you be willing to use the one plant that can feed you, clothe you, and heal you?

How about if it could make you rich again, and let you drive your car?

Please support H.R. 5843. It's time to wake up.

RECIPROCITY

2008-08-24T13:12:00.003-05:00

I hate greedy capitalists. I also hate communists.

So, what's my answer?

RESTORATION

2008-08-24T12:37:00.003-05:00

I started this blog many moons ago because I wanted to stand out against the skewed standards of my society.

I was inspired by the ego-bloated right-wing talking heads like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Neal boortz.

I don't have talent on loan from God. I am not the high priest of the church of the painful truth.

I am a sour monkey that wants to rattle the cages.

War, guerrilla philosophy, and political morality were my starting points, but I've evolved since then.

You see, for a long time, I've searched for the missing link. I analyzed what is known to better understand what is unknown (and of the unknown, there is far too much).

I realized that I can learn and not have to pay for it. I realized that for everything we know, there is always much more that is not known. I've realized that is it ALWAYS that which we don't know that obfuscates the truth from our comprehension. And I did it all without student loans.

Yesterday, I checked my worker profile on the Texas Workforce Commission website. The commission informed me that I could not ask for more than $10.20 an hour when applying for a job through the Workforce Commission.

One of the things I hate about America is all the greedy capitalists that, through their own ignorance, actually function as communists.

I mean, seriously. Texas is a strongly Republican, pro-capitalism state. So why is the state commission telling me that I am not worth more than $10.20 an hour as a future employee? Do I suddenly live in China? And why do Texas citizens that proudly proclaim their capitalist's faith continue to censor the free market and criminalize other citizens for using one of humanity's most resourceful botanical cultivars?

It doesn't make sense.

And this is the point of RATTLE THE CAGE.

THE CAGE IS AN IRRATIONAL ILLUSION that we all perpetuate against the betterment of our lifestyles.

And this is so because mainstream American social systems REQUIRE IT.

In other words, to be a normal, mainstream American, YOU must buy into the notion that paper tests can measure intelligence, that classroom boxes can somehow educate your kids, that the government has all the answers, that your life and work have a defined dollar value, that you must go into debt to get an education, and that personal freedom is secondary to national security.

Don't you get it yet? This is not America, at least, not as explicitly defined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

If you are an American, you are living a lie. At the same time, we've sent our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters off to foreign lands to die for this lie.

At this point, RATTLE THE CAGE isn't enough to wake the masses from their authoritarian enslavement.

It's time to up the ante.

I'm taking this thing into 4D. Stay tuned for THE RESTORATION OF HUMAN HERITAGE.

My Resume

2008-08-22T11:39:00.007-05:00

Here's what i can do:

I have a crazy green thumb. I can grow just about anything that produces chlorophyl.

I can diagnose most plant diseases. If you have a plant that is dying, I can tell you how to fix it.

I have an encyclopedia for a brain. If you need help with a problem, more often than not, I can find a solution for you.

I know how to tell poisonous plants from edible plants (and even how to turn some of the poisonous plants into foods). This will come in handy when an economic crisis results in fewer foods in the stores.

I can show you how to successfully grow your own food, medicine, and industrial fibers.

I know how to grow organically, without using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

I know how to locate water, and how to purify contaminated water.

My extensive anthropological training has equipped me with many skills, such as how to read a person's body language, and how to see beyond the veil of cultural boundaries, not to mention that I have an extensive understanding of human population dynamics and the life-cycles of human societies.

I crave challenges. I thrive on problem-solving. I realize that there are a thousand ways to tackle any given problem.

I am highly creative, eager to learn new information, and finely tuned at thinking outside of the box.

I am an avid reader, and I know how to hunt for new information.

I am an artist, and I write, draw, build, and compose music just because I can.

I know my way around a recording studio, and I can design any sound imaginable.

In my daily life, I am friendly, compassionate, and eager to help anyone in need to the best of my ability.

I can do all this for you, and do it with 110% effort.

Here is what I can't do:

I can't sell stupid shit to mindless consumers. Sorry (and unfortunately, this means I can't work in 95% of the American workplace).

I can't sell materialistic shit that every fucking capitalist has their greedy paws in trying to scratch out a profit from.

I can't work for a clueless, out-of-touch boss.

I can't stomach the lies that my society spews out everyday.

I can't stand being just a number in the bottom line.

I won't work a meaningless job.

I am worth more than $12 an hour. If you want to pay me this, I'll only give you $6 an hour worth of work (the other six is counted as a "clueless boss" tax).

I don't have a god-damned college degree. I measured this cost, and decided that this fucking piece of paper wasn't worth the cost: $30,000 in debt plus the inflationary value of currency compounded by the fact that just because I paid for the paper doesn't mean I'm still going to get a job that pays more than $12 an hour. You can keep the god damned degree. If you're too stupid to not recognize my potential because I don't have a piece of paper, then you're just a moron, and you can save the job for some other tool.

So, this is my ontological resume.

I think the only solution for me, when it comes to finding work, is to be self employed.

Thus, I'm starting my own jobs (three, actually).

Oh, and if I need to, I know that a 10 foot by 10 foot garden bed filled with cannabis plants can turn $40,000 -$120,000 in only three months.

Each your heart out, capitalists.

That's my backup plan.

Sheep with the right to OPEN-CARRY

2008-08-20T17:32:00.004-05:00

People may wonder why I hate on America so much.

I call it "tough love."

One thing I do hate is America's obsession with guns.

The first Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Then, the second Amendment states:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The implicit idea being, that the second amendment protects the first (and vice versa, of course).

But then, things get complicated.

Can a gun owner open-carry or conceal-carry his firearm? This is a topic that Texans are very passionate over. But, it's just plain stupid, and it proves how stupid both Texans and Americans have become.

The reason why America's public schools suck is because centralized governments REQUIRE stupid people in order to wage political power.

We've become sheep in a land of a relative few shepherds.

And the guns just prove it.

So, go ahead America. argue about your right to carry a weapon intended to kill someone while at the same time you criminalize someone that carries a plant intended to heal.

You just prove your stupidity to the shepherds.

Say Hello to my Little Friends (reprise)

2008-08-20T01:00:00.003-05:00

Papaver somniferum- The Opium poppy. This plant was worshipped by central Asian cultures, and goddess statues devoted to the poppy were found in some of our earliest cities in the Fertile Crescent.

The plant in the picture grew from seeds purchased at an organic foods store for fifty cents. A test subject identified the active agents- morphine, and a complex array of other opiates. The human nervous system produces its own opiates in the form of endorphins.

These poppies are legal to cultivate in the U.S., although law enforcement may be prone to do some weeding. It blows my mind that junkies that sell their souls and homes to get high on heroine from terrorists in the middle east could simply grow their own botanically purer, and much, much safer drug in their own backyard. America is truly stranger than fiction.

Ipomoea tricolor- the Morning Glory. This plant was worshipped by the Aztecs and Toltects primarily, but also by the Maya. active agents- Lysergic acid mono-amide, or LSA, a chemical relative of LSD. This plant was discovered by the Zealous Spanish missionaries who tried to burn it out of Mesoamerican existence. They failed. It was rediscovered by the '60's, but Uncle Sam doesn't seem to be worried about it. This one is LEGAL to cultivate. The human nervous system produces serotonine, which is related to LSA. LSA molecules bind to serotonine receptors in the central nervous system.

Psychotria viridis- "chacruna"- this plant is deified in Amazonian, Andean, and Central American shamanic cultures. active agents- DMT. Previously, the FDA and the DEA thought DMT was a synthetic hallucinogen, like LSD. DMT is actually one of the most potent AND widespread botanical hallucinogens. DMT is a phototropic auxin; it regulates the circadian rhythms of plants. DMT amounts concentrated in the leaves and stems are highest in the morning and after sunset. Curiously, DMT is also produced in the pineal gland of the human (and mammalian) brain (AND it also regulates circadian rhythms in animals). In effect, although this plant, being a botanical producer of DMT, is questionably legal to cultivate, it doesn't matter, because both the cultivator of the plant and the law enforcement officer that might arrest the cultivator of this plant are producers of DMT, a Schedule 1 narcotic under the 1969 Controlled Substances Act.

Funny how poorly informed, poorly written, and dangerously outdated laws can fuck up important facts about life on Earth.

Salvia divinorum- there's a lot of bad press about this plant. Its a damn shame when heresay and paranoia suffice for facts in the media, but that's our media! Salvia divinorum was and is still worshipped by the rural folk of Central America and Oaxaca, Mexico. Active agents- salvinorin A and B. Toxicity is low, and the hallucinogenic effects are potent yet short lasting. Salvia divinorum, or Diviner's Mint, was and still is central to shamanic divination in southern Mexico. "Ska pastora", (The Leaf of the Shepherdess, another christianized name) is an important medicinal herb as well. The salvinorin terpenes are anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral. LEGAL to cultivate and consume. It's too bad the monkeys in congress want to ban this artifact of ancient horticulture because the disillusioned children of America want to get high. We just might have something to learn from this plant.

Passiflora edulis- Passionvine- worshipped by Mesoamericans like the Aztecs and Maya. The Spanish tried to alter the religious (or "satanic") significance of the vine, and so convinced the natives to call the plant by the Christianized name, "the Flower of the Passion". Passionvine is a mild CNS depressant. Active agents- Harmaline, beta carbolines: MAOI (mono-amine oxydase inhibitor), thus, the leaves and sap were used to amplify the effects of other plant hallucinogens. This plant is LEGAL to eat and cultivate, although it's use as a drug is still cautioned.

Datura inoxia- a very potent hallucinogen, causing acute delirium that can last for days. The person intoxicated on datura can not tell dreams or nightmares from reality. active agents- atropine, scopolamine, hyoscyamine. Datura was worshipped by native america tribes. It was used during puberty rites to prepare children for adult hood. Medicinally, datura was used as an anelgesic, and to relieve insect bites. The Maya produced powdered drug extracts from Datura that were used to paralyze sacrificial victims. Modern Mesoamerican witchcraft and fringe voodoo cults still use drug extracts of datura to poison, curse, enslave, and kill.

The Tropane Alkaloids of datura mimic the action of endogenous acetylcholine and bind to cholinergic receptors in the central nervous system. These receptors seem to regulate dream stages to some degree, yet so little is still known in cognitive neuroscience. So much to learn!

Datura is LEGAL to cultivate, yet illegal to eat. Datura is sold at many garden centers around the nation.

Brugmansia aurea- a potent hallucinogen, causing acute delirium for days on end. It also causes amnesia. Highly toxic. worshiped by the Inca, the Maya, and Amazonian tribes. The blooms and leaves were used in Andean, Amazonian, and Mayan mind control political tactics: powdered extracts were blown at sacrifice victims to paralyze them before a sacrifice; drug extracts were also used to enslave or poison "wrongdoers". Active agents- scopolamine, hyoscyamine (more tropane alkaloids, see DATURA). LEGAL to cultivate, illegal to eat. This plant is sold at garden centers all over the nation. You can get one at Home Depot!

Cannabis sativa- one of humanity's first cultivated crops. ancient humans used it as medicine, as food, as fibers for cultural works, clothing, rope, twine, and tools. It is hands down humanity's most useful crop. active agents- cannabinoids like, THC, CBD. THC is a vasodilator, thus improving blood circulation throughout the body. THC is also effective at dampening overactive nerves, (like in M.S., and Parkinson's Disease), and easing pain. It can help regulate appetites, relieve glaucoma, eczema, and headaches. CBD has been shown to have anti-tumor properties, shutting off the growth of cancerous growth. As a food, cannabis seeds and seed oil are high in essential fatty acids, protein, and trace micronutrients like iron and zinc. It can replace a seafood diet. Essential fatty acids are necessary for healing damaged tissue. In this sense, cannabis is an all around handy medicine to use. It has remarkably low toxicity, and is not chemically addictive like tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, heroine, or coffee.

Curiously, the human nervous system produces anandamide which is our own endogenous cannabinoid (see also the Human Endo-Cannabinoid System). It seems that this plant is not the only producer of the "illegal drug" THC. Every human brain is too! None the less, cannabis is still ILLEGAL to cultivate in the U.S.

Makes sense, don't it?

So, are these plants dangerous drugs? Are they sacred entheogens? Are they special ethnobotanicals that influence the development of human society?

Why do these plants exist? Did God create them? Why do they produce chemicals that function as neurotransmitters in the human central nervous system? Why do humans have neural receptors that bind with the drugs produced by these plants?

Why have they driven economies, religions, and wars throughout history?

And why is it that the really dangerous hallucinogenic drug-producing plants are legal to grow in the U.S., but the less toxic, more beneficial ones are illegal?

Seem backward?

What exactly is going on here...?

are you ready for the truth?

You can call me Brujo...

2008-08-20T00:45:00.002-05:00

I'm not content to stand in line and wait my turn like a good citizen. If I have to wait at all, it's probably not worth waiting for.

The pharmaceutical CEOs and the psychiatrists call me ADD.

The people that disagree with me call me crazy.

My professors call me a scholar.

Anthropologists would call me a postmodern shaman.

The Christians might call me an Anarchist. The Muslims might call me unfaithful.

The sleep therapists would probably call me a nightmare.

Law Enforcement would consider me a criminal, if they knew about me.

The Republicans wouldn't call me at all.

God calls me His creation.

I am a son, a loving husband, a scholar.

I am a gardener, a good salesman, and a plant doctor.

I am a musician, storyteller, and artist.

I am human, and as human, so much more.

But you,

you can call me Brujo.

ATLAS HUGGED

2008-08-17T18:52:00.005-05:00

If I ever met Ayn Rand, I'd tie her up and force her to listen to me rant for at LEAST four hours straight. I'd like to skip all that and just slap her silly, but I prefer to avoid violence and, well, just get to the point.

Atlas Shrugged. The world he carried rolled off. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then, the fucking world rolled back on top of him, killing him.

There. Now you don't have to read the damn book. Instead, read Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley. You'll thank me for it later.

I would like to slap Ayn Rand silly for writing that damn book because I know it is a favorite read in Washington D.C.

Thanks to Ayn Rand, we have a whole new political breed of short-sighted whimps.

Atlas failed. He shrugged off the world, weary and weak.

The world rolled back, and ATALS HUGGED. The world stopped.

WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?

2008-08-17T18:41:00.005-05:00

God, I hate that question.

What a stupid question.

Only a fool would matter-of-factly answer that question.

Why?

Because it's a loaded question that has NO ANSWER.

At least, no answer that a mere human can comprehend.

Let's reconsider the question:

Does life begin at conception?

Does life begin at ejaculation or ovulation?

Does life begin when something unmeasurable binds to the measurable?

How do you know?

Does life defy the laws of physics?

What is life?

Never mind how it begins. We can't answer that completely.

There are more important questions to consider.

An American Half-Time Speech

2008-08-14T23:12:00.006-05:00

PAY ATTENTION:

You are down by 9.5 trillion points (which, ironically, is the same amount as the 2008 national debt).

It's going to take a miracle to overcome this in the second half, but why stop believing now. One thing is for sure, God wants us to work for this. It's time to work.

You've lost your strong production base. Your agrarian economy is overspecialized and weak against a dynamically changing defense. The cost of your energy is skyrocketing, yet your wages have mostly fallen or remained flat. You can't think more than a week in advance. And you are eating shit for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

No wonder you suck.

You've also tied your offensive weapons up on the sidelines, and they are tired. How do you expect to keep up with the big dogs again?

Oh, and if I have to hear one more whiney story about overcrowded prisons, underfunded teachers and law enforcement, or the energy crisis, I'm going to PUKE! If you cry to me one more time about the cost of your healthcare, or the cost of your food, or your god-damned children that kill themselves to get high on your fucking pills, or the Mexican mafia that grows marijuana in the national parks, I'm going to retire. You lemmings can run right off the cliff without me.

(and I'll join the mexicans...)

So, America, the second half is in your hands.

You've got to make many changes, about the way you think, and about the way you act.

Now, stop being afraid of those things you don't know. Learn, and adapt. Then, you will win.

Get out there and show the remaining fans what you're made of...

or, you might as well leave the stadium.

Which is it?

are you a sucka, or a winna?

(cue: THEME from "RUDY")

PEACE?

2008-08-11T08:56:00.002-05:00

fuck it.

we need MORE WAR.

we need a massive, violent GLOBAL WAR to kill off all this sober-minded, power hungry WAR MONGERS.

Just get rid of them all, and knock the global population down by like 6 billion people.

HERE'S TO WAR! AND TO DYING FOR STUPID SHIT!

MORE WAR! MORE WAR! MORE WAR!

let the bodies hit the floor.

iReport

2008-08-09T21:08:00.002-05:00

1. people get "high" on cannabis because the plant produces secondary metabolites that mimic the action of cannabinoids produced in the human central nervous system. The human body produces its own cannabinoids (the endo-cannabinoid system), and the endogenous cannabinoid Anandamide binds to the same receptor as delta 9 THC (the active cannabinoid in Marijuana).

2. the cannabinoids of Cannabis sativa are active, not only in humans, but in most if not all other mammals. This suggests a co-evolutionary, symbiotic relationship between mammals and flowering plants like Cannabis.

3. anthropologists have proven the antiquity of the use of cannabis by human populations. Cannabis is one of humanity's oldest cultivated plants, and its range of uses as a botanical resource has shaped the progress of human civilization in many ways.

4. Cannabis has at least a 12,000 year history as a botanical resource for human populations. It has been a "dangerous drug" for almost seven decades during this time.

5. Cannabis has been and still can be used as a fiber for rope, clothing, canvas, and American flags. It can be used in construction to make bricks and timber. The oil can be converted into biodegradable biofuel, paint, skin lotion, and food. The cannabinoids of cannabis have many medical applications. All this, and it grows like a weed.

6. Cannabis does all this because humans have shaped its genome over the many millennia of our shared existence on Earth. Cannabis is a living artifact of ancient horticulture.

7. We have a lot to learn from this little plant.

8. Our blindness in these matters is NOT adaptive.

9. Learning to value this plant and use it effectively IS a great adaptive advantage in securing out future as a people, and a nation.

10. or, we can continue to support censorship, and bear the burdens of our ignorance.

The Cave

2008-08-07T21:04:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the Cave.

You will be living here for the rest of your life. In truth, you have never left the Cave. You have lived in this Cave your whole life and may never have realized it.

Now that you know you are in this Cave, isn't it time to find out what is outside of the Cave?

What is the light that tickles the eyes?

What is the sound that vibrates the ears?

What is the scent that floods the mind with lost memories?

What is the taste of delicious?

What is the touch of love?

What causes those shadows that define your existence?

Are you willing to find out?

It's About Time...

2008-07-30T12:06:00.002-05:00

Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use

(CNN) -- The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said Wednesday, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance.

Current laws targeting marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans, Frank said, flanked by legislators and representatives from advocacy groups.

"The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government's business," Frank said during a Capitol Hill news conference. "I don't think it is the government's business to tell you how to spend your leisure time."

The Massachusetts Democrat and his supporters emphasized that only the use -- and not the abuse -- of marijuana would be decriminalized if the resolution passes.

Allen St. Pierre, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, likened the proposal to current laws dealing with alcohol consumption. Alcohol use is permitted and the government focuses its law enforcement efforts on those who abuse booze or drive under its influence, he said.

"We do not arrest and jail responsible alcohol drinkers," he said.

St. Pierre said there were tens of million of marijuana smokers in the United States, including himself, and hundreds of thousands are arrested each year for medical or personal use.

There have been 20 million marijuana-related arrests since 1965, he said, and 11 million since 1990, and "every 38 seconds a marijuana smoker is arrested."

Rob Kampia, director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said marijuana arrests outnumber arrests for "all violent crimes combined," meaning that police are spending inordinate amounts of time chasing nonviolent criminals.

"Ending arrests is the key to marijuana policy reform," he said.

Reps. William Lacy Clay, D-Missouri, and Barbara Lee, D-California, said that in addition to targeting nonviolent offenders, U.S. marijuana laws also unfairly target African-Americans.

Clay said he did not condone drug use, but he opposes using tax dollars to pursue what he feels is an arcane holdover from "a phony war on drugs that is filling up our prisons, especially with people of color."

Too many drug enforcement resources are being dedicated to incarcerating nonviolent drugs users and not enough being done to stop the trafficking of narcotics into the United States, he said.

Being arrested is not the American marijuana smoker's only concern, said Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance Network. Those found guilty of marijuana use can lose their jobs, financial aid for college, their food stamp and welfare benefits or their low-cost housing.

The U.S. stance on marijuana, Piper said, "is one of the most destructive criminal justice policies in America today."

Calling the U.S. policy "inhumane" and "immoral," Lee said she has many constituents who are harassed or arrested for using or cultivating marijuana for medical purposes. California allows medical marijuana use, but the federal government does not, she explained.

House Resolution 5843, titled the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008, would allow "a very small number of individuals" suffering from chronic pain or illness to smoke marijuana with impunity. The legislation is cosponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.

According to NORML, marijuana can be used to treat a range of illnesses, including glaucoma, asthma, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and seizures.

Frank said there were about a dozen states that already had OK'd some degree of medical marijuana use and the federal government should stop devoting resources to arresting people who are complying with their state's laws.

In a shot at Republicans, Frank said it was strange that those who support limited government want to criminalize marijuana.

Asked if the resolution's passage would change his personal behavior, Frank quipped, "I do obey every law I vote for," but quickly said he did not use marijuana, nor does he encourage it.

"I smoke cigars. I don't think other people should do that. If young people ask me, I would advise them not to do it," he said.

If HR 5843 were passed by the House, marijuana smokers could possess up to 100 grams -- about 3½ ounces -- of cannabis without being arrested. It would also permit the "nonprofit transfer" of up to an ounce of marijuana.

The resolution would not affect laws forbidding growing, importing or exporting marijuana, or selling it for profit. The resolution also would not affect any state laws regarding marijuana use.

IDEAS - Revolutions

2008-07-28T01:03:00.005-05:00

There is no war.

There is no politic.

There are no governments.

There is no debt.

There is no wealth.

There are no McMansions.

There are no pills.

There is no gasoline.

There is no HD.

There is only the earth, and those constituents of life that make the earth "alive."

What are we to do in this world?

Will we still fight each other like the animals that we are in our quest to declare our hierarchic dominance?

Will we continue to let our material delusions influence the direction of our futures?

Might we finally take pause to consider the miracle of our meager existence?

Might we finally realize how deeply integrated we are within the matrices of life on Earth?

Might we finally return to the Earth and live the life that we were selectively designed to live?

Within the human mind, there are only Ideas.

There is no fear.

There is no hate

There is no freedom.

There is no cage.

They are only Ideas.

IDEAS Reloaded

2008-07-19T02:26:00.005-05:00

It all starts with Ideas.

A single seed can yield exponentially more seeds over time.

The mind is the brain's flower, ideas, the pollinator.

The truth is the Sun.

Life can be a garden, or a wilderness.

It all starts with Ideas.

A Conversation

2008-07-18T18:26:00.002-05:00

A dear friend of mine mentioned "the windmill".

"Get to close, and you'll get smacked."

But that would be stupid, for those that seek the weakness of the windmill are smart enough to take it down without getting smacked.

Don't forget, the truth is a powerful, dangerous thing. It rules everything, even if we can't see it. Outside of the truth, it is during those blind times that we become a danger to ourselves.

My friend states, "cause waves and you become a target."

I reply, "but counter waves can be stronger."

Even those that hold the bulls eye can be knocked off target, and let's face it, without the truth, they are on shaky ground anyway.

"I think of it as planting seeds of thought."

"but you planted a great BIG seed."

"yes."

My government started this war, this War on Truth. It's a good thing for my enemy that I live by grace alone. I am not violent, but a pacifist. I am not vengeful, but forgiving. I aspire to a greater morality, and it is a terrible shame that my government distorts my moral standard. I have turned the other cheek, more times than I can count, and I have gotten hurt ten times more than that.

There comes a time when force is required. My guns are ideas, and my flag is the truth.

And I can't forget the chewing gum...

healing

2008-07-17T23:34:00.010-05:00

Headaches. They were a weekly, and sometimes, daily occurrence for me. Sometimes, they would be so intense I would get sick. Sometimes Tylenol was not enough. Sometimes, even a nap wasn't enough.

Stress and Anxiety. I am a night owl, usually because the night is when my mind wakes up. The night is when I think the clearest, but sometimes, the night is when my mind races out of control. Psychologists might call this anxiety. I think my anxiety is the product of my neurological architecture, something psychologists have little understanding of. This is why I have set out to understand my own mind, a process that will surely take the rest of my life, only to remain incomplete even after my death. Somethings aren't easy to grasp, but this doesn't mean I shouldn't try.

Poor sleep. This is typically the result of anxiety, but not always. Sometimes, I get struck by a literary, artistic, or musical idea in the middle of the night. Whatever the cause, I have a hard time sleeping at night. The problem is, my work demands that I be awake in the morning. The end result is sleep deprivation, and usually, crankiness or blissfull euphoria.

Poor circulation. I am tall, and healthy, but sometimes, wounds on my external limbs fail to heal quickly. I have a healthy diet, but I experience extreme temperature feelings at my limbs, usually, this means a part of me feels too cold or hot.

A.D.D. I deny that this is a disorder in the first place, but, scientists have isolated genes that predict ADD-related behaviors in people, so, something is going on. Whatever it is, I have a hard time concentrating on anything that requires intense focus, like reading a book or repairing a keyboard. Consequently, I have a hard time learning in a linear fashion. I learn best through experience, something I had to experience to understand in the first place. Regardless of this, I still have a hard time functioning "normally" in our linear society, never mind meeting the demands of said linear society.

These are a few of my afflictions. I could list more, but at this point, there is no need. My point is that I no longer have these problems because I use cannabis in low doses everyday. Today, because I use cannabis, it is rare when I have a headache; my issues with anxiety, control, impatience are practically non existent; I can fall asleep when I want to, and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the demands of another day; my bodily-blood circulation is better due to the vaso-dilating properties of the cannabinoids in cannabis, my body recovers faster from the physical demands of my work, and any wounds I receive from work heal faster; and perhaps most importantly of all, my A.D.D. is all but gone. I can focus on any task and complete it, and I can set goals for myself and achieve them. I can write and record the songs that pop into my mind. I can read multiple books and remember what I want to be able to recall them in the future. I have a 4.0 gpa, and I am much more productive.

I can use this medicine as I choose, and I can stop with no negative consequences (unlike many "legal" drugs)... actually, when I stop taking this medicine, my "afflictions" begin to return.

The beauty of it all is that my medicine comes from a plant that God created (with a little help from the botanical antiquity of human cultivation). This medicine grows like a weed, and no one can profit from it (not even those nasty drug dealers in the pharmaceutical industry). This medicine is free. It is God's blessing to us. We are fools for not recognizing this.

Cough syrup can intoxicate when consumed in large quantities. Most people don't get high on cough syrup because it is generally understood to be a medicine, and let's face it, there are better options.

If Uncle Sam would only admit that cannabis is a medicine, perhaps people would understand how to use it for what it is, and I wouldn't be a criminal for healing myself. Maybe my government doesn't want me to have more control over my health. Maybe my government doesn't want me to have more control over my own mind. Maybe my government just wants to save face, or worse. Maybe my government still protects slavery.

Whatever the case, I'll continue to flip the bird at the political liars that pull the strings in this country. It's just so obvious, it's painful... the lies, that is.

Let the healing never end.

PIECES

2008-07-15T13:58:00.004-05:00

Those that fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.

Get over the cliche. There are lessons to learn.

All "great" societies collapse. Societies rise and fall depending on how they regulate energy and waste relative to an ever shifting climate. Those societies that do so successfully grow and develop in compounding complexity. Those societies that fail to manage energy and waste typically collapse under the weight of their own success. This is a profound truth in human social development that our American society has yet to fully grasp.

Our climate is changing. It always has. If we fail to adapt, America too will collapse.

So how do we fit the broken pieces together to ensure the future success of our society? The answer requires a vision that most Americans are not epistemologically equipped to understand.

You are fortunate, dear reader, in that I am giving you this answer free of charge. I have no profit margin. I have no financial bottom line. I offer no pyramid scheme, and no initial financial investment. What I am telling you is that the answers to our problems are locked away in our minds, awaiting access, but hidden to us if we do not look deeply and sincerely.

To ensue the future success of our society, we must manage our energy resources and waste byproducts. We must adapt to the ever-changing climate. This is our ontological bottom line. The success of our future depends on how well we understand our past.

Today, we face great economic instability. We have collectively placed our eggs in the wrong baskets. Our economic survival tokens are losing value. The cost of living is skyrocketing. The vehicles of death are increasing. We have mishandled our natural energy resources, and we are polluting the environment that sustains our lives with the synthetic fecal matter of our own "civil" waste. As the climate changes, we are left wondering what is going on, clueless about how we might adapt successfully.

We fight wars to maintain access to oil. We lead the world in prison incarcerations. We lead the world in mental illness, addiction, and illicit drug use. Our for profit medicines fail to heal. Our eduction systems leave far too many behind to fall into the cracks of the criminal underworld. Our families and communities break down, leading us down the paths of gang violence, social paranoia, and economic division. We have become our own terrible enemies. At this rate, America has no future.

Where is our fresh, clean water? Where is our fresh air? Where does our food come from? Where do we find the energy to fuel our bodies, our homes, and our cars? Where is our waste going, and how does it effect the viability of our natural resources?

We reap what we sow.

What we must do to survive our own belligerent existence is to sow the seeds of natural energy, and use our waste in a manner that enhances our natural resources. We must understand that culture can cause sickness, and that culture can create criminals. We must return to the earth, for the earth is the origin of our existence.

The future of our society depends on how we use plants. It's that simple. We must cherish these botanical resources and do everything we can to enhance our integrated connection with the earth's flora. We are human because of our heritage as botanical cultivators. We must return to this paradigm if we are to ensure a successful future.

This means removing our arcane, misconceived prohibitions of one of our most important botanical resources, Cannabis. By doing so, we ensure a strong botanical basis for agriculture, industry, food, and medicine. Cannabis is not a cure all, but it is an easy first step in our quest to return to the Earth to ensure the viability of the American future. Cannabis was one of humanity's earliest cultivated crops. We must let our past shape our future if we are to have a bright one.

Ignore the misconceived hype. The truth awaits our recognition. There is no future with out truth. The future is built, piece by piece, with the applied knowledge of human history.

This is how we begin to heal the present, and secure the future.

BROKEN

2008-07-14T01:53:00.006-05:00

There is something beautiful about allowing yourself to be broken. Perhaps its the realization that after being broken, the self is free to be reassembled in a stronger, purer frame of mind. This is no easy task.

All things are not what they seem. All things are more than they seem. How far are you willing to look to understand the difference?

Peering into the unknown is not for the faint of heart, yet this process is still necessary if we are to force progress in an entropic world.

As for me, I have learned that the society we call home is likewise broken. In America today, the basic family unit that is fundamental to social progress is in decline. Our education systems are failing our children. Our healthcare systems are feeding on the weak and inducing more sickness than it can heal. Our political systems are enslaving free minds. Our judicial systems are incarcerating those that get left behind. This is America today, a land that we created and perpetuate because we are unwilling to expand our vision and our understanding of human nature.

Broken means nothing if we are not willing to pick up the pieces to restore and experience the bigger picture.

In any given society, there will always be those individuals that, due to the genetic architecture of cognitive function, simply don't fit in. This should be obvious, being that every human mind is unique. Mainstream culture is a homogenizing force, and there will always be those that resist homogenization. What are we as a society to do with these individuals?

In ancient societies, these people became healers. They learned to heal the mind of the broken pieces with the plants of the natural environment in a manner that equipped them to re-integrate with their home society to heal those on the verge of becoming lost themselves. Today, those that reject cultural homogenization typically become the unwanted: the homeless, the drug addicts, the criminals, the hippies. They become the unwanted.

As a christian, I am drawn to these people. As shaman, I yearn to heal these people. As a human, I am broken. In being broken, I am empowered to fit the pieces back together in a bigger, more complete picture of human ontology. As an outcast, I am alone, but at the same time, my vision is stronger.

I am broken. What am I to do to heal myself?

I reject the homogenizing medicines of mainstream society. As far as I'm concerned, the world can continue to flush the synthetic, for profit pills of false medicine down the shitter. As far as I'm concerned, all the false theories of western psychology can rot in the landfills of the enslaved unconscious. My path is founded in nature, among the plants of God's creation. I have healed myself with cannabis, despite the misconceived legalities of my government. Uncle Sam can go to hell (and if you haven't been paying attention, he is well on his way).

I will not be a criminal for using cannabis to heal myself and others. I will fight any force that attempts to criminalize me for using one of our oldest natural medicines to heal the sicknesses of society. I reject the misinformation and the lies. I seek the truth, and I know the truth is on my side.

Broken is beautiful as long as the completion of the big picture is the end result. Are we brave enough to see it?

Crawling

2008-07-14T01:25:00.000-05:00

Crawling in my skin
These wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real

There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self control I fear is never ending
Controlling

I can't seem
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
(Without a sense of confidence I’m convinced that there’s just too much pressure to take)
I've felt this way before
So insecure

Crawling in my skin
These wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real

Discomfort, endlessly has pulled itself upon me
Distracting, reacting
Against my will I stand beside my own reflection
It's haunting how I can't seem...

To find myself again
My walls are closing in
(Without a sense of confidence I’m convinced that there’s just too much pressure to take)
I've felt this way before
So insecure

Crawling in my skin
These wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real

There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self control I fear is never ending
Controlling

-L.P.

Nocturnal Transmissions

2008-07-10T00:03:00.002-05:00

Night falls.

The stars, too numerous to count, awaken the imagination, and the demons come out.

Perhaps, the nocturnal lack of light triggers a chemical paradigm shift in the mind. Cholinergeric tropane alkaloids flood the brain, blurring the lines between reality and dreams. Melatonine tryptamine alkaloids drive the brain into states of consciousness where the fantastic becomes real. Perhaps...

At night, the phantoms of the imagination are unleashed, and anything becomes possible. Ghosts walk the earth, demons hide in the corners, and nightmares take on new life.

At night, stars become constellations. Constellations become map signs; map signs become gods.

During the day, we work and play. Plants are harvested for food and medicine. Money is made. We plan wars, build nuclear weapons, and prepare for the future. But at night, all bets are off. At night, we must confront our darkest dreams. At night, we must confront the horrors of thought. At night, we are vulnerable, mortal, and profoundly aware of that thin line between sanity and insanity, dreams and reality.

What is it about the night that reaches down into our very souls to stir that which we have struggled so desperately to hide in the light of day?

For most, the night is a time for seeking safety, shelter, and sleep. For the few, the night is when meaning becomes tangible, or rather, so intangible so as to beg for intimate contact. I am one of the few seekers of the night. For me, life is obtuse until night falls. At night, reality becomes clear.

Is it the nocturnal neurotransmitters? Is it that daring spirit that challenges fate to demand that there is more to this life than just walking in the light?

Who knows? All I know is that we will never know unless we venture forth and explore the realms of the nocturnal mind. For it is in these realms that our darkest, most ancient secrets lay hidden to define our very being.

When Shall I Be Free?

2008-07-04T16:46:00.002-05:00

When I shall cease to be.

IDEAS

2008-06-28T21:12:00.005-05:00

It all begins with Ideas.

It ALL begins with ideas.

For without ideas,

all is nothing more than cosmological radiation.

IDEA:

Matter is Energy, and Energy is Mass multiplied by the square of the speed of Light.

IDEAS:

The Brain regulates the Body. The Body is Matter multiplied by DNA. When the Body fails, The Mind becomes absent. The Mind is energy multiplied by DNA.

IDEAS + 1:
DNA shapes the Mind. DNA is matter. DNA is shaped by the Environment. The Environment shapes the Mind.

IDEAS - 1:
Culture programs the Mind. Culture is Information. Information programs the Mind. The censorship of Information enslaves the Mind.

IDEAS + 1:
Information only exists in the Mind of an Observer. Observers are designed by DNA. The Tools of observation are designed by DNA and Culture. Information is Quanta. Quanta is latently Universal.

IDEAS - 1:
Observer's are shaped by DNA. DNA is shaped by the Environment. The Environment is Entropy. Observer's are shaped by Chaos.

IDEA 0:
It all begins with Ideas.

It ALL begins with ideas.

For without ideas,

all is nothing more than cosmological radiation.

NORML news

2008-06-23T21:33:00.002-05:00

Drug Czar Responds To NORML's Refutation Of 'Potent Pot' Claim

Washington, DC: NORML's criticism of an Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) report alleging that the average strength of cannabis is now at an all-time high has drawn a heated response from the Drug Czar's office.NORML's critique, which appeared in an essay on the HuffingtonPost.com as well as in select newspapers, countered the White House's claim that today's marijuana averages 9.6 percent THC (pot's primary psychoactive component) or is particularly dangerous to health.

Armentano wrote, "[B]y the University of Mississippi's (which conducted the study) own admission, the average THC in domestically grown marijuana - which comprises the bulk of the US market - is less than five percent, a figure that's remained unchanged for nearly a decade." He continued, "THC - regardless of potency - is non-toxic and incapable of causing a fatal overdose. Currently, doctors may legally prescribe a FDA-approved pill that contains 100 percent THC, and curiously, nobody at the University of Mississippi or at the Drug Czar's office seems particularly concerned about it." Armentano concluded, "If lawmakers … were really concerned about potential risks posed by potent marijuana, they would support regulating the drug, so that its potency would be known to the consumer."

The Drug Czar's office responded to NORML's criticisms on their Pushing Back website by falsely accusing NORML of seeking to "legalize [all illegal] drugs." The ONDCP also argued, oddly, that the data cited in their report regarding the average potency of domestically seized pot was likely inaccurate.

"Name me another agency that publishes data, but then denies the validity of said data the moment somebody highlights it," Armentano said. "This sort of slipshod research would receive a failing grade on a high-school term paper. It's an embarrassment that the most well-funded drug policy agency in America would engage in such an admitted act of duplicity."

NORML's Deputy Director and Drug Czar John Walters continued their debate on Wednesday on the nationally syndicated Dr. Drew Pinsky radio show.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of NORML's essay, "Don't buy the potent pot hype," is available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-armentano/dont-buy-the-potent-pot-h_b_107458.html.

Teen Pot Use Falling In States With Medical Marijuana Laws

Washington, DC: States that have enacted legislation authorizing the use of medical cannabis by qualified patients have not experienced an increase in the drug's use by the general population, according to a report issued this week by the Marijuana Policy Project and co-authored by NORML Advisory Board Member Mitch Earleywine.

Among the twelve states that have legalized the use and cultivation of medical cannabis, all but one (New Mexico) have experienced an overall decline in teen marijuana use since the enactment of their medi-pot laws. (Data was unavailable for New Mexico, which passed its law last year.) In seven of the twelve states, marijuana use among young people declined at rates that exceeded the national average.

"Opponents of medical use of marijuana regularly argue that such laws 'send the wrong message to children,' but there is just no sign of that effect in the data," said Earleywine. "In every state for which there's data, teen marijuana use has gone down since the medical marijuana law was passed, often a much larger decline than nationally."

A previous 2005 review of medical cannabis laws and their impact on use reported similar findings, noting that teen use in California had fallen nearly 50 percent since the passage of that state's medi-pot law in 1996. A 2002 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded that state medical marijuana laws were operating primarily as voters and legislators had intended and had not led to widespread abuses among the general population.

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, "Marijuana use by young people: the impact of state medical marijuana laws," is available online at: http://www.mpp.org/assets/pdfs/pdf/TeenUseReport_0608.pdf.

Medical Pot Use Not Associated With “Serious” Side Effects, Study Says

Montreal, Canada: The medical use of cannabis is not associated serious negative side effects, according to a meta-analysis published this week in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMAJ).

Investigators at McGill University Health Centre and McGill University in Montreal and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver reviewed 23 clinical investigations of medicinal cannabinoid drugs (typically oral THC or liquid cannabis extracts) and eight observational studies conducted between 1966 and 2007. Authors concluded that subjects given medical cannabis experienced a slightly higher risk of experiencing "nonserious adverse events," specifically dizziness, compared to non-using controls.

By contrast, investigators "did not find a higher incidence rate of serious adverse events associated with medical cannabinoid use." Responding to the study, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: "Cannabinoids possess a safety profile that is unmatched by virtually every other available prescription drug or over-the-counter medication, including aspirin. To think that almost no serious adverse side effects have been associated with drug's medicinal use over a 30-year period is remarkable. What other medications can make such a claim?"

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, "Adverse effects of medical cannabinoids: a systematic review," appears in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

hey DEA, FUCK YOU!

2008-06-22T18:03:00.003-05:00

A BRAVE NEW AMERICA

2008-06-18T10:55:00.005-05:00

SCHOOLS' BACKING OF BEHAVIOR DRUGS COMES UNDER FIRE
By KATE ZERNIKE AND MELODY PETERSEN
Published: August 19, 2001
NY TIMES

Some of Ritalin's competitors are breaking with 30-year-old international marketing restrictions to advertise directly to parents, selling the idea that drugs may be the answer to their children's problems in school.At the same time, state legislatures are moving to prevent schools from recommending or requiring that parents put their children on medication.
(snip)
The legislative push is a reaction to what its advocates call overprescription of the drugs. They say an excessive reliance on Ritalin and several competing drugs is driving parents away from traditional forms of discipline and has created a growing, illegal traffic in what are potent and dangerous speed-like stimulants. Last year, doctors wrote almost 20 million monthly prescriptions for the stimulants, according to IMS Health, a health care information company. Most of those prescriptions were written for children, especially boys. The drugs had sales last year of $758 million, 13 percent more than in 1999.
(snip)
The problems associated with these drugs have escalated. The Drug Enforcement Administration says Ritalin and other stimulants are among the most frequently stolen prescription drugs. Some students are crushing and snorting pills for a speed-like high; in Orem, Utah, an elementary school principal was sentenced to 30 days in jail after he stole his students' Ritalin pills and replaced them with sugar pills.
(snip)
In Millbrook, N.Y., Patricia Weathers said her son's school told her to put him on Ritalin in first grade. By fourth grade, he was showing signs of severe anxiety, she said, chewing his clothes and paper. When Mrs. Weathers took him off the drugs, she said, the school called the state's office of child protective services and accused her of medical neglect. ''You have the school psychologist, the teachers, the principal, all bombarding you, saying this is the only way to go,'' she said. ''I fell for it, and I believe most parents fall for it. They want to do what's right for their child, and if the professionals are telling them this is right, you think, 'They must be right.' '' She, like many parents who think Ritalin is overprescribed, complain that there is no scientific basis for the diagnosis of the disorders for which it is prescribed. ''You can't tell me they all have this brain disorder during the school year, when during the summer they're fine,'' said Mrs. Weathers, who now instructs her son at home.

Correcting Common Myths About ADHD
ADHDinfo

Myth:
Poor parenting is responsible for ADHD behaviors in children.

Fact:
ADHD is a physical disorder caused by differences in how the child's brain works. Anxiety-producing factors, such as family conflicts or disruptions, can aggravate the disorder, but they do not cause it.

ADHD is NOT a physical disorder. ADHD is a false disease constructed by scientists that know very little about how a child's brain works. The cognitive aspects of "ADHD" are actually adaptations to certain kinds of environmental habitats.

Myth:
Children treated with stimulant medications will become addicted or will be more likely to abuse other drugs.

Fact:
Stimulant medications are not addictive when used as directed. Studies have shown adequate treatment of ADHD may reduce the risk of substance abuse.

NOT A FACT. Most prescription drugs taken for ADHD require a "step down" period when dosage is gradually reduced to avoid unpleasant withdrawl symptoms.

Stimulant Drugs for ADHD and ADD
those ADHD drugs!

Since 1991 prescriptions for all drugs to treat ADHD have quintupled. This year about six million children, roughly one child out of every eight, will take Ritalin or other forms of methylphenidate. The number of stimulants prescribed for children 2 to 4 has increased 200% to 300% between 1991 and 1995. Studies show that stimulants cause especially severe reactions in young children. Since there are no good studies, no one knows what it does to the development of the very young child's brain.

First it is important to realize that all of the stimulant drugs prescribed for ADHD/ADD are closely related to some illegal street drugs. These include dextroamphetamine (dexedrine) (street name: "dexies"), methamphetamine (street name: "crystal meth"), and, of course, cocaine. We imprison people for making drugs very similar to the drugs we prescribe to our ADHD children.

A research report in the Archives of General Psychiatry states, "Cocaine, which is one of the most reinforcing and addicting of the abused drugs, has pharmacological actions that are very similar to those of methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta), which is now the most commonly prescribed psychotropic medicine for children in the U.S."

SLATE
New World Disorder
WAS ADHD AN EVOLUTIONARY ASSET?
By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, June 12, 2008, at 12:52 PM ET

Is ADHD a disease?
The U.S. government says it is. So does the professional Diagnostic & Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. The condition's very name incorporates this assumption: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Lots of kids with ADHD have trouble functioning in modern society. But what if society were different? What if it were structured so that having ADHD was actually an advantage? This isn't some futuristic thought experiment. A new study suggests that this ADHD-friendly world may actually be part of our past.
(snip)
The study, led by Dan Eisenberg of Northwestern University and published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, examined a Kenyan tribe called the Ariaal. Part of the tribe has recently settled into an agricultural community. Another part remains nomadic. The tribesmen were tested for DRD4 7R, a genetic variant that, Eisenberg notes, "has been linked to greater food and drug cravings, novelty-seeking, and ADHD symptoms." He and his colleagues report:
DRD4 7R+ genotypes were associated with indices of better nutritional status among nomads, particularly higher fat free mass, but worse indices in the settled individuals. This suggests that the 7R allele confers additional adaptive benefits in the nomadic compared to sedentary context.
This difference, the authors report, is "consistent with past findings of higher 7R allele frequencies in nomadic populations around the world."
(snip)
Increased impulsivity, ADHD-like traits, novelty-seeking like traits, aggression, violence and/or activity levels may help nomads obtain food resources, or exhibit a degree of behavioral unpredictability that is protective against interpersonal violence or robberies. … It might be that the attention spans conferred by the DRD4/7R+ genotype allow nomadic children to more readily learn effectively in a dynamic environment (without schools), while the same attention span interferes with classroom learning in Songa, the settled community. 7R+ boys might develop into warriors (the life-stage of an Ariaal male that lies between childhood and manhood) and men who can more effectively defend against livestock raiders, perhaps through a reputation of unpredictable behavior that inspires fear. Among 7R+ men in the settled community of Songa, such tendencies might be less well suited to practicing agriculture and selling goods at market. It might also be that higher activity levels in 7R+ nomads are translated into increased food production, while such activity levels in settled men are a less efficient use of calories in food production.
(snip)
I don't know whether the speculated reasons for the gene's benefits will pan out. But the benefits do seem real. And that finding suggests two things. First, we should be careful about designating diseases and disease genes. Traits that are harmful in one setting can be helpful in another. Advantages or "defects" that we think of as natural may actually be products of our cultural decisions. As Eisenberg puts it, we might "begin to view ADHD as not just a disease but something with adaptive components."
Second, our society may be the wrong place to assess a gene's evolutionary harm or benefit. As the authors note, "[N]on-industrialized or subsistence environments … may be more similar to the environments where much of human genetic evolution took place."
(snip)
The lesson of the Ariaal study is simply that society can adapt to genes instead of the other way around.

*********************************************

DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?!!!!

Existential Patriotism

2008-06-18T01:20:00.007-05:00

I hate fascists.

You know, those government officials that deny the facts of human history to maintain a corrupted and inhumane status quo?

The same fascists that sit in polished rooms in Washington D.C. and in state capitals around the 50 states and pretend they are doing what's best for the nation. They must pretend in order sucker we the citizens into letting them chip away at our basic human dignity until we are nothing but trendy, underpaid consumers eating shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I hate fascists. I don't like to use the word hate all that much, but I hate fascists. As a pacifist and proponent of non-violence, I regret to admit that I would enjoy watching my corrupt government collapse in another cloud of smoke.

Perhaps that's extreme, but extreme is relative.

For me, extreme is founding a nation on the "inalienable" principles of civil liberty, while at the same time enslaving an entire population based on the color of one's skin, and then becoming rich on the backs of those slaves.

For me, extreme is a nation going to war with itself to resolve the conflicting issue of civil liberty versus slavery.

For me, extreme is adopting laws like Jim Crow that establish an inequality of law among the citizens of a "free" nation depending on the color of a citizen's skin.

For me, extreme is dropping two fission atomic bombs on major foreign population centers.

For me, extreme is building an arsenal of weapons, of which any one of them may potentially poison the Earth thus rendering it inhospitable to all life for hundreds of years.

For me, extreme is banning some of humanity's oldest medicines, and incarcerating the sick people that possess or use them, while at the same time, running opium and cocaine into strategic population centers to undermine civil resistance.

For me, extreme is when a government manipulates the facts of a political theater to start a needless war.

For me, extreme is when the belligerent acts of a government results in the death of thousands of innocent people.

For me, extreme is starting a false war and then looking the other way when the blood begins to run.

I look forward to the day when something our government does flies back to take the government out.

It's not like I hate America. Not at all. In truth, I'm actually more inclined to believe that the America I was taught to believe in NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Then again, I believe in human dignity. I believe in the freedom of thought as it is expressed through religion, through speech and the press, through art, and through all the other facets of human consciousness. I believe in pursuing the truth, even though I understand that i will never fully know it. I believe in reason, compassion, but I also believe that I must stand up for what I believe in when the going gets tough.

guess America does exist somewhere afterall...

then again,

maybe I am nothing.

Datura tales part 3

2008-06-16T19:51:00.001-05:00

Datura tales part 2

2008-06-16T19:46:00.000-05:00

Datura tales part 1

2008-06-16T19:38:00.002-05:00

"it is the fourth most feared botanical on this planet"

"it's growth is widespread"

"it can kill you. you can die easily"

YET, it is still legal.

At one time, this plant was used by Native Americans as a medicine, vehicle for divination, and as a rite of passage for children entering adulthood.

but for some reason...

our society is ignorant of the traditional uses of this plant.

Hmm, I wonder why...

A Declaration of Reason

2008-06-16T11:58:00.007-05:00

It is a fact that between 70% - 90% of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived directly or indirectly through plants and plant metabolites, depending on how one defines the terms. Before humans had modern science, humans obtained medicines from plants. Plants are the basis of the entire food chain, and how they are used by humans influences the evolution of both humans and plants. Yet, there are still many more question than there are answers. For example, why do botanical metabolites like THC, DMT, LSA, Psylocibine, Mescaline, and Opiates bind to pre-existing neuro-receptors in the central nervous system? Why is the human central nervous system genetically equipped to accommodate plant metabolites? Why do plants produce metabolites that function as neurotransmitters in the central nervous system?

I am seeking answers to these questions. I find it offensive that the 1970 U.S. Controlled Substances Act and the 1989 Texas Controlled Substances Act prohibit the scientific investigation of these cannabinoid metabolites in America. I find it even more offensive that this poorly written, poorly informed, and grossly destructive act of legislation acts to censor science, medicine, and the economy in America. But what I find most offensive is that both my Grandmothers, and my maternal grandfather died of diseases that were treatable with cannabis based medicines. Right now, my father-in-law has Multiple Sclerosis. My wife has eczema. These diseases are also treatable with cannabis sativa and cannabis indica. It utterly disgusts me that my nation would lie to its citizens about a plant that has been beneficially used as a medicine in human society since humans first cultivated these plants many thousands of years ago.

The 1989 Texas Controlled Substances Act is a misinformed, piece of legislation that requires reform. Section 481.002, line 26, defines “Marihuana” as Cannabis sativa L. The superior medical cannabis plant is not Cannabis sativa L, but rather, Cannabis indica, which is not defined in the Texas Controlled Substances Act. Cannabis indica is a genetically distinct species different from Cannabis sativa L. Cannabis indica is native to central Asia, while Cannabis sativa L is native to Europe. Yet, due to the alarming rate of marijuana arrests, law enforcement is not equipped to distinguish between Cannabis sativa L and Cannabis indica. Furthermore, line 26 states that “all parts” of the Cannabis sativa L plant are illegal. However, across the state of Texas, organic food stores sell HEMP SEED OIL as a nutritional food supplement. One tablespoon of Hemp seed oil contains 2.5 grams of Omega three fatty acids. This essential fatty acid can not be manufactured in the human body, yet the human body requires this protein complex to heal scarred or wounded tissue and to produce and regenerate healthy tissue cells. According to Section 481.002 line 26C, “oil or cake made from the seeds of the plant” are illegal in Texas. The reality is that this law is flawed. Hemp seed oil from the Cannabis sativa L plant is distributed, sold, and consumed in Texas. One can find hemp seed oil at Whole Foods and other supermarkets that provide natural, organic dietary supplements. The distribution, possession, and consumption of Hemp seed oil is protected under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Section 481.033 states that, “A nonnarcotic substance is excluded from Schedules I through V if the substance may lawfully be sold over the counter without a prescription, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. Section 301 et seq.). The Texas Controlled Substances Act fails to define both Cannabis sativa L and Cannabis indica as a narcotic substance under Section 4881.002 line 29.

There is much debate concerning whether or not Hemp Seed Oil contains THC. The oil itself contains many cannabinoids, with trace levels of THC present. During oil extraction, external shell husks may occasionally contaminate the seed oil with higher levels of THC. Hemp seed oil manufacturers on the West Coast and in Canada have taken precautionary washing steps to minimize the presence of THC in the oil. However, consumers of hemp seed products have occasionally tested positive for THC in drug tests. In 1998, a military court-martial jury aquitted U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Kevin Boyd of testing positive for marijuana on a drug test. The Marine had been supplementing his diet with hemp seed-based supplements.

One does not need to look hard to find state and federally supported medical and dietary uses of cannabis-based products. The Texas Controlled Substances Act, Section 481.002 line(16) states, “"Drug" means a substance, other than a device or a component, part, or accessory of a device, that is: (A) recognized as a drug in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, official National Formulary, or a supplement to either pharmacopoeia or the formulary; (B) intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or animals; (C) intended to affect the structure or function of the body of man or animals but is not food; or (D) intended for use as a component of a substance described by Paragraph (A), (B), or (C).” Under the Texas and U.S. Controlled Substances Acts, “marihuana”, i.e. Cannabis sativa L., is defined and scheduled as an addictive substances with a propensity for abuse and containing no medicinal attributes (Texas C.S.A Section 481.035). The historical, scientific, ethnographic, and ethnobotanical facts suggest the opposite. “Marihuana” is considered by many historians, patients, doctors, and scientists to be one of humanity’s oldest cultivated medicinal plants. Cannabis sativa L, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis have all been cultivated by humans and used by human culture as medicine and fiber for many thousands of years.

Section 481.035 (FINDINGS) states, “(a) The commissioner shall place a substance in Schedule I if the commissioner finds that the substance: (1) has a high potential for abuse; and(2) has no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or lacks accepted safety for use in treatment under medical supervision.” However, California, Oregon, Washinton, and nine other states have sanctioned the use medical cannabis for therapeutic purposes. Clear legal precedents do exist for the medical attributes of cannabis. How can our government deny this history and civil establishment to define “marihuana” as a non-medical plant with a propensity for abuse? To do so is a logically flawed exercise beyond reason. This ultimately threatens to undermine the ideals of our state and federal constitutions.

Section 481.034 line (d) states, “In making a determination regarding a substance, the commissioner shall consider:(1) the actual or relative potential for its abuse;(2) the scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known;(3) the state of current scientific knowledge regarding the substance; (4) the history and current pattern of its abuse;(5) the scope, duration, and significance of its abuse;(6) the risk to the public health;(7) the potential of the substance to produce psychological or physiological dependence liability; and (8) whether the substance is a controlled substance analogue, chemical precursor, or an immediate precursor of a substance controlled under this chapter.” It is clear that the “commissioner’s” position on “marihuana” stands contrary to the scientific, historical, and cultural heritage of cannabis use among human populations.

Section 481.106 (CLASSIFICATION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE
ANALOGUE) states, “For the purposes of the prosecution of an offense under this subchapter involving the manufacture, delivery, or possession of a controlled substance, Penalty Groups 1, 1-A, and 2 include a controlled substance analogue that: (1) has a chemical structure substantially similar to the chemical structure of a controlled substance listed in the applicable penalty group; or (2) is specifically designed to produce an effect substantially similar to, or greater than, a controlled substance listed in the applicable penalty group.” This section of the Texas Controlled Substances Act criminalizes all human citizens. It is a fact of human physiology that the central nervous system produces Anandmide, a close molecular analogue of Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannabidinol. Anandamide is an endogenous cannabinoid in the human body. The human Endo-Cannabinoid system is major regulatory system in the human body. Does this section of legislation exclude endogenous cannabinoids? This is unclear. What is clear is that the human nervous system produces molecular analogues of DMT, Lysergic acid amide, morphine, phenylethamines, and amphetamines. By making the analogues of plant metabolites illegal, Congress has made every central nervous system illegal as well.

THC binds to specific cannabinoid receptors in the central nervous system. Anandamide binds to these same receptors and exhibits similar neurological effects. The human central nervous system does NOT distinguish between THC (the external metabolic cannabinoid) and Anandamide (the endogenous metabolic cannabinoid). If the central nervous system can not distinguish between these molecules, how can a drug test?

U.S. Representative from Texas, Ron Paul, states “As a medical doctor, I have a particular interest in this issue. Please be assured, I will oppose any and all attempts to use federal power to prevent the people of any state from adopting laws legalizing the use of medical marijuana. I also oppose the use of federal funds to finance the "drug war," and particularly the outrageous attacks on those who use marijuana for medical reasons. I think it is important to emphasize that the federal government has no constitutional authority to intervene in or regulate the medical or drug industries. Moreover, the federal government is prohibited by the Constitution (via the ninth and tenth amendments) from meddling in doctor/patient relationships. With that understanding, I can certainly agree that medical marijuana researchers and drug companies alike should receive "equal and fair treatment" from the federal government. Additionally, I would agree that there should be no federal ban on medical studies. This is why I am an original cosponsor of the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act, which restores the ability to make decisions about medical marijuana to the states. In recent years, our federal government has abandoned individual liberty and states' rights in the name of a federal "war on drugs." However, constitutionally, there are only three federal crimes. These are treason against the United States, piracy on the high seas, and counterfeiting. The federal government's role in law enforcement must be limited to these constitutionally federal crimes and should certainly not extend to the doctor's office. I will continue my attempts to educate my colleagues that ours is a federal government of limited powers, restricted by the United States Constitution and the too-often-forgotten Bill of Rights.” (please see attached letter).

Cannabis as an herbal medicine has a four thousand year history of recorded medicinal use. Cannabis has been used for medicinal and spiritual purposes in the ancient cultures of Europe, China, India, Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East. It is considered to be a divine sacrament according to Hindus and Buddhists, and a blessing from God according to Coptic Christians, Rastafarians, and Sufi Muslims.

The government of the United States has already investigated any negative side effects of cannabis use and found little evidence to justify the classification of marijuana as a schedule 1 substance. A 1925 tribunal by the U.S. Army Medical Corps in Panama concluded that marijuana posed no “appreciable deleterious influence on the person using it”. The 1944 New York City Mayors Committee on Marihuana found that cannabis was not chemically addicting, that its smoke does not constitute a social hazard, and that its use is not detrimental to the health of the user, even over long periods of time. The 1973 Shafer Commission came to a similar conclusion, and suggested the decriminalization of the possession of marijuana. In 1988, after viewing hundreds of government documents related to marijuana substance abuse, DEA judge Francis Young stated that, “marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substance known to man”.

In 1975, anthropologist Vera Rubin, under the funding of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, published a report entitled “Ganja in Jamaica” that investigated the potential dangers of the frequent short-term or long-term use of marijuana among the people of Jamaica. The study concluded that marijuana use was responsible for the decrease in alcohol consumption within the population, that the long-term use of marijuana had no hazardous effects on mental or physical health, that there was no link between marijuana and crime or harsher drug use, and that the open-environment of marijuana use among Jamaican communities created cultural control mechanisms that governed the drug’s use. These taxpayer-funded investigations resonate with the conclusions of scientific investigations spanning decades of research with good reason.

Medicinally, Cannabis is very healthy. Cannabis seed oil is high in essential fatty acids like Omega-3 and Omega-6, and protein, all of which are necessary to the human body for building strong cells, and more importantly, healthy nervous and brain tissue. Cannabis oil and resin can be used topically to treat bruises, small infections, eczema, arthritis, body aches, and many kinds of pain. Cannabis oil and resin has a very low toxicity and can be used internally to alleviate or treat glaucoma, stress and anxiety, depression, insomnia, epilepsy, and post traumatic stress disorder, as well as to treat many of the symptoms of debilitating disorders like AIDS, and Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s Disease. Furthermore, the cannabinoids of marijuana seem to have anti-cancer properties. Recent research from scientists in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy suggests that THC molecules produced in the resin of cannabis species actively “switch off” the growth of cancer cells in laboratory tests. If this holds true of human cancer cells, then humanity can add cancer to the long list of diseases and disorders treatable by cannabis sativa. Unfortunately, American scientists are impeded in their medical research on cannabis sativa. The War on Drugs has made legal access to this age-old medicinal plant difficult at best. (please see THE RESTORATION OF HUMAN HERITAGE ACT for all references).

The historical, scientific, and medicinal definitions of Cannabis sativa L, Cannabis indica, Cannabis ruderalis, and all parts of these plants including their oils, seeds, flowers, and leaves stands in contradiction to the government’s definition in the state of Texas and in the Federal government. As a citizen of Texas, and of the U.S., with civil liberties protected by the Constitutions of these states, I demand an account of the facts that removes the flawed prohibition of cannabis and places the practical and beneficial use of this plant back in the hands of We the People.

I offer this letter as a testimony to the court concerning the practical and reasonable application of Cannabis sativa L, Cannabis indica and all other natural Cannabis-related medicines. I implore the court to recognize the medicinal attributes of cannabis; to do otherwise would be unreasonable and detrimental to the ideals of reason and logic as it applies to civil justice and civil liberty.

Cannabis prohibition actively censors medicine, science, history, and the religious expression of shamanic practitioners that use plant medicines to heal. Cannabis prohibition is a denial of the facts of human heritage. Cannabis prohibition is an attack on the constitutional ideals of our state and nation. Cannabis prohibition must end if we are to continue to value reason, logic, facts, and human dignity within our Social Contract.

I am a decent, productive, intelligent, and compassionate citizen of Texas and of the United States of America. I want only the best for my family, my people and my government. It is unfortunate that a flawed and poorly informed act of legislation may potentially incriminate myself and other researchers, doctors, and patients. However, I stand on the side of the truth. If this places me in contradiction to the policies of my government, then it is my government that must conform. This is the America way. This is the rights expressed to me via the 1st Amendment of the Texas Constitution, and of the American Bill of Rights.
This is the truth as I know it.

Your Taxpayer Dollars at Work

2008-06-12T14:44:00.006-05:00

Geopolitics of Drugs: Narcoavión de Guantánamo

Call me old fashioned, but this is just evil.

Why would an American Gulfstream jet, serial number N987SA, that was once used to ferry CIA interrogators from Connecticut and Washington D.C. to the prison camp in Guatanamo Bay crash outside of Tixkokob, Yucatan with over four tons of bundled cocaine two weeks after the CIA sold it to a non-U.S. businessman with a front company?

What's going on here?

This happened last September. The ONLY mainstream American media outlet that carried the story was NPR. But, this story is famous in Mexico.

Haven't heard about it either? Well, click on the above link and read the investigation, or better yet, listen to the NPR journalist's podcast to get a better picture of what is happening.

If this story angers you half as much as it does me, then hopefully, you'll put down the remote and the Starbucks and call your state and federal representatives demanding accountability.

I have several times. I will continue to do so.

The CIA has a history of funneling illegal drugs into specific populations that represent potential threats to power. These strategies work because they worked for the British when they flooded China with Opium to quell Chinese resistant to British Imperialism. During the Vietnam War, the CIA flew opium into Vietnam to undermine the rural resistance to "pro-democracy" powers. The CIA also channeled cocaine into urban back communities in the late sixties to undermine the emerging militant civil rights movement.

When the American ban on narcotics began in the early 20th century, legislation was aimed at providing a means to incarcerate racial minorities. America was (and still is) a racist nation. The 1970 Controlled Substances Act provided leverage for the Federal government to continue incarcerating poor ethnic minorities despite the civil rights reforms that took place during the sixities. This is why, still today, black, mexican, and latino populations represent a disproportionate share of America's prison population.

So, why is the CIA continuing to funnel cocaine from central america to Florida?

Something has to change. Otherwise, the ideals of our nation are nothing but broken pipe dreams.

You might be happy living in a dysfunctional society in denial.

I am not. I want change. I'll make change.

Who's with me?

The Lion's Den

2008-06-11T23:33:00.006-05:00

First things first.

I believe in science, although I often challenge contemporary scientific understanding. I also believe in God and the beauty of God's creation. It may seem a contradiction to believe in these forces, but I don't worry about the contradictions because I know I'll never understand the complete picture. I believe this is impossible with our limited human minds.

I do believe in living life the best way I can, which includes caring for the people around me and helping them when I can. I am cursed in that for what I can offer, and can really only do very little.

So, I aim small.

One person at a time.

I meet an ex-chief of police at work. He managed parking lot traffic during busy weekends at the plant nursery. Being that he was in law enforcement, I was curious to know what he knew about the plants in our plant nursery. Overtime time, I told him more and more about the plants on the yard, the ones like Datura, Passiflora, Brugmansia, Phalaris, Trichocerus, etc. These plants were once esteemed with magical healing powers. Today, we consider their metabolites, atropine, harmaline, scopolamine, DMT, and Mescaline, to be "dangerous" hallucinogenic drugs. Still, these plants are legal to grow in the U.S., and we sell them at our plant nursery.

As my friendship with this person increased, I learned more about his health. He was on prescription medications, and he complained they weren't working. I offered to make a tea for him that would help him with his physiological problems: ulcers, high blood pressure, anxiety, and acute adult ADD. I prepared the tea weekly or bi-weekly, giving him the plant matter to soak in warm water at his leisure.

This is how I made the tea: 1 part cacao powder, 1 part dried tagetes lucida leaves , 1 part dried camellia sinesis leaves, 1 part dried passiflora edulis leaves, 1 part dried cannabis indica leaves and bud, 1 part lemon verbena, a pinch of ginger and a pinch of stevia (as a sweeter).

He drank this tea daily or almost daily for three months. His medical conditions improved. He was able to stop taking his medicines. Things looked on the up and up...

and then came the drug test...

He tested hot. Of course, because cannabis is not a medicine but a drug, and it's a crime that elevated levels of cannabinoids were found in his blood stream.

Now, I get to explain why cannabinoids where in my friend's urine in court.

Now, I get to stand before the Lions in the Den and prove to them why their law is a lie.

If I must stand alone, so be it.

but deep down I know that I stand on the side of the truth.

Does Uncle Sam?

Stay tuned to find out...

Rhetorical Freedom

2008-06-10T10:31:00.002-05:00

What does it mean to be free?

Does government make the individual free?

Does the individual make government free?

How does one become free?

???

Why are we not free?

Rhetorical Security

2008-06-10T10:29:00.002-05:00

What is security?

Does government regulate the individual's security, or does the individual?

What happens when the government that regulates an individual's security simultaneously acts to weaken an individual's security?

What does it mean to be safe?

???

Can "the terrorists" really take this away?

Rhetorical Health

2008-06-10T10:18:00.003-05:00

what is healthcare?

Is it healthy for governments to regulate an individual's healthcare?

Is it healthy for a science that is biased by the economy and censored by the government to regulate an individual's healthcare?

Is it healthy for censorship to influence the application of healthcare?

???

will we ever find answers to these questions?

Dear George W. Bush the Terrorist

2008-06-08T18:04:00.005-05:00

Don't attack Iran, you ignorant evil fuck.

If you do, you will get what you deserve.

As for me, I will not be associated with evil government. Your government is evil. You will not bring me down.

I support life. If my government feels the other way, the government can collapse. Life will be better that way.

Thanks to you, America is all but dead. If our government burns to the ground, I will be holding one of the brightest torches... in your name.

That is the American way.

Sincerely,

the sourmonkey

the monkey in the cage

2008-06-06T14:17:00.003-05:00

I remember going to a mall in Waco, Texas and seeing a baboon in a cage on display. The trainer was nearby, answering questions from the crowd of onlookers.

Inside the cage, the baboon paced back and forth. It grunted, mumbled, slapped its head, and slapped the metal bars. It was agitated, restless, and trapped. It was in despair at being confined to a cage. It was helpless.

I identified with that baboon, I identified with the cage.

I still do.

That's why I rattle it...

and dammit, I'm going to show you, dear reader, that the cage can be opened.

CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED?

2008-06-05T22:43:00.006-05:00

(written in response to a debate forum topic concerning Daniel C. Dennet's, CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED, and Jared Diamond's GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL)

Somethings are so obvious, they seem obscure. Obscurity is ripe for profit, which is what most scientists seek.

Is the brain a computer? Is the body a genetic robot? What is culture? How does consciousness really work?

The answer is so simple, we have overlooked it. In truth, not just have we overlooked it, we have hated it and sought to cast it out of society. What is the answer?

Plants.

Jared Diamond almost nailed it when he published his book, Guns Germs and Steel, for which he won the Pulitzer. But, his thesis is incomplete. For example, it is a known historical fact that the European navies required the fibers of cannabis sativa to sail the high seas and conquer the New World. This fact was left out of Mr. Diamond's book, probably because it hadn't dawned on him that the same plant that harnessed the wind for the great Old World imperial navies was the same plant that the gangs in L.A. go to jail for selling. Mr. Diamond eloquently illustrates how the resources of the natural environment influence cultural development. He failed to address how the natural environment influences human cognition.

Why does Cannabis sativa produce cannabinoids like THC and CBD, and why does mammalian physiology also produce endogenous cannabinoids like anandamide? Why do Psychotria viridis, Acacia, Mimosa, and Pomegranite trees produce DMT, and why is this hallucinogenic molecule also produced in the human pineal gland? Why does caffeine mimic endogenous adenosine? Why do nicotine, atropine, and scopolamine mimic endogenous acetycholine? Why do psylocibine, LSA, LSD, and Ibogaine mimic endogenous serotonine? Why do mescaline and cocaine mimic endogenous dopamine? Why do opiates mimic endorphins? Why do secondary botanical metabolites mimic neurotransmitters in the animal central nervous system?

After all, ants have nicotine and GABA receptors, goats are stimulated by coffee, spiders and fish trip out on LSD, and monkeys hallucinate on DMT. In sum, the reason why human consciousness evolved the way it did is found in the subsistence relationship our genetic ancestors had with the plants of the natural environment. The earliest archaeological records of the "Creative Explosion" circa 40,000 - 30,000 B.C.E. suggests that shamanic cultures in prehistory were investigating the cognitive capacities for altered states of consciousness. It is a fact that all animal life is dependent upon plants for survival. What we forget is that we share much of our DNA with plants.

The building blocks for human consciousness were first forged in the genetic darwinian battles of plant survival. These genes were later passed down genetically to ALL animals. Thus, plant metabolites are the foundation of intelligence in the animal kingdom. We have just overlooked it for so long because we've trained ourselves to believe that these are "bad drugs" and not what they truly are, that being, sacred ethnobotanicals that represent some of humanity's first cultivated crops.

Despite the War on Drugs, these plant metabolites still represent commodities, cognitive release from cultural stress, and passageways for access to the divine. That they have become addictive, that is our own fault. We have taken what was once sacred, and ultimately turned it into a weapon.

Thus, you have a better understanding of how animal intelligence evolved in a symbiotic relationship with botanical life. Now, how consciousness actually works, that comes down to the circuits, which are represented by the endogenous metabolites like DMT, acetylcholine, dopamine, adenosine, and the internally produce marijuana cannabinoids.

Unfortunately, American scientists are limited in understanding these metabolites.

This will continue as long as Uncle Sam sees demons, and not history.

THE RUN FROM THE CURE

2008-06-04T11:57:00.006-05:00

Perhaps its a good thing that, to keep this plant menace out of the hands of stupid teenagers, our government is willing to let police officers die, cancer patients die, and innocence by standers be killed by anarchic gangs fueled by prohibition.

Perhaps not...

Human Ontology 201

2008-06-03T10:38:00.004-05:00

Why is it that a person can sit in front a a movie or television screen and experience a fabricated reality from two dimensional light patterns?

Why does the soldier experience an adrenaline rush during combat?

Why does the marathon runner experience an anandamide high after a lengthy period of strenuous exercise?

Why does the human psyche shift so dramatically after puberty?

Why does sex sell?

Why does violence attract?

Why drink coffee before work?

What is art, and how do people experience it?

What is the creative process?

What is culture?

What is a nation?

Why are sports and rock concerts so engaging?

What is religion?

Why do people believe in spiritual truths despite the lack of concrete empirical evidence?

Are we all just autonomous genetic robots hallucinating on our own endogenous tryptamines and other assorted neurotransmitters, or is there more to us than that?

Welcome to Human Ontology 201

You first homework assignment is to consider the former questions. These questions have no clear answers yet, but perhaps, your search might lead to a new understanding of what it means to be human.

The world as we know it is much, much more than it seems, and we are slowly losing it. Anthropologists, biologists, botanists, and most environmental scientists, through extensive acts of observation, data collection, and analysis, have come to realize that the success of human population development and survival depends upon a society's regulation of natural resource depletion and waste production.

Modern humanity began in Northern Africa. Favorable shifts in climate provided the ecological room for an increase in human population densities. More rain= more plants= more foods; medicines; cultural tools for clothing, shelter, hunting, economy, and political exercise. Less rain= fewer plants= fewer food sources and other ethnobotanical adaptations.

During the time of our ancient ancestors in Africa, northern Africa was rich in ecological life, thus accommodating the development of human societies. However, after the occurrence of a global warming trend, ancient human populations deforested the rich ecological systems of northern Africa, turning the land into a desert.

From Africa, our ancestors slowly migrated into the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Climate trends over thousands of generations continued to shape these populations in much the same manner as in Africa. Successful populations benefitted from favorable climates, while poor climate shifts destroyed societies and forced migrations. Human civilization has its birth in the Fertile Crescent. Again, like Africa, the Fertile Crescent is now a desert.

It can never be understated that human society is dependent upon botanical life. What is over looked is the extent that humans have shaped botanical life on earth as well as the ecosystems of the planet. Most importantly, however, we can not ignore the fact that the environment has shaped human society and the cognitive abilities of our people.

But we've forgotten something, something key to understanding our very nature. Without this key, we are unable to unlock the door to a better understanding of the human ontology.

In order to pass Human Ontology 201, you must find this key.

Here's a hint, though. The key is in our most important plants. Find the plants, and you'll find the key to human ontology.

Once you pass Human Ontology 201, you may proceed onto Cognitive Evolution 301.

Say hello to my little friends... (otherwise known as Guerrilla Ethnobotany 101)

2008-05-23T00:03:00.020-05:00

Papaver somniferum- The Opium poppy. This plant was worshipped by central Asian cultures, and goddess statues devoted to the poppy were found in some of our earliest cities in the Fertile Crescent.

The plant in the picture grew from seeds purchased at an organic foods store for fifty cents. A test subject identified the active agents- morphine, and a complex array of other opiates. The human nervous system produces its own opiates in the form of endorphins.

These poppies are legal to cultivate in the U.S., although law enforcement may be prone to do some weeding. It blows my mind that junkies that sell their souls and homes to get high on heroine from terrorists in the middle east could simply grow their own botanically purer, and much, much safer drug in their own backyard. America is truly stranger than fiction.

Ipomoea tricolor- the Morning Glory. This plant was worshipped by the Aztecs and Toltects primarily, but also by the Maya. active agents- Lysergic acid mono-amide, or LSA, a chemical relative of LSD. This plant was discovered by the Zealous Spanish missionaries who tried to burn it out of Mesoamerican existence. They failed. It was rediscovered by the '60's, but Uncle Sam doesn't seem to be worried about it. This one is LEGAL to cultivate. The human nervous system produces serotonine, which is related to LSA. LSA molecules bind to serotonine receptors in the central nervous system.

Psychotria viridis- "chacruna"- this plant is deified in Amazonian, Andean, and Central American shamanic cultures. active agents- DMT. Previously, the FDA and the DEA thought DMT was a synthetic hallucinogen, like LSD. DMT is actually one of the most potent AND widespread botanical hallucinogens. DMT is a phototropic auxin; it regulates the circadian rhythms of plants. DMT amounts concentrated in the leaves and stems are highest in the morning and after sunset. Curiously, DMT is also produced in the pineal gland of the human (and mammalian) brain (AND it also regulates circadian rhythms in animals). In effect, although this plant, being a botanical producer of DMT, is questionably legal to cultivate, it doesn't matter, because both the cultivator of the plant and the law enforcement officer that might arrest the cultivator of this plant are producers of DMT, a Schedule 1 narcotic under the 1969 Controlled Substances Act.

Funny how poorly informed, poorly written, and dangerously outdated laws can fuck up important facts about life on Earth.

Salvia divinorum- there's a lot of bad press about this plant. Its a damn shame when heresay and paranoia suffice for facts in the media, but that's our media! Salvia divinorum was and is still worshipped by the rural folk of Central America and Oaxaca, Mexico. Active agents- salvinorin A and B. Toxicity is low, and the hallucinogenic effects are potent yet short lasting. Salvia divinorum, or Diviner's Mint, was and still is central to shamanic divination in southern Mexico. "Ska pastora", (The Leaf of the Shepherdess, another christianized name) is an important medicinal herb as well. The salvinorin terpenes are anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral. LEGAL to cultivate and consume. It's too bad the monkeys in congress want to ban this artifact of ancient horticulture because the disillusioned children of America want to get high. We just might have something to learn from this plant.

Passiflora edulis- Passionvine- worshipped by Mesoamericans like the Aztecs and Maya. The Spanish tried to alter the religious (or "satanic") significance of the vine, and so convinced the natives to call the plant by the Christianized name, "the Flower of the Passion". Passionvine is a mild CNS depressant. Active agents- Harmaline, beta carbolines: MAOI (mono-amine oxydase inhibitor), thus, the leaves and sap were used to amplify the effects of other plant hallucinogens. This plant is LEGAL to eat and cultivate, although it's use as a drug is still cautioned.

Datura inoxia- a very potent hallucinogen, causing acute delirium that can last for days. The person intoxicated on datura can not tell dreams or nightmares from reality. active agents- atropine, scopolamine, hyoscyamine. Datura was worshipped by native america tribes. It was used during puberty rites to prepare children for adult hood. Medicinally, datura was used as an anelgesic, and to relieve insect bites. The Maya produced powdered drug extracts from Datura that were used to paralyze sacrificial victims. Modern Mesoamerican witchcraft and fringe voodoo cults still use drug extracts of datura to poison, curse, enslave, and kill.

The Tropane Alkaloids of datura mimic the action of endogenous acetylcholine and bind to cholinergic receptors in the central nervous system. These receptors seem to regulate dream stages to some degree, yet so little is still known in cognitive neuroscience. So much to learn!

Datura is LEGAL to cultivate, yet illegal to eat. Datura is sold at many garden centers around the nation.

Brugmansia aurea- a potent hallucinogen, causing acute delirium for days on end. It also causes amnesia. Highly toxic. worshiped by the Inca, the Maya, and Amazonian tribes. The blooms and leaves were used in Andean. Amazonian, and Mayan mind control political tactics: powdered extracts were blown at sacrifice victims to paralyze them before a sacrifice; drug extracts were also used to enslave or poison "wrongdoers". Active agents- scopolamine, hyoscyamine (more tropane alkaloids, see DATURA). LEGAL to cultivate, illegal to eat. This plant is sold at garden centers all over the nation. You can get one at Home Depot!

Cannabis sativa- one of humanity's first cultivated crops. ancient humans used it as medicine, as food, as fibers for cultural works, clothing, rope, twine, and tools. It is hands down humanity's most useful crop. active agents- cannabinoids like, THC, CBD. THC is a vasodilator, thus improving blood circulation throughout the body. THC is also effective at dampening overactive nerves, (like in M.S., and Parkinson's Disease), and easing pain. It can help regulate appetites, relieve glaucoma, eczema, and headaches. CBD has been shown to have anti-tumor properties, shutting off the growth of cancerous growth. As a food, cannabis seeds and seed oil are high in essential fatty acids, protein, and trace micronutrients like iron and zinc. It can replace a seafood diet. Essential fatty acids are necessary for healing damaged tissue. In this sense, cannabis is an all around handy medicine to use. It has remarkably low toxicity, and is not chemically addictive like tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, heroine, or coffee.

Curiously, the human nervous system produces anandamide which is our own endogenous cannabinoid (see also the Human Endo-Cannabinoid System). It seems that this plant is not the only producer of the "illegal drug" THC. Every human brain is too! None the less, cannabis is still ILLEGAL to cultivate in the U.S.

Makes sense, don't it?

So, are these plants dangerous drugs? Are they sacred entheogens? Are they special ethnobotanicals that influence the development of human society?

Why do these plants exist? Did God create them? Why do they produce chemicals that function as neurotransmitters in the human central nervous system? Why do humans have neural receptors that bind with the drugs produced by these plants?

Why have they driven economies, religions, and wars throughout history?

And why is it that the really dangerous hallucinogenic drug-producing plants are legal to grow in the U.S., but the less toxic, more beneficial ones are illegal?

Seem backward?

What exactly is going on here...?

are you ready for the truth?

Crossing the Threshold part III

2008-05-22T23:49:00.003-05:00

the dollar fell, and I passed.

the steeple fell, and I passed.

the law fell, and still, I passed.

my security fell, and I paused,

naked.

dignity fell,

identity fell,

pride fell,

and still, I was.

The rain falls, and we pass.

the hail falls, and we pass.

the sky falls, and we pass.

the mind is free at last.

Crossing the Threshold part II

2008-05-22T22:45:00.003-05:00

No more lies.
No more partisan flies maneuvering for access to shit.
I quit.

You can have this broken american dream.
This token is flawed at the seam.

Take the wars, the debt, the wounded lives, the dead.
Take the pills, the trends, the bottomlines, the talking heads.
Take the polls, the tolls, the overcrowded roads, and the stress.
Take the Starbucks, the celebs, the schools, and all the rest.

Take it and rip it to shreds.

Then, we can be free.

Crossing the Threshold

2008-05-22T10:40:00.004-05:00

(insert name) believes in doing good.

(insert name) believes in helping those in need, defending the poor and the sick, and healing those who have lost their way.

(insert name) is a shaman. His morality sets a high standard:
violence is wrong
deceit is wrong
greed is wrong
pride is wrong

(insert name) does not worship money, or material wealth, or human authorities.

(insert name) does not seek trouble, but he does seek to relieve crisis.

(insert name) yearns for the truth.

(insert name)'s society is the opposite of (insert name). (insert name)'s society acts or supports those moral conditions that are the antithesis of (insert name)'s ideals.

This causes much anger in (insert name), and anger is poison.

(insert name) is at a threshold.

On (insert name)'s side of the threshold lies a poisonous, toxic environment. On the other side of the threshold lies a new path for (insert name), one that conforms to (insert name)'s ethos.

What will it take for (insert name) to cross over to the other side? What will this mean?

"government can not make me free, only I can," thinks (insert name).

The Threshold awaits...

Ascendency

2008-05-19T23:18:00.003-05:00

Climb.
Don't look down or up.
Climb.

It's not easy.
It never will be.
Climb.

the nail breaks
the skin bleeds
the muscles ache
the head needs
peace.

but there's no time for peace.

climb
don't ask why or how
climb.

this is life
forever it will be.

The Entropy of Community

2008-05-16T21:32:00.006-05:00

It begins with apathy.

Then turns to destiny.

First, the wages leave, then the pride.

What follows is sex, drugs, and crime.

It is the end of home.

The natural progress

of widespread social regress

introduces the guns and gangs,

where empty love hangs

outside the broken walls of home.

Another murder on the streets,

another cocaine rage beats,

but the real cancer is in the way we think.

Don't deny the mind the right to speak

the light of human sovereignty.

The body bags are getting full.

The future has left school.

This world is getting smaller, now.

Will we teach ourselves how

to rebuild a home?

puppets on semantic strings...

2008-05-13T11:04:00.007-05:00

High energy photons scatter through the solar system, yet we can't see them.

Low frequency sound waves in the cycle range 2 Hz - 4 Hz can influence and change the states of the mind, making people sleepy, irritable, and angry. We can't hear these sounds, but they exist none the less.

Dogs hear high frequency sound waves above 20 kHz as an essential element to their genetic survival. We do not.

Flying bats see the world in an entirely different acoustic and optical model than humans. We must invent technology to see the world as bats do.

The human Central Nervous System is a filter that blocks out most environmental data that would otherwise overload the system. Our brains are finely tuned, yet biased, filtered, and never capable of knowing all universal data.

So why do we pass judgement when we are so cognitively flawed?

because we are human.

What defines us is not so much physiology (although this has much to do with identity), but culture, and this has no physical existence outside of human cognition.

When it comes to culture, it all comes back to the data, and we all know how imperfect the system is at storing data accurately.

So, our identities are defined through self-limiting physiological forces and the arbitrary, biased perceptions of historical culture.

It is commonly known that history is written by the victorious, and that it rhymes with itself. Like the universe around us, "history" is replete with data that will never be recognized. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to re-learn those lost elements of human history. Unfortunately for the liberation of the self, it is to the advantage of the power elite to censor the history of their people.

Mind's are easier to control that way.

if we don't learn of the data we have censored from ourselves, we will never learn the bigger picture.

we will remain puppets on semantic strings.

Token Maddness

2008-05-12T21:27:00.004-05:00

Survival Tokens: material objects, usually shiny and metallic or paper with depictions of great ancestral Alpha Males, that represent the ability of a human individual to survive. The term was coined by R.A.W.

Today, Survival Tokens are a menace to modern society. They are required for education, for healthcare, for food and basic subsistence, water, energy, and property.

Americans have sold their freedom to Survival Tokens.

The problem with Survival Tokens is that they are arbitrary, and most of the time, they depreciate (we live in entropy, mind you).

What ever happened to true survival, where a human individual could eat from the land, drink from the spring, and work for a harvest? What ever happened to true survival?

Apparently, it went out with progress.

Today, Survival Tokens typically out weigh common sense, rationalism, ingenuity, and truth. Survival Tokens have intoxicated the masses into believing greatly in imaginary values.

This is a warning to all parents, your children will be slaves, bought and sold with Survival Tokens in a system that will use them, abuse them, and then spit them out into nursing homes where they will hide away until death, the victim of an endangered and broken family unit.

You should know.

It could happen to you...

the value of Mind

2008-05-10T22:03:00.004-05:00

The Creative Ones sit in geometric honeycombs, brainstorming the next big hook.

"What can we do to influence the behavior of people, including their cognitive and actionable behaviors, to compel them to exchange their Survival Tokens for our Cultural Artifacts that have nothing to do with survival?". The Creative Ones ponder intently.

Neurological Radiations become Electronic Circuits.

Electrons spin as ideas become Logical Binary Memes.

Production is set in motion, and the Memes take on new virtual life.

This new virtual life is enacted in Real Life, yet recorded for mass experience on other Electron Spinning Machines that convert Light into Matrix-Packaged Logical Binary Memes.

These Matrix-Packaged Logical Binary Memes are recorded on Magnetic Resonance Disks, or Rotating Optical Disks, and exchanged for Hyper-Inflated Survival Tokens.

The Hyper-Inflated Survival Tokens are deposited wthin Bank Accounts, and used by the Creative Ones to purchase extravagant Cultural Artifacts that have nothing to do with actual survival.

Meanwhile, The Matrix-Packaged Logical Binary Meme Disks are sent to powerful Encoded Light Transmission Stations.

These Encoded Light Transmission Stations then re-encode the Matrix-Packaged Logical Binary Memes and transmit them through the air (and space) to be received by billions of smaller Matrix-Packaged Logical Binary Meme Encoded Light Receivers.

These Matrix-Packaged Logical Binary Meme Encoded Light Receivers are then viewed by additional billions of People, who sacrifice their Mind to sit and stare at the Boob Tube.

Your Mind is valuable to someone. Is it valuable to you?

ROOTS

2008-05-08T23:48:00.007-05:00

before i go to bed...
I prepare for work...
at work, i solve problems...
more problems than i can count...

"what's wrong with my plant?" someone asks with a decayed branch in their hands...
i tell them.

"how do i grow this?"
i tell them.

"where can I find this plant?"
i tell them.

"i want to become a gardener. where do i start?
i tell them.

if you have a problem with a plant, tell me about it, and I can tell you how to fix it.

a customer calls on the phone, and wants to know if the Texas Olive is edible. I say, "yes it is, but it is intoxicating."

a customer stops by complaining about dandelions and sticky weed in his lawn. I say, "they are edible, and at one time were used by native americans as medicine." the customer decides the broadleaf herbicide is best.

someone discovers that I know about medicinal plants, and they hunger for more information... information that I must break the law to describe.

a shaman never rests...

at home, i watch television programs where reporters, scientists, activists, and politicians outline the problems that face our nation and our globe. I know the answers, because i know plants.

plants are the foundation for all life on earth. when humanity finds a problem, chances are the solution can be found in plants.

it's that simple.

don't believe me? then come with me on this journey. you'll see.

we must return to our roots if we are to save our people.

bingo!

2008-05-08T20:39:00.004-05:00

it worked!

strike the right tone, and someone will come a knockin'...

and when they do, you can nail them with the truth.

they'll be so shocked that you're not just another mindless American zombie that they'll actually listen to the truth.

and after listening, they will be changed.

one person at a time...

that's how you steer the flock.