Poisons To Rethink
Round-Up® (Glyphosate) The myth that glyphosate disappears harmlessly soon after application is misleading. Glyphosate kills plants by chelating the same minerals vital to all life, which is why it has...
View ArticleProhibition ’37: The Hemp Lobbyist
NARRATOR: Act two, scene two: “The Hemp Lobbyist Befuddled.” Comes now the Honorable Ralph F. Lozier, a former judge and Congressman, retired to private practice. LOZIER: For the record and for the...
View ArticleProhibition ’37: For The Birds
Continued from last week’s AVA: the 1937 Congressional hearing on marijuana prohibition. NARRATOR: The next witness, also from the hemp industry, was introduced prior to adjournment on April 29th and...
View ArticleThe War On Global Warming
“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Still Drug Crazy
Mike Gray died recently at 77 years of age, with prominent obituaries in some publications due to his status as a successful movie screenwriter – his most famous screenplay being “The China Syndrome”...
View ArticleProhibition ’37: The IRS Agent Job Creation Act
The hearing at which marijuana prohibition was discussed by Congress in 1937, continued from last week’s AVA. The witness, Joseph B. Hertzfeld of the Philadelphia Seed Co., testified that “Hempseed is...
View ArticleBeyond Killing The Bees
As Spring merges into summer, our gaze turns to our lawns, and we are tempted to envision green carpets and lawnmowers… and poisons. Craneflies, those delicate beauties we call “mosquito hawks,”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prohibition ’37: The AMA Dissents
William C. Woodward Continued from last week’s AVA, the 1937 hearing at which the House Ways & Means Committee considered marijuana prohibition. * * * NARRATOR: Act Three, “The Grilling of Doctor...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prohibition ’37: Vinson For The Prosecution
Vinson & McCormack Continued from last week’s AVA, the Congressional hearing at which marijuana prohibition was debated. The witness, Dr. William Woodward of the American Medical Association,...
View ArticleOut On A Limb
There is one supreme and universal law of human relations in all its manifestations, social, political, economic, cultural: people create no end of mischief in the hours when they are not sleeping. Any...
View ArticleBaz Luhrmann’s Bombastic Gatsby
Like an obnoxiously drunk, loudmouthed, long-winded, overly-pleased-with-himself, vacuously ostentatious guest who refuses to leave the party even though it’s long been over, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great...
View ArticleProhibition ’37 — Woodward Won’t Fold
Continued from last week’s AVA, the 1937 Congressional hearing at which marijuana prohibition was discussed prior to enactment. The witness is William WOODWARD, MD, representing the American Medical...
View ArticleImperial Pomp & Circumstance
No work of music has a greater lock on a single ritual than Edward Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 does on American graduations. Cock an ear in the direction of high school and university...
View ArticlePass The Baloney, Please
On June 18th, in an opinion piece in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Congressman Jared Huffman heroically announced that “this week,” along with other House Democrats, he’d be taking the “SNAP...
View ArticlePrice Gouging With FDA Approval
Anyone using colchicine, one of the best treatments for gout, is in for a nasty surprise, compliments of the FDA and the rapacious actions of URL Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Until...
View ArticleBach & Security
As has become even clearer this Fourth of July with the ongoing saga of fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden playing out on the world stage, what was celebrated on Independence Day in America is not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Starving For Change
Protesters outside Corcoran Correctional Facility. Courtesy, Steve Rhodes via Flickr. “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by...
View ArticleThe Morgenthau Hypothesis
Harry Anslinger, the longtime Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, is widely considered the prime mover behind marijuana prohibition. But during the Congressional debate on prohibition in...
View ArticleRiver Views
July 24th marks the anniversary of Anthony Johnson acquiring 250 acres of land in Northampton County, Virginia during the summer of 1651. Anthony Johnson was a free black man, brought to the colony...
View ArticleWhat Real Immigration Reform Would Look Like
Oralia Maceda, an immigrant mother from Oaxaca, asked the obvious last weekend in Fresno. At a meeting, talking about the Senate immigration reform bill, she wanted to know why Senators would spend...
View Article