I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
First. And a smoker.
The ability to believe in ones own mortality often doesn't start until the late twenties, I have noticed. Maybe this is the reason?
somewhere in the mix and also a smoker.
In my kid's case, I think it went hand in hand with the rest of her substance abuse.
Smoking's cool.
Kinda.
Well....
I like it, so there.
I see it as rebellion on the part of my middle-class students.
Among my working-class students, it's something else.
Central--fact is, I enjoy it. A lot.
ask mann coulter,keeps the scare-crow look going
When I went to college in CA, *no-one* smoked. I literally only knew *one* smoker.
Now I'm in Pittsburgh, and it's the exact opposite. It seems like roughly half my coworkers smoke.
Someone once said that if smoking had no health risks we'd all be doing it. A drug that doesn't make you fat or sleepy or otherwise negatively affected! And one that makes you feel more cheerful, too. I used to smoke, once upon a time. Cigars, of all things. Still miss some of the highs.
What are we smoking?
I think for a lot of college kids, it's a "stay awake through the next class" or "get through this damn lit paper" thing. A quick fix, a nice jolt to the synapses.
Then you're walking to convenience stores at 2 AM in 30 below weather to buy a pack of Luckies with dimes and nickels.
Not that I would know or anything.
Don't bogart that spliff, ey?
In a nutshell, kids are stupid.
"Im an individual, and to demonstrate that in dividuality, I will smoke the same brand of cigarettes as all the people who I think are cool smoke, and I'll wear the same kinds of clothes and listen to the same kind of music, too. That'll show EVERYONE what an individual I am.
That I'm an individual who lacks the self-respect, the self-discipline, and the personal integrity to not submit to an addiction that makes me STINK to high heaven, eats all my money, and repulses non-smokers, well, that doesn't matter, because all the cool people will think I'm cool, too!"
Americans are stupid.
Nicotine makes you smarter.
We should all smoke more.
I smoke because it keeps me from killing people.
But, I am surprised that young people smoke. They know what I did not know (though should have suspected) when I was young.
SD
PS, all I have to do is to think about quitting smoking, and I want a cigarette (and I roll my own!!)
This was a bad week to quit smoking.
I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. With a mother and four of six siblings who did (two of whom are now dead from it: lung cancer and COPD), there was no charm in it for me. Ironically, I was always accused of smoking, mostly because my clothes smelled that way.
But it's definitely on the upswing.
Maybe they are 'fuck off' fags to the authoritarians in Washington. I have an extra glass of French wine every night to say 'fuck off'.
I finally quit when cigs got to be $1.00 a pack at the grocery store I patronized at the time.
I have ten times the income I had then; still can't imagine paying $4.00 a pack to poison myself.
you know, i'm quitting for the second time now. i quit once after smoking for three years. then two years later i quit drinking; i felt that i needed a vice, so i started smoking again. it is twisted how willing i am to put myself through this torture twice. i think that people have a tendency to look for the expedient and immediate. starting to smoke is easy and inconsequential in people's minds. stopping is extremely difficult. when you're young, like i still am, you don't see many immediate reasons to stop. i really hate smoking.
"I smoke because it keeps me from killing people."
Sarah, I had to chuckle when you said that. I always told people when Randy was a teen that I didn't dare stop smoking or I'd kill my kid.
Not-Mister-Res smokes and I feel guilty for thinking that he looks very cool smoking his cigarettes.
From YOU, dad! I learned it from watching you!
Sallyh, La Poissoniere,
I love it too.
I've quit numerous times, for as long as a year.
I keep coming back to it, because...
I love it.
I'm 33. If I start smoking now, I don't really have enough time to do enough damge by the time I'm old, right?
I'm getting sick of my Diet Coke addiction. I need something new and I don't want to eat too much and get fat.
I also want to look cool and French while I'm sitting in my elitist NYC cafe reading Sartre and hating Merka.
I enjoy the occassional stogie at Poker Night, m'self.
The young picking up smoking probably has something to do with rebelling. It's a way of doing rebelling without actually leaving home or giving up the support they still need.
But more generally, many of us need something to make life bearable. There are the anti-depressants, of course, and then there is alcohol, and marijuana and other drugs and cigarettes. And probably the worst thing of all: torturing others either mentally or physically. I know some of those people.
I once read a study that looked at the health effects of smoking by differentiating between people who had what they called "an addictive personality" and those that did not. Even when the former group was not smoking they had worse health than the latter group, and smoking didn't have as large a negative effect on the health of the non-addictive types. There still was an independent effect from smoking to bad health, but it was smaller than the total effect that is measured, because the addictive types used something else if not cigarettes.
Res,
I'm sure he looks less cool hawking loogies into the gutter.
NTodd--since you gave me two for one Samblogging, I guess I have to give you shortbread.
And they'll put all the SS "personal" accounts $ into Enron stock.
Sallyh - that is indeed a fair trade.
I love to smoke after a big meal. Really love it, it feels great! I also like the romance of bringing the face towards the flame when it's dark and the glow.
And there is nothing like a smoke to keep the bugs off your butt (and the smell out of your nose) if you rough it in maine in the summer and need the outhouse at night. A big cloud of smoke is a pleasure.
I bet lots of Atriots smoke to relieve the tension of Haloscan.
Atrios could save lives by switching to a better system, even if it costs him a few bucks.
As someone who lives a mile from the RJR factory- it's b/c Camels cost $1.75 a pack. That's why everybody else smokes, right?
Oh, and because the mascots had enticing genital-looking camelfaces?
I quite like the Superchunk song "Never Too Young to Smoke."
Apart from that I'm violently allergic to cigarette smoke, and had asthma as a kid & ball sorts of later breathing issues. So I don't smoke.
I'm glad it never became cool to smoke cats. That would make me really sick.
Draco--sad to say, I started at 13, and there was no Haloscan to blame. But I'll settle for that excuse at this point 
Wow, Atrios, you should see all the 18-year-olds in the south who smoke. They still come out of high school thinking it's cool.
|
(and I roll my own!!)-Sarah Deere
Me Too,
What's yer pleasure? Back in the day I was fond of Gaulois, but American Spirits do the trick now.
most people who start smoking do so fully believing that they'll go through the horrible process of quitting
Speaking as an ex-smoker who went thru that horrible process more times than I want to remember - you can't know how horrible it is til you're there.
No one who starts smoking realizes how unpleasant it will be to try and stop.
Jay Carolina--my da grew up in Belfast. He started smoking unfiltered Players at the age of 11. When I asked him why he chose to smoke those, he just shrugged and said it was the only brand you could get out of the machine in the pub without paying. The proprietor didn't fix it for years, apparently.
I like nicotine and I like weed, but I never got into the whole blunt thing.
It's a funny thing.
I must be non-addictive. I enjoyed smoking a lot while I was in college; when I got a desk job I quit without a second thought. It was easy.
I've always seen it as an associative behavior. Get out of the settings and curtail the behaviors with which you associate smoking and I think it's easier to quit.
I still enjoy smoking at bars and parties (maybe 3-4 times a year).
I am a respiratory therapist. I see daily the ravages of cigarette smoking. Ugly, ugly way to go. And sometimes the slow part is NOT a blessing.
BTW over half my fellow therapists smoke. I never had time for it. Too busy eating.
Re: Saturday Night Live.
Kelly Clarkson needs to be kidnapped by terrorists. Now.
FUCK what an annoying bitch.
Atrios could save lives by switching to a better system, even if it costs him a few bucks.
I'm sure Dr. Duncan "Economist" Black has a spreadsheet with all sorts of macro and micro ecsims that show there's no margin in upgrading to a decent blogging or comment engine. Why the hell should he re-invest his donations when he can buy more turtlenecks?
NTodd--since you gave me two for one Samblogging, I guess I have to give you shortbread.
Hee. Hee. Except I already ate it all.
Hey - I quit smoking. I need an oral fixation.
SWR--she needed to be captured by terrorists when she first appeared on American Idol.
Re: Saturday Night Live.
Kelly Clarkson needs to be kidnapped by terrorists. Now.
FUCK what an annoying bitch.
SW
Does she still have a bit of a drag-queeny vibe about her?
liquidlen,
It's my impression that a lot of nurses smoke, too. True?
I'm about a three-day a pack smoker, and I know I should stop. Next month, Austin's going to have a big vote on banning smoking in bars and clubs.
I wouldn't oppose it.
if someone wants to suggest a commenting system that's simple and amenable to 600 post threads, feel free, but I haven't yet seen one.
SWR--she needed to be captured by terrorists when she first appeared on American Idol.
Why couldn't the terrorists just blow up American Idol?
Hey - I quit smoking. I need an oral fixation.
I'm not sayin' nuthin'.
Kathy:
I hate people like you.
If I could smoke 3 or 4 cigs at a party and then not think about it, I'd never worry about smoking.
I'm a true addict. After 8 years not smoking, if I had just one tomorrow, i'd be back at 2 packs/day in a couple weeks.
Does she still have a bit of a drag-queeny vibe about her?
Jay Carolina | Email | Homepage | 04.24.05 - 12:22 am | #
Well, she's got tits and she looks vaguely fuckable. I mean, it's not like she's Ann Coulter or anything.
But God. I had no idea who it was who had inflicted that awful "Since You were Gone" song on my poor hurting car radio. And it's her. Fuck.
She makes me nostalgic for Avril Lavigne.
By the way, I had a post on the Memory Lane thread about the movie Out of the Past, shown on TCM tonight. I've never seen so much constant smoking onscreen, by 3/4 of the characters with speaking roles.
Two virtuous characters--Mitchum's new girlfriend and his deaf-mute helper at the gas station--didn't smoke. Mitchum was trying to change his life.
But everyone else in the movie--all total sleaze or ethically challenged, they all smoked non-stop.
I mentioned in the other thread, I like the scene where Mitchum, nervous after disposing of a murdered body, hops into a cab and expropriates the cabbie's cig. Funnier still, the cabbie understands; when Mithum tries to give the cig back, the cabbie tells him to finish it.
That's true. Every time I quit smoking, I notice how much more people and places stink and how many more assholes there are to deal with.
"Why couldn't the terrorists just blow up American Idol?"
Maybe someone was hoping to get a date with Paula Abdul?
Toby ... That is a shit-load of nicotine.
CS:
Jeebus, how'd I let that one go by?
Hee. Hee. Except I already ate it all.
Ex-smokers are so mean.
if someone wants to suggest a commenting system that's simple and amenable to 600 post threads, feel free, but I haven't yet seen one.
Haloscan?
(Ducking thrown fruit)
Bette Davis smoking makes my pants talk.
Why couldn't the terrorists just blow up American Idol?
Eli | Email | Homepage | 04.24.05 - 12:23 am | #
I see your future in hell.
You must watch American Idol for all of eternity.
And Ethan Hawke will replace that bitchy English guy.
if someone wants to suggest a commenting system that's simple and amenable to 600 post threads, feel free, but I haven't yet seen one.
It's more like, "dump Blogspot" you cheapskate.
NTodd--fear not. There's always the Secret Stash.
She makes me nostalgic for Avril Lavigne.
Speak not such poisonous words!
Res:
Toby ... That is a shit-load of nicotine.
What, seven cigarettes a day? I thought I was doing pretty good!
Nothing beat my brother, who used to temporarily disconnect his oxygen for a cigarette.
But then he was always a dumbass.
Jeebus, how'd I let that one go by?
I know people that smoke and chew.
At the same time.
I hate to judge, but that's some seriously fucked-up shit.
It has always struck me that young women here in Texas who are so concerned with their looks smoke like crazy. Show them how it causes wrinkles and ages their skin and watch those numbers drop.
I see your future in hell.
You must watch American Idol for all of eternity.
And Ethan Hawke will replace that bitchy English guy.
American Idol is bad, but I think Survivor is closer to being my Room 101...
Jesus Christ Toby, I don't like you much, but quit, man. My da died at 59 from cigs. I don't know how old you are but 59 is too young.
You shoulda seen his skin, too. They take their toll, even if they don't kill you right away.
Next month, Austin's going to have a big vote on banning smoking in bars and clubs.
I wouldn't oppose it.
Toby Petzold
What? Letting the good of the many outweigh the good of the individual? Tread lightly, my troll friend, lest your credentials be confiscated.
"Smoking's bad.. you shouldn't smoke, m'kay?" </South Park>
*takes a big puff* (I have to with these damn ultra-lights)
-
NTodd--fear not. There's always the Secret Stash.
You got some (not bitter) herb?
She makes me nostalgic for Avril Lavigne.
Speak not such poisonous words!
Matt F | Email | Homepage | 04.24.05 - 12:27 am | #
She even makes me nostalgic for Evanescence.
There's always the Secret Stash.
I found the Secret Stash days ago.
I shared it with Sam.
"She makes me nostalgic for Avril Lavigne."
Isn't that French for 'incurably whiny and juvenile?'
kentsquito
Yep, American Spirit
SD
Ooops! Sorry Toby ...
I misread your post. I thought you said "Three pack a day."
RealTexan,
All they know is that it keeps them skinny.
I like nicotine and I like weed, but I never got into the whole blunt thing.
Roger that. If I had the stones, I'd rig up one of them vaporizer things.
I have the addictive personality, by the way. So I engage in a lot of chocolate ice-cream. I don't seem to get fat from it, but my veins are probably like little lanes in Sicily or something. Well, one must make hard choices in this life. As Sarah Deere said, I might be out there killing people otherwise.
It's more like, "dump Blogspot" you cheapskate.
I dunno. Atrios has done pretty well with blogger so far...
American Idol is bad, but I think Survivor is closer to being my Room 101...
I'd take a cage full of rats on my head over either of those shows.
"You got some (not bitter) herb?"
Does fresh rosemary count?
Yeah, but it's still terrible, Res. Every time I start preaching free will, I have to go out on the verandah and light up.
Nothing beat my brother, who used to temporarily disconnect his oxygen for a cigarette.
But then he was always a dumbass.
I really see Pope Ratzinger as doing something like this behind the scene.
Huffing Oxygen. Takes it off for a cig. Has them bring in a 10 year old boy to, um, examine.
If Saturday Night Live or someone doesn't turn Ratzi into comedy gold, comedy is dead.
Old. Evil Looking. German. Pope.
How do you find a better comic villain?
I smoke a cigar every month or so, at most, so I figure my risk of getting addicted is pretty slim. And speaking as someone who had a violent hatred of cigarettes from age seven on, there's nothing quite like the taste of a quality cigar. My own small hypocrisy, I suppose.
anyone seen a typepad or MT site which does well with several hundred comments per post?
the answer is "no."
Echidne-would a snake goddess accept worship in chocolate cake?
There's always the Secret Stash.
Found it, nicked it, spent it.
My wife heroically gave up the monkey years ago. My private study, however, here at Chez Pez reeks of lost tobacco revelries. I am completely addicted to its charms. This flaw has not, suprisingly, deprived me of rational thought.
I am completely in favor of smoking bans in public places.
Private establishments should have the power to make the call. If allowing patrons to smoke in the local bar or the neighborhood Appleby's drives sales down, then one would assume that the policy would be short lived.
Myself, I do not smoke outside of my home, even in bars that allow it.
What makes anyone think that the young, with their vast personal experience of the horrors of addiction, actually think they're going to get addicted and therefore go through the process of getting "unaddicted".
Nonsense.
They don't think: "By this time next week I'll be in the grips of a powerful addiction and making snarky jokes implying it's a sane and even rational choice"; they don't even think about addiction.
I dunno. Atrios has done pretty well with blogger so far...
Blogger blows chunks. Look how often it's down. For a few bucks a month--significantly less than what Duncan clears in donations and other revenue streams--he could host a much more stable, reliable community site.
Just sayin'. He's not a little blogger schmuck like me, so why does act like one and slum it?
Cigarettes are the poor man's valium.
I'm nine or ten months clean. But when I see younguns smoking, say pulled up at a light, I don't know what it is, but teenage girls particularly for some strange reason - paging Dr. Freud - I feel real strongly that I should be able to smoke, too. I was once three years between cigarettes and quite stupidly took them up again.
Mmmm. Camel filters. Even 'Is Paris Burning?' has the guy just now saying he has Camels.
Mmmm. Players Navy-Cut.
My dad had a lung removed in the late 1950's. After the operation the doctor brought him a carton of cigarettes.
No one ever warns that quitting is not the same as never having smoked. I wish I had known -- even if you successfully quit (I have), you may always miss it (I do). It sucks to always miss something.
Echidne:
So I engage in a lot of chocolate ice-cream. I don't seem to get fat from it
And Kathy can smoke a few cigs and not get addicted.
I must've had some seriously bad karma in a past life.
Pardon my ignorance: What does "Room 101" mean?
That's why I find it weird that so many young people smoke.
-Atrios
You know what I find weird, Duncan? That you put so much effort into blogging and still suck so badly. This place is a fucking joke.
smoking is a hell of a lot of fun. its also a bitch to quit. all in all its a wash. too bad you don't don't know that until you try.
I've looked at the stats. After a certain age, we die of (1) heart trouble (2) cancer (3) [a far distant 3] accidents.
Because I smoke, I have an equal opportunity cause of death.
Whatever it is, I hope it's quick.
Actually, after a point, lung cx is fairly quick. Miserable, but relatively quick.
Who knows, maybe the heart will give out first.
SDo
"He's not a little blogger schmuck like me, so why does act like one and slum it?"
He likes slumming--he's here with all of us now, isn't he? (ducks)
Pardon my ignorance: What does "Room 101" mean?
1984
Bed.
Bye.
See, the whole world's divided into whores and addicts. I'm an addict.
um, do you people know what Kos pays per month? My traffic is less than his, of course, but it's the processor time required for processing massive comment threads which necessitates additional servers. It ain't just an extra few bucks per month. This stuff doesn't scale nicely.
Addiction isn't really the issue. I'm not sure I even really believe in addiction as a real physical phenomenon. But that's another argument.
The reason the young smoke isn't precisely because they don't believe in their own mortality; it's because they can't imagine being old. Simple as that. I didn't believe it either, till it happened to me.
massive phallus
weird "handle"......
Flory--nah, not even.
anyone seen a typepad or MT site which does well with several hundred comments per post?
There's Scoop. Surely Soros would pony up the dough for a full time person to run the site exclusively. Bet he'd even fund the dental bennies.
Can't believe you haven't thought of this.
Actully, Blogger's new comments sysetem isn't bad, except for it crashing three times a week. A minor glitch...
It helps if you go back to thinking that people are just slightly smarter/stupider apes.
Really. It helps explain alot of behavior.
Sallyh, I love chocolate cake! Just put it on my altar. It will disappear in no time at all.
flory, maybe the secret is that I don't eat much else than chocolate in various forms. Us goddesses can get away with that...
I used to smoke about twenty packs a' cigarettes a day...
(wheeze)
...but since I lost one a' my lungs...
(wheeze)
...I cut my smokin' in half.
Atrios--hey, I'm all in favor of not having a cover charge
Smoking may not kill you, but it will make the last years of your life hell, however long you end up living.
I think the different pop star iterations can be arranged into a hierarchy. Being young and unemployed has its perks, one of which is being way, way too knowledgeable about the female pop singers of the moment. To wit:
1. Britney= White trashy Southern Madonna/whore, first on the block.
2. Jessica Simpson= Britney + "wholesome"
3. Avril= "edgy" Canadian Britney run through studio "punk" filter
4. Kelly Clarkson= Southern/good-girl/tv-spawned Britney, run through vaguely "Rock meets ABBA" karaoke filter
5. Ashlee Simpson (aka notJessica)= the other side of Jessica's genetic material, run through tragic series of quasi-kid-punk hoops and a string of exasperated voice coaches.
This list subject to change. Christina Aguilera merits a very long and detailed analysis, so that will be for another time.
.
Quit ragging on the A-man, folks. For free services, Blogger and HaloScan ain't half bad. If you freak out when the site or commenting is down for a few hours, maybe a long walk in the woods is called for.
um, do you people know what Kos pays per month?
Isn't it like 5000 a month?
It helps if you go back to thinking that people are just slightly smarter/stupider apes.
Damn, Toby, you are going to get thrown out of the club. Evolution's just a theory, remember?
I can't imagine that anyone who begins smoking in adolescence has any idea of the long-term consequences, or of how difficult it could be to stop. When I was an adolescent smoker I was also bulletproof and immortal. It was just a thing, no big deal, and Adults were generally idiots, anyway.
I also don't think non-smokers (and people who quit easily) can understand the depth and strength of a nicotine habit. I have been smoking for 30 years, I have a (sorry, but objectively) pretty high IQ, and an education, and I completely understand that this is A Bad Thing. However, getting off the stuff has completely eluded me for the long haul. My best friend and soul sister quit for 11 months; when she finally smoked a cigarette she said she felt like she had been holding her breath the whole time. That's what it's like. It's certainly not pleasant to see the health effects accumulating, know that the end will not be pleasant; and if it were simply a matter of doing the Smart Thing we'd all be off the shit.
It's the Worst. Drug. Ever. After all, if you're a junkie you can't fire up a bag after dinner in a restaurant (or, in the current environment, outside the restaurant). Some of us would love to give it up, but can't imagine life without it.
C.S.
Great Wedding Album get!!
NYMary-
Room 101 was the final punishment for thought criminals in 1984.
massive phallus
weird "handle"......
Sarah Deere
That's an interesting choice of words, Sarah. Handle and my massive phallus. Hmmm.
GW Bush is already making my life hell.
Go look at this picture of some okra that looks like a grasshopper.
Nite-all
Don't let smoke get in your eyes.
Echidne--chocolate cake left at altar. Now, I know that chocolate is bad for the dogs, so I left them some lovely pumpkin loaf.
anyone seen a typepad or MT site which does well with several hundred comments per post?
the answer is "no."
Well, shit, that's proof positive. We could examine you hypothesis more closely if this site weren't a quantum singularity that sucks all the comments from the smaller sites. I saw somebody complain over at First Draft that Blogger was bloggered and so Eschaton wasn't getting updated, as though there aren't other cool places to read and chat and stuff. Eschaton = WalMart.
Anyway go ahead, try leaving 700 comments at my place and let's see how well Typepad works! I know it's handled over 100. Yes, even at my hole in the wall I've hit the century mark.
Regardless you could move to Scoop, like Markos. Something that's more reliable and sophisticated and provides a higher level of service to the audience. It's not about being good enough for government work, but thinking about the folks who support you tangibly and in other ways.
'course, it's your damn blog and you can do whatever the fuck you want. Just seems like after 3 years of batting practice in a minor league park you might consider stepping it up a notch, 'specially since you've made it to The Show.
I'm not sure I even really believe in addiction as a real physical phenomenon.
Not to focus on something you admit isn't your main point, but addiction most certainly is real. You can actually die from the withdrawl after quitting something like heroin if you don't step down slowly. Obviously it isn't so severe with nicotine, but there are physical side effects to quitting.
Hmmm.. I can't think of anyone named Massive Phallus having the national exposure and mention as Duncan aka Atrios. Anyone, have I missed a blog that is notable? Mabye M.P. showed up on TDS and I missed it.
5. Ashlee Simpson (aka notJessica)= the other side of Jessica's genetic material, run through tragic series of quasi-kid-punk hoops and a string of exasperated voice coaches.
I'm not gay or anything but I saw that episode of Saturday Night Live where Ashlee did the jig because she couldn't lipsink.
Ashlee Simpson should honestly not stand next to Jude Law. He made her look plain and fat.
So then I watched her reality show on whatever cable station it's on. I was fascinated. She's so completely ordinary she could be any one of the high-school girls hanging out in front of the Starbucks down the street.
This is the culture that produced Bush. American narcissism. We want to see the utterly banal and ordinary put up on a pedestal. We fucking worship ourselves.
I think too, that as smoking is allowed in fewer and fewer places (and I'm from New York, where you can't smoke in bars) the diehard huddlers bond. So there's a social aspect.
Dr. Pedant:
Damn, Toby, you are going to get thrown out of the club. Evolution's just a theory, remember?
Oh, I get it! You're saying because I'm pro-war, I must be a Bible-thumping NASCARepublican.
Pshaw.
The ability to believe in ones own mortality often doesn't start until the late twenties, I have noticed. Maybe this is the reason?
My fancy-pants theory for this, with absolutely no evidence to back it up, is that this is the age when the body stops maturing and starts aging. The late 20s seems to be the age when athletes hit their prime. So maybe on some subconscious level, One can start to feel mortality. I can confidently say that this may or may not be true.
I wonder what part the state of the world plays in young kids deciding to smoke. If you feel their is no future anyways, they may have a careless attitude about their health in general.
Well, I smoked a pack a day or so since I was 19 until a year and a half ago (22 years). I had "quit" once before for a month, then started up with 1/3 cigarettes at a time, then 1/2, then full ones again.
Then one day the motherfuckers were $3.50 a pack, and I thought "That's the price of a six-pack or a bit of weed or a pound of M&Ms!" Fuck this!
So I stopped smoking that day and never looked back. (I didn't quit smoking, as I am NOT a QUITTER.) I don't know how I did it, I just stopped. After an hour passed, I wanted to see if I could go two, then a day, then two.
And you know what? Food doesn't taste any better, it isn't easier to run up stairs, etc., etc. In fact, I would love to have a cigarette. I follow people around that smell like smoke! In the summer, I can smell it when sombody in the cars ahead of me is smoking! I love it.
It's funny, I still pat my breast pocket on my hawaiian shirt before I go out the door to make sure the pack is there... (it isn't). The only time I really want a smoke is on my 30 mile commute when there's nothing else to do.
So, hey, fuck it. I've spent $1500 since I quit on other shit instead of those Marlboro Lights and MissusX says I don't cough in the middle of the night anymore... your mileage may vary.
Uh, cigarettes, that is.
um, do you people know what Kos pays per month?
If I remember his inteview on C-span, he pays like $5,000/month?
Whoa. Benny the Rat and Neil Bush? How weird is this getting?
Cardinal Ratzinger and Neil Bush, Strange Bedfellows--or Not?
Never smoked, never wanted to, was militant against it from a young age. But I gather that it makes people feel good while they do it. So there's that.
But along similar lines, the thing that makes NO SENSE to me, knowing what we know, having gone through a whole consciousness-raising about it, is that people go to those damn *tanning salons*. What the hell is that?
Most smokers I know fall under two categories. There are those who started in their early or middle teens (my brothers fall under this category), during the period I would label the time of maximum stupidity- you've grown up enough to think you know everything and are smarter than the adults, when in reality you really know nothing. Of course, it takes a few more years of maturity to finally figure that out (fortunately for them, my brothers both managed quit in their early twenties). The people I know who started in their late teens or early twenties began as "social" smokers, initially only indulging in the habit when they went out to drink with their pals. Unfortunately, they fell down the slippery slope of addiction and graduated to being full-time smokers.
Cool how they police their brass in the lady's apartment in the flick, after greasing some Nazis.
That's an interesting choice of words, Sarah. Handle and my massive phallus. Hmmm.
massive phallus
Gosh, MP, I should think you had already gone beyong "interesting" in your choice of ...names. Don't blame me.....
SD
NTodd,
relax, my friend. It's just a blog. It's not like Atrios is a pharmacist or something. 
Quit ragging on the A-man, folks. For free services, Blogger and HaloScan ain't half bad. If you freak out when the site or commenting is down for a few hours, maybe a long walk in the woods is called for.
Who's ragging? It's constructive crit. Blogger and HS are indeed good for free services, and for those of us who don't get tens of thousands of visitors a day, but we're talking about a premier site.
Sallyh:
{{{{{hugs}}}}
Echidne:
So - where do I apply for this goddess gig?
Oh, Flory, you'll hate me more. Depending on the duration of the revelry, I'll smoke anywhere from one to a whole pack. And not want one again until in the same or similar setting.
If it makes you feel better, I gained forty pounds in the years of not smoking much and have yet to take them off.
As I recall, there was nothing like them for writing papers. If I ever went back to school I don't know what I'd do.
ah, all clear now.
(continuing OT)
A few months ago, Chuck Klosterman wrote a great piece about the Ashlee-Orange Bowl fiasco (getting booed lustily by the crowd and the millions of fans at home, myself included). The fact that she's a celebrity -and not a very good celebrity at that!- is a very interesting subject to ponder.
In my estimation. *cough*
All this talk about Britney and Jessica and Avril reminds me of Bill Hicks' pornographic bit on Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Ha, ha!
Quit ragging on the A-man, folks. For free services, Blogger and HaloScan ain't half bad.
The spit and bailing wire look of this dump is its charm. Like the Millenium Falcon.
I smoked for 6 years, half a pack to a pack a day. I quit four months ago. I started when I was around 17 when I finished fixing up a '66 Plymouth Belvedere. I wanted to look cool in my big, bad ass car so I could pick up girls, so I started smoking. And you know what? It worked.
SWR,
You've had better quality rants in the past. The Simpson thing is an obvious parody of itself.
Stick to political intrigue. It's your strong suit.
Actually, when I blogwhore here, about half the comments end up here, rather than at Powerpop. I count them as mine anyway.
relax, my friend. It's just a blog. It's not like Atrios is a pharmacist or something.
I am relaxed. It's not like anything we do here is going to bring about world peace or end hunger or poverty or anything. I just hate shit that doesn't work well, 'specially when I use it all the time.
You can actually die from the withdrawl after quitting something like heroin
I am willing to be wrong, but I think the evidence for this is mostly anecdotal. Urban myth-ish. Often, the symptoms are just what you think they should be.
I've heard (from heroin addicts, no less) that cigs are the hardest thing ever to quit. So where does that leave us?
The sad part is the addiction is not really understood by the average soul out there. From what I have seen, there are two kickers in the process which is why it is so damn hard to quit. I have tried, staying clean for 3 years. But exposure to smokers coupled with extreme stress kicked in a major need for something to fill the void. Nicotine was waiting in the wings for a single moment of weakness. Since then, I have been up and down. I wish government and medical would get realistic and work towards true cessation versus pills and feel good programs. But since the tobacco user is a walking piggy bank, hence more taxes on the products such as in Texas, they have little desire to really become involved in a pragmatic fashion. Nice thing is we can be ignored, taxed and put down when somebody needs a warm fuzzy to make them feel superior.
The older I get, the less able I am to determine girls' ages.
You can actually die from the withdrawl after quitting something like heroin
You can't die from opiate withdrawal but you can die from alcohol withdrawal.
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way.
I think people are pretty right in pinning this squarely on the fact that people in their teens (and especially their early teens) simply aren't good long-term decision makers, period. I started at 14 and have, right now, gone about six or seven weeks since quitting. I'mm 22 now.
ah, all clear now.
The smoke's cleared?
Actually, when I blogwhore here, about half the comments end up here, rather than at Powerpop. I count them as mine anyway.
That exocommenting dealio always has annoyed me.
You've had better quality rants in the past. The Simpson thing is an obvious parody of itself.
Well I can only work up so much rage against Ashlee Simpson.
But still, that show is beyond awful. It's like 30 minutes of a bad home movie.
OK. Kelly Clarkson is on again. Well, at least she doesn't lipsink.
Withdrawal from alcohol is actually the most life threatening, with pharmaceuticals tagging behind. There are no documented cases of death from heroin withdrawal.
Gosh, MP, I should think you had already gone beyong "interesting" in your choice of ...names. Don't blame me.....
SD
Sarah Deere
Sarah, are you going to let the massive phallus be or will you keep poking it?
All this talk about Britney and Jessica and Avril reminds me of Bill Hicks' pornographic bit on Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Ha, ha!
Toby Petzold
So, was he psychic? They've both done Playboy spreads now. I mean, somebody told me they had..
-
The thing about smoking is, it makes it a bunch easier to stay awake, which is non-trivial when you can't manage it by getting adequate sleep.
And the youngsters smoke because smoking is always cool in wartime.
Ek,
Well put. Funny how some folks make it their life bidness to prop up tobacco's "opiate of the masses" role in pork-barrel politics.
This July, It'll be 8 years since I quit those fucking things.
I'm an ex-smoker. They say there's nothing worse than a reformed whore. Well, that's me. I've grown into the most intolerant anti-smoker. I just cannot stand to have cigarette smoke around me. I hate to see my friends who still smoke do it. It hurts me to see them hurt themselves. I have been smoke-free for nine years so I really don't think I am in much danger of relapsing, yet I wonder sometimes if my antipathy towards smoking isn't a defense mechanism against picking it up again. Part of it, though, stems from my anger at myself from having been stupid enough to pick it up and do it for over ten years, and anger at the tobacco companies for profiting from my stupidity.
Eli is 22?
I thought you were 87 and owned a deli in Canarsie.
You clearly led me on.
Yeah, Fielding. Just how much is a copy of Orgasm?
Quitting is an incredible bitch. It took me seven tries over about a three year period to get it done. I licked the nicotine stains off the back of my teeth for a year after that. 20 years later, I still occasionally smoke in my dreams.
It's called being a junkie.
Plus, as with most addictions, you're giving your money hand over fist to evil, lying, mendacious, greedheads.
Don't start.
Cheers -
Yeah, Fielding. Just how much is a copy of Orgasm?
Woody Allen. Took me a second to place it.
THIS MAN WANTS TO BUY A COPY OF ORGASM
Ha. Ha.
They used to put mini-packs of Luckys in the GI's rations.
Better than the crank they used to put in the Nazis' rations.
Electric Sonic Youth propels me towards the sun
Two girls with golden hair assure me that it's fun.
NYMary--
If your brother had NOT shut off the oxygen before smoking THEN he would have been a dumbass!
Hi everybody from Southern California!
BTW Sallyh & Diane are great -- John & I were so lucky & happy to have the chance to visit -- over two hours at lunch & not all of it spent eating!
--Prior Aelred
Heroin activates brain regions that produce euphoric sensations and brain regions that produce physical dependence—hence its notorious ability to produce both psychological and physical addiction. Its addictiveness is characterized by persistent craving for the drug, tolerance (the need for larger and larger doses to get the same results), and painful and dangerous withdrawal. Withdrawal symptoms include panic, nausea, muscle cramps, chills, and insomnia.-Columbia Encyclopedia, 2001
Cigarettes may be harder to quit because of their availibility and their status as a socially acceptable habit. Also, the downside is much less readily apparent, at least at first.
This July, It'll be 8 years since I quit those fucking things.
Rock on.
I think too, that as smoking is allowed in fewer and fewer places (and I'm from New York, where you can't smoke in bars) the diehard huddlers bond. So there's a social aspect.
NYMary
No, dear. It's NOT a social aspect. Its just that when you stand, isolated, and you see the humor and irony in your circumstance, you may occasionally, comment on this fact to your fellows, who may agree w/you or not.
Please, NYM, be better than this.
SD
When my mom developed cancer, she was mostly pissed off. "But they told me to quit and I did!" (for her heart, not her lungs, alas) I got her some dope when the chemo started kicking her ass and she refused to do it. "But then I'd have to smoke again, wouldn't I?" The response I thought: "Ma, it's in your lymph nodes and your liver, it hardly matters now," seemed pretty cold, so I kept it to myself.
In those long drawn-out home hospice months, I looked for that film canister a couple of times, but never found it. Maybe my dad did it.
I'm not sure I even really believe in addiction as a real physical phenomenon.
I can't find who said this, but BELIEVE it.
There are many chemicals produced by plants or produced synthetically that bind to receptors in the brain. It's why anaesthetics, tranquilizers and antidepressants are able to work their healing magic. Take endorphins, for example: Your brain can produce them during sex, or to help you deal with pain. But the receptors that take endorphins up also bind codeine and heroin. In their natural state, the endorphin producing and endorphin receiving bodies are in balance; if you introduce fake endorphins you brain will shut down the production mechanisms to conserve energy. Take the introduced substances away and your brain can't compensate.
Nicotin, BTW, binds to ACH receptors in the brain. ACH is present in every muscle synapse, but researchers were surprised to find it in the brain (10% of neurotransmitters). Come to find out, ACH regulates the creation of the bodies that produce neurotransmitters. Can nicotine fuck up your brain much?
Prior A!
When do you start your East Coast tour?
Matt F - my HS English teacher's son was a Vietnam vet who battled lots of addictions, including nicotine and heroin. He said kicking heroin was infinitely easier than giving up smoking, for whatever reason.
Yeah, Fielding. Just how much is a copy of Orgasm?
Toby Petzold
It was for research purposes! 
At least I didn't pick up that copy of National Review that was next to it! (Next time you see the flick, catch it - it's pretty quick)
-
SD,
I'm completely outside the situation, as I noted. But I know I have colleagues who smoke ostentatiously to have something in common with their students. And I see how my students act on class breaks. Maybe it's only among kids, but then that was Atrios's original point.
For those who have quit and stayed clean, I salute you. And I might suggest you do not linger here in this thread. When I had quit for a while, the mere discussion would create immediate cravings.
Thank you Toby.
Sarah, are you going to let the massive phallus be or will you keep poking it?
massive phallus
no, dear, I think I'll keep "poking" it.
Too much fun.
Plus, as with most addictions, you're giving your money hand over fist to evil, lying, mendacious, greedheads.
Russell Lane
How many other industries bring onboard actuaries to calculate how many new customers they will need to replace the current customers who will statistically die from using their product?
Would the pharmaceuticals do that?
Smith and Wesson?
Union Carbide?
Oh, wait...
Mellish:
At least I didn't pick up that copy of National Review that was next to it!
Heh. I never caught that. I guess I was too busy wearing my underwear on the outside. So they could check.
People take up smoking because they're goddamned fucking morons.
Weak-willed, addle-brained morons.
The study I was referring to used "addictive personality" in a different sense, like meaning that some people are always going to go the whole hog with something that makes them feel better. Or so I remember. It wasn't about whether they were addicted to smoking or not, because nonsmokers could fall in the category of addictives, too. It was based on certain psychological questions and the answers to them.
I have a sister who is like a logical machine. She eats whatever the medical establishment tells her, she runs ten miles a day, she goes to sleep at nine every night and wakes up at five in the morning. And none of this bothers her at all. I'd call her nonaddictive. I'm pretty much the opposite with all the artistic genes and mutations and so on. - Unless she's addicted to the Right Living...
Anybody remember that X-files epi about smoking and those weird bugs?
If your brother had NOT shut off the oxygen before smoking THEN he would have been a dumbass!
He only would have done that once.
Sorry, sorry.
It's not like anything we do here is going to bring about world peace or end hunger or poverty or anything.
NTodd
Well, what the fuck am I wasting my time here for, then?
Off to save the universe on another blog,
v
Also, perhaps I'll strike a match on the MP to light my next cigarette.
Has it occurred to anyone that one of the things we have lost in the last many years is the ability to let each other alone?
I do not smoke indoors. I do not smoke around people who gasp and choke when I light up. I try to be the most considerate of smokers, all the while putting up with investive and condescension from non-smokers (or, worse, ex-smokers).
Our tendency to mind the business of others (rather than our own) is really getting on My Last Nerve.
SD
Buzz:
I have been smoke-free for nine years so I really don't think I am in much danger of relapsing
Don't kid yourself. I know any number of people who've relapsed after 10, 12 or more years.
Prior A:
We had a lovely discussion of your lunch today on the prior (hah!) thread.
The need for a cigarette is mainly an illusion. Once you quit, you will have more energy and function better. My advice to smokers is cut down to 3-5 a day and then take it from there.
I used to be a heroin addict, now I'm a methadone addict.
I hope you've all seen "The Insider."
People take up smoking because they're goddamned fucking morons.
Do yer worst...
Nih!
Sure, Blak. You've given yourself back a lot of your life doing that.
I need to remember that everything's better without smoking. My smile gets brighter, my clothes and my environment start smelling better (eventually), I save money, etc.
Oh, and I get "that quality response my husband is looking for." Ha, ha. How does Levitra ad go?
Well, what the fuck am I wasting my time here for, then?
Hell if I know! Me, I'm here because I'm addicted.
Not to change the topic but did anyone else catch Bruce on VH1 Storytellers? Fantastic!
Wait, Virginia.... you're not Codename V., are you?
And I can hold a note a lot longer when I'm not smoking.
NYMary,
I am so sorry to read what you just wrote.
I went through the same horrifying anti-Father Knows Best scene with my brother.
It changes a person.
As someone whose addictions are limited to sugar and caffeine, which I have never even attempted to quit, I can't exactly comment with any authority on the relative difficulty of beating various addictive substances. My point was simply that heroin has much more severe, though probably shorter term, withdrawal symptoms than nicotine, and isn't something you can shrug off if you wake up on the right side of the bed one morning.
How many other industries bring onboard actuaries to calculate how many new customers they will need to replace the current customers who will statistically die from using their product?
That's why we need Lisa Simpson to shill for Laramie jr.!
I've known junkies who kicked smack, but could not kick cigarettes. It's like free-basing nicotine.
I always thought that the tobacco corps had the system totally wired, and I'm still amazed that one can no longer smoke on airplanes, crush your butt under your heel in line at the grocery checkout, etc. Surprised me just like the crumbling of the Berlin wall.
...did anyone else catch Bruce on VH1 Storytellers?
Yes.
It was excellent, and I'm not even a fan.
Thers--
Well, I am planning on EschaCon -- does that count?
BTW -- I gave up tobacco some years back after MANY years of smoking cigarettes (ROLLED MY OWN), cigars & pipes -- my preference was for snuff -- the craving is still there
--Prior Aelred
What about that chimp in South Africa they can't keep from smoking all the time? Jonah Goldberg said something about how he wasn't wondering why the chimp was smoking, but about who keeps lighting his cigarettes for him! Heh.
like meaning that some people are always going to go the whole hog with something that makes them feel better.
Yep. That's me. I chewed my fingernails when I was very young. Then I took up smoking. Then I gave up smoking and took up eating too much.
I'd make another comment about an oral fixation but Central Scrutinizer's prolly still around.
Starting at age 24 in 1988, I smoked because I liked it. I still do, but also maintain the habit our of defiance of an intrusive, prudish, and ultimately deluded health culture.
Want to avoid cancer? Too late, brothers and sisters. Let's count a few ways for those of my age:
1) How many of you ingested red dye #2?
2) How many played on concrete sidewalks made from sand from the Nevada test site?
3) How close did you sit to those televisions made before 1971?
4) Eat any produce from California after those clouds of atomic fall-out passed over?
5) Hell, has anyone been breathing air after the decades of atmospheric nuclear testing?
6) Live anywhere near a producer of industrial pollutants? How about undisclosed toxic waste dumps (best not think about it)?
I could just list all the things that harmful to health, including damaged chromosomes from Agent Orange and depleted uranium munitions.
In the end we know the score: I will die. You will die.
Some of the most healthfully living people will die young. Some with the worst habits imaginable reach old age.
With so many of our neighbors not only believing that End Times are upon us, but that they are active agents of the Lord whose sacred duty is to bring down fire and damnation upon the heathen hordes, I say smoke 'em if you got 'em.
And if Jesus does show up, I'll offer him a smoke. He'll understand the gesture and bless me for it.
Thank you, and goodnight...
*cough*
*wheeze*
I've known people who have quit various drugs who can't quit nicotine. One of my best friends is 15 years clean from coke but he still smokes close to a pack a day.
flory,
I still ain't sayin' nuthin'.
Well, I am planning on EschaCon -- does that count?
Only if you sell some cool T-Shirts!
Yes, whatever addiction you stop the craving will always be there. Like how one misses someone who died. It gets easier with years but it will not go away. I even have this about caffeine which I quit (except for the small amounts that are in chocolate) a couple of years ago. I remember the clarity that one gets with caffeine...Sniff.
Surprised me just like the crumbling of the Berlin wall.
QuentinCompson
Yeah, remember smoking IN MOVIE THEATRES?
Seems like a whole 'nother century, doesn't it?
Jonah Goldberg said something about how he wasn't wondering why the chimp was smoking, but about who keeps lighting his cigarettes for him!
A chimpanzee can easily learn how to ignite a lighter.
A Chimp, however, can never aquire the humanity not to ignite a globe.
if the Lorillard Corporation owns my lungs then who owns my soul?
we are all going to die. something we all share. something you can never share. with me, or with any other other.
alas.
what were we talking about again?
My point was simply that heroin has much more severe, though probably shorter term, withdrawal symptoms than nicotine, and isn't something you can shrug off if you wake up on the right side of the bed one morning.
I wasn't disagreeing. Just sharing an anecdote that I though bore out what you were saying to a certain extent.
Pez,
Thanks. Thers once said a light went out in me when my mom dies and took years to come back, but really it was the process, not the death, that did me in. It didn't help that, well, all of my siblings, pretty much abandoned me and my dad to the process.
Those of you phlegmatic (now *there's* a choice of words!) about death by cancer might want to think a bit about the ones next to the hospice bed.
the very first flight I took, nyc to syracuse to see the stones, they still let you smoke. don't know how I would have made that without the pleasure of nicotine.
even People's Express let you smoke on their flights. the good old days.
My point was simply that heroin has much more severe, though probably shorter term, withdrawal symptoms than nicotine, and isn't something you can shrug off if you wake up on the right side of the bed one morning.
Matt F
I have been on both sides of this bed, and I can assure you that there is absolutely no comparison between the long-term craving for a cigarette when compared to heroin. I would never, never stick a needle in my arm again, but I couldn't finish this comment without lighting a cigarette.
Need to be anonymous, here, but a lot of you will recognize my inimitable allure (ha!).
I'm honestly finding it harder to go without Diet Mountain Dew than cigarettes(I stopped 2 weeks ago and caved in once).
Then again, I still smoke pot too.
I keep wondering who signs off on Jonah's paychecks. Might as well hire the chimp.
I can't find who said this, but BELIEVE it.
'twas I.
Sorry, Virginia, but I read medical studies for a living, and I am not at all convinced by your concise review of the state of knowledge. Take away what the receptors are used to binding to, and they can't compensate? Really? For how long? For which substances? In what way? What does "can't compensate" mean? And the most important--what's the connection between receptor reaction (and how did you measure it?) and objective symptomatology? You know the drill...
All I'm really saying, though, is there's a substantial placebo effect here; with people feeling symptoms they think they should feel.
And Matt? The Columiba Encyclopedia is not a medical reference, but the symptoms they cite sound a lot like those of a bad cold, to me.
P.S. I smoked for seven years, pack to a little more than a pack a day. Quitting was about how I'd expect it to be from a habit I practiced (and enjoyed) twenty-plus times a day for seven years. But addicted? No. I'd have as much trouble giving up gum-chewing, if I did that twenty times a day, and if it gave me the buzz nicotine did.
You have to want to quit, more than you want to smoke. That's all there fucking is.
Re how one gets addicted to smoking. I didn't start until I was in my late 20s and I liked the taste of Marlboros and the act of smoking them.
I've never kidded myself that I was quitting, but I give up cigs for longish (week or month) periods when I don't feel like them. No problem, or I just cut down to two or four a day when that's right.
I never understood a smoker like Marianne Faithfull, who literally choked and hacked and spat up on stage and apologized to her fans for interrupting songs, then lit up, asking for quitting suggestions. Great singer though, and the cigs are integral to her distinctive voice and personality. She should quit (has she?).
I currently smoke about 6 to 10 per day, if that's any guide to what I'm driving at. If I'm at all phlegmatic, forget it--who wants em?
I always wondered if the amount of money I spent annually on cigarettes was less than, equal to, or greater than the amount of tax dollars I paid annually to have others (enemies of the State) killed in my name.
never could get a good answer to that question.
why quit caffeine? never seen any serious adverse health affects from it. I won't deny it's addictive, but it's a 2-3 day "kick it" kind of addiction, no big deal...
I've known people who have quit various drugs who can't quit nicotine.
I've quit everything I've ever done (I've done a lot), and never, ever, looked back. Except tobacco and weed.
I can live without the latter, but I wouldn't like it much. I can live without the former, but I wouldn't like that much either.
Buzz:
I have been smoke-free for nine years so I really don't think I am in much danger of relapsing
Don't kid yourself. I know any number of people who've relapsed after 10, 12 or more years.
As I said, I think that part of my extreme intolerance of cigarettes is a subconscious means of hopefully preventing me from being tempted to have "just one" and thereby fall back into my old ways. I did relapse once, during a bad breakup with a girlfriend. I was back smoking for two years before I finally kicked it for good. And that girlfriend: so not worth it!
Is this based on any fact? Yeah, people shouldnt smoke. But everything I heard was that the trends were going down, at least through 2003.
From CDC:
The prevalence of lifetime cigarette use, although stable during the 1990s, declined significantly, from 70.4% in 1999 to 58.4% in 2003 (Table 1). The prevalence of current cigarette use increased from 27.5% in 1991 to 36.4% in 1997 and then declined significantly to 21.9% in 2003. A significant quadratic trend was detected for current frequent cigarette use; the prevalence increased from 12.7% in 1991 to 16.7% in 1997 and 16.8% in 1999, then declined significantly to 9.7% in 2003.
One of my best friends is 15 years clean from coke but he still smokes close to a pack a day.
BlakNo1
This is my hypothesis with no proof to offer, but I think there's something there that's completely genetic. I know many people who are physically addicted, but I can go without smoking for days.
With me, it's all psychological - I have no cravings except in certain situations. A nice strong cup of coffee or a beer. Kind of a piggy-back addiction.
-
Yeah, remember smoking IN MOVIE THEATRES?
My freshman year of college - smoking in the lecture halls.
Atrios, caffeine makes fibrocystic breast disease much worse. Not a problem for you, probably...
Yeah, remember smoking IN MOVIE THEATRES?
When I was a moviehouse in Germany a few years ago, I had to sit through about 15 minutes of cigarette ads until the movie started.
why quit caffeine? never seen any serious adverse health affects from it. I won't deny it's addictive, but it's a 2-3 day "kick it" kind of addiction, no big deal...
Very bad for some kinds of anxiety disorders. But in general, no.
the bitter Dr. Pedant
Hang on - I'm working on a summary of why I "think" what I think. Follow-up by e-mail?
She eats whatever the medical establishment tells her, she runs ten miles a day, she goes to sleep at nine every night and wakes up at five in the morning.
One of these days, there will be a lot of people laying up in their hospital beds, saying "What? I'm dying from nothing?" [I think that's Jackie Mason's.]
That is to say, when I was in a moviehouse...
Bitter Dr. Pedant--some studies were being done to examine the effects on the nicotinic acid and dopamine receptors in the brain. I haven't seen the data from said studies; I'm not certain they're complete, nor if they're even being funded at this point.
why quit caffeine? never seen any serious adverse health affects from it. I won't deny it's addictive, but it's a 2-3 day "kick it" kind of addiction, no big deal...
The only reason I've ever found is to get resensitized to it. After a certain amount of time I have to start downing shots of espresso to get any effect, so I usually cut back in the summer in order to get the full medicinal value when the Fall semester rolls around.
Wow, I am an idiot, it looks like I posted my message 18 times. Sweet.
A Chimp, however, can never aquire the humanity not to ignite a globe.
I get the feeling that Pez is trying to say something.
"What? I'm dying from nothing?"
LOL!
Atrios:
why quit caffeine? never seen any serious adverse health affects from it. I won't deny it's addictive
For some of us - ulcers.
Also requires you to give up cigarettes, booze and chocolate.
Why go on living you ask?
C'est moi--
Sure. Can't wait. (If I don't succumb to my addiction to sleep, first)...
“****er has a reputation for carelessness with facts, “ Time reported, adding that its checking staff “did not in fact find many outright errors,” though the magazine acknowledged that *****er was, in a sense, hard to “fact check” because - “rarely makes arguments based on facts”.
who they talkin bout?
Atrios--
Caffeine is not good for the circulatory system -- when you drink as much coffee as I did (say over a pot a day) you can have blood pressure issues
Life is a matter of making choices
--Prior Aelred
That is to say, when I was in a moviehouse...
I thought for a minute you were telling us about how much weight you gained when you quit...
Prior--lovely to see you this evening, and I wish to thank you and John and Diane for a most pleasant visit.
I just felt 1-2 2liter bottles a day of the stuff was way too much.
I've also noticed that pot lasts longer(the supply,not the effect) since giving up soda.
Matt F-
Giving up caffeine for Lent (it's like a bad dream, since I was asleep the whole time) was a great way to get spoon-bendingly focused for the last weeks of school heading into exams.
And I have absolutely nothing with which to back this up. Hail Placebo!
I think it depends on the person. Not just addictive personalities, of which I claim membership, but for those which nicotine gives them a kick, not unlike any other chemical compound.
I get the feeling that Pez is trying to say something.
Don't start...
You've been almost pleasant to be around tonight.
Caffeine's rough, even to cut down. Like Matt F, my addiction follows the academic year.
I have a question though, for the smokers here: we seem torn between a kind of civil liberties "keep your laws off my lungs" kind of thing, and the insistence tht this is a powerful, out-of-control addiction. Is there a consensus on this? It can't be bth, can it?
I thought for a minute you were telling us about how much weight you gained when you quit...
Yeah, I really sit around the house.
I'm three months quit after many, many tries.
Two things helped me in the end:
1. a comprehensive quit-smoking program. In Philly, there is an excellent one at Jefferson's Tobacco Intervention Program. It involves a team of doctors, including a pulmonologist and a psychologist;
2. Nictrol's Nicotine Nasal Spray. It is VERY expensive ($45/bottle, and I go through about a bottle a week), and only available by prescription, but of course it will save costs and life in the long run.
The nasal spray is the ONLY nicotine replacement therapy that ever worked for me. It gives me that burn I need and want from a cigarette--it makes my eyes water, and makes me feel like my brain is lifting off from my scalp (because it goes through the nose, the nicotine gets absorbed into the blood through the capillaries, and reaches the brain very quickly). Good shit.
Good luck to everyone trying to quit. It's a rough road.
Scrutinizer:
You've been almost pleasant to be around tonight.
Oh.
Well, then you definitely don't want to go to my blog.
So sat.'s are for random thingies?
Or maybe we could talk about the smoke that's been getting in the eyes of Americans - and how we can bring to an end an era which celebrates people who advocate Joseph McCarthy and Joseph Stalin and every other horrible kind of Joe we can possibly imagine just like in science-fiction film where the villain is very one-dimensional and everything foreshadows an unhappy but inevitable end -
I gained 20 lbs but I was exercising and working out fairly often at the time so it wasn't a big deal.
Hail Placebo!
All pay homage to our Lord, the Sugar Pill. May he continue to use his medicinal appearance to treat all diseases and promote general well-being.
Yeah, I really sit around the house.
Fuck, that was genuinely funny.
I see a lot of young folks at my job and it just cracks me up to hear them talk about "gettin' all jittery" by downing THREE espressos RIGHT IN A ROW and shit! And then they got all weird when they drank those two RED BULLS!
No concept. Heh heh.
Yeah, I really sit around the house.
Oh hell, LOL
Although the piece of okra made to look like a grasshopper is worth the price of admission alone.
Jay:
Giving up caffeine for Lent (it's like a bad dream, since I was asleep the whole time) was a great way to get spoon-bendingly focused for the last weeks of school heading into exams.
I gave it up for 6 months to let my ulcer heal. I still remember that first cup. One cup and I literally did not sleep for 24 hours.
that's one hell of a placebo effect.
"The Tipping Point" has an excellent discussion on this subject.
Turns out most teens overstate the risk when they are asked how many years it will take off their life. So they know it's bad.
So smoking isn't cool. But SMOKERS are cool. Turns out most kids are introducing to smoking by the kind of kids they admire - the rebel, the risk taker, the cool kid. My wife had her cool kid and most smokers I ask had a 'mentor'.
Now, whether it sticks or not is an entirely different manner. One interesting note is that two of the compounds in nicotene are similar chemicals to those used in the treatment of depression. And treating smokers for depression seems to work as well as the nicotene patch...
I could go on and on, but take some time to read that part of the book.
You have to want to quit, more than you want to smoke. That's all there fucking is.
Absolute...effing...truth. The crutches are worse than just letting go.
NYMary--I think this is a powerful addiction. While I really hate the health police, I do have concerns about the well-being of those around me who don't smoke, and the costs of health care for those who do. So to say society has no interest in smoking as a public health issue would be wrong. The big problem is that we don't really have good treatments for addiction of any kind. 12-step works well for many, but even successful 12-steppers wish there were medical alternatives.
Wellbutrin has been used by some attempting to quit. I tried it. It was a poor drug for me to be on, but I think some have had some very good luck with it.
More brain physiology, topology and biochemistry studies need to be done in order to understand the phenomenon, but in this regime, the likelihood of that happening is slim. This regime has moralized illness to such a degree that I've not observed in my lifetime. It doesn't bode well for a good research climate.
But that's for another time.
Bill Maher's battle flag has for a while now been the purposeful addiction to unhealthful food intake by this Nation's citizens. Fast food or supermarket, makes no difference to him. We have a local farmer's market and the produce is, in my opinion, "old school".
Good stuff.
I gave it up for 6 months to let my ulcer heal. I still remember that first cup. One cup and I literally did not sleep for 24 hours.
The first cup I had after Easter nearly had me running outside to lift up cars. I felt like the Hulk, only much more pleasant. And no purple pants.
I hear the Canadian pharmacies are getting THC in pill form. For certain kinds of pain. Man.
NYMary--
People are different -- maybe some people simply choose to indulge in the pleasure of tobacco & others can't help themselves
I really don't know
Cold turkey for me -- the craving is still there -- you've got to want to
--Prior Aelred
Well, I finally finished my own blogging, about how my sister-in-law's band is about to do this incredibly cool and fame-inducing thing, so i had to come here and whore it.
Cigarettes: neither my mom nor my dad smoked, but the rest of the clan did, like chimneys. My two aunts who were the real perpetual smokers (Nora and Pauline) both died in their 40's--which wasn't lost on us.
And one of the guys my father worked with had one of those metal trachea holes, which allowed him to speak by basically burping air through it. It was one of the most horrible things in my tender young life.
And as for teen rebellion, who needed tobacco when you had LSD?
Flory--I wonder if we were living in Ulcerville at the same time. Giving up coffee for six months was miserable. Herbal tea is simply not the same thing. I actually started back with decaf, then made half caf, then moved back to the real thing when I figured it wasn't going to rip my stomach to shreds. Having coffee back in my life was truly a pleasure.
Uncle Smokes |
SD
Yep.
Yeah, I really sit around the house.
Fuck, that was genuinely funny.
Hmm? Are you kidding? That's one of the lamest fat jokes ever devised.
We don't want freedom, we don't want justice. We just want someone to love.
LSD? Usually, it was just rat poison.
pbg,
Yeah, but we smoked and did acid. Kids today don't know. They just don't know...
My pot use seriously spiked for a while when I first quit, but then it settled back down to "normal".
Those first few months though, I could've out-smoked any 10 rastafarians.
Although the piece of okra made to look like a grasshopper is worth the price of admission alone.
Toby Petzold
I did get a kick out of that. However, if grasshopper worship or okra idolization was in vogue, you could've made it to CNN..
-
LSD? Usually, it was just rat poison.
Boy, were you going to the wrong people!!
LSD? Usually, it was just rat poison.
We had what was called "Mafia acid". You had to be careful.
This regime has moralized illness to such a degree that I've not observed in my lifetime. It doesn't bode well for a good research climate.
Sallyh, you totally nail it. This is what it's all about for them: bankruptcy, reproductive control, gay marriage, all of it. It's a moralized world.
Their morality.
PS. I love threads where we can disagree peacefully with each other. I suppose that's somewhat perverse of me.
Turns out most kids are introducing to smoking by the kind of kids they admire - the rebel, the risk taker, the cool kid.
Perhaps this is why I never started. I couldn't stand the cool kids.
NYMary--I thought peaceful disagreement was the essence of academic discourse. But what do I know? I'm but a math geek
I can't do caffeine.
More that 1 or 2 cups of coffee whacks me out horribly, with accompanying extreme agitation, paranoia, and shortness of breath that lasts for hours and hours.
Based on my experiences, coffee should be made illegal.
I don't allow cigarettes in my house, but I've never felt the urge to get self-righteous about it.
I don't agree with banning smoking in bars either.
But I know I have colleagues who smoke ostentatiously to have something in common with their students.
One of my favorite philosophy profs led his classes and seminars with endless chain Marlboro's flying about and Zippos clicking in counterpoint, like he was playing alto cigarette. Totally effective, and almost all the verrry smart students smoked also; we even bought the guy a butane lighter as a present, quite advanced in the mid-sixties, thinking just as we are saying here 'we know it's bad, probably killing you, but here's a nice lighter'. He was much cooler than the pipe-smokers throughout the rest of the humanities department. Great teacher.
PS. I love threads where we can disagree peacefully with each other.
Are you talking about Toby? Why not ask her why she's not being an asshole tonight?
pbg,
your link isn't working for me. Did you get my email?
I have a question though, for the smokers here: we seem torn between a kind of civil liberties "keep your laws off my lungs" kind of thing, and the insistence tht this is a powerful, out-of-control addiction. Is there a consensus on this? It can't be bth, can it?
NYMary
NYM,
Keep your laws off my lungs, and I blame no one for my addiction.
But, Christ in a Cuisinart, give me a fucking break. I see people jogging on public streets, sucking in bus exhaust while they run. Those same people, standing outside at a bus stop, will fan their faces with their hands and *cough* delicately when they come near my smoke.
You know what? FUCK them.
This is nonsense. THere have always been, and will always be, "addictions".
And one of the greatest is to mind someone else's business because we do not have enough of our own to mind.
SD
Mellish:
I did get a kick out of that. However, if grasshopper worship or okra idolization was in vogue, you could've made it to CNN..
That blog report they do? It's pretty silly. And, like Atrios says, bad television. Except for the two hotties that host it.
Matt Davis at The Left Coaster actually got quoted on there this past week.
The best I ever did was getting quoted by Phil Donahue on the Letterman show when it was still on NBC.
PS. I love threads where we can disagree peacefully with each other. I suppose that's somewhat perverse of me.
I actually think it's more interesting to have conversations with people who do disagree with you. Forces you to think on your feet, and can lead to actually adopting a new idea!
Dr. Pedant:
Are you talking about Toby? Why not ask her why she's not being an asshole tonight?
I'm a dude, man.
And if I'm not being an asshole, it's because I had a great day househunting in gorgeous weather and the buzz ain't worn off yet.
Sallyh:
I went right back to caffeine after 6 months of abstention but cut back from 10-12 to 2-3 cups/day and only in the morning.
Then last fall I started getting some pre-ulcer stomach pains and gave it up completely again.
Only time in my life I've ever had a migraine - nausea, light auras, the whole bit.
Now I'll have one or two cups of the real stuff a week but I'm careful not to get physically dependent again. No more migraines for me. Nuh-uh. Never. Ever.
When were you resident in ulcerville. Mine was a memorable New Years stay in the hospital - the ulcer was bleeding - in 1988.
SD,
Please don't misunderstand me; it was a genuine question about something I readily admit I don't understand, but which has had catastrophic effects on my life.
With that, I bid you goodnight.
Sorry about confusing your gender, Toby.
"I don't allow cigarettes in my house, but I've never felt the urge to get self-righteous about it."
I've lived in CA for so long, I can no longer smoke inside of a structure. I've got to be outside.
I hear the Canadian pharmacies are getting THC in pill form. For certain kinds of pain. Man.
Toby Petzold
I have to wonder what kind of pain is counteracted by watching the sink breathe and gazing in amazement at the equalization bars on the stereo. I'd actually like to hear more about this - linky?
OT from being OT - Animal Planet has an interesting Animal Kingdom episode on Tasmanian Devils. They are a lot cuter than I thought - if I had a blog, I might do Friday Devil blogging.
-
another source of heartache that we can lay at the feet of corporations and their advertising apostles. there's some very cool activism going on in the youngster crowd, though.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/index.htm
Matt:
I actually think it's more interesting to have conversations with people who do disagree with you. Forces you to think on your feet, and can lead to actually adopting a new idea!
That rarely happens here because I get torn into right away by people calling me a troll.
I've never understood ideological purity. Mostly because it doesn't exist. But, to those who believe it does exist, they are just a few steps away from going in through the out door. That is, becoming such commies that they are actually fascists.
I might do Friday Devil blogging.
I'm thinking Friday Dangerous Animal blogging. Opens up the field a bit more. This could lead to something...
...like he was playing alto cigarette.
lol
I only smoke when I drink . . . but since that's like all the time, well . . .
Not a pill, but here's a link about Sativex.
Yeah, I really sit around the house.
Fuck, that was genuinely funny.
Don Rickles?
Well, we did tend to vet our acid through our tame chem grad student--and there were also the shamelessly useful "we'll drop anything" folks who would come back and report, "yeah, a little strychnine, but not too bad.."
When I was working on my thesis (never finished), the undergrads I knew kept taking stuff they thought was LSD, that I could tell just from watching them wasn't.
It cemented my reputation as a cranky old fart.
AND they smoked Balkan Sobranies, the foulest things known to man that didn't involve actual camel dung.
Melee in Colorado Springs:
Salazar pisses off Focus on the Family! Good boy!
If we only had the fucking orb from Sleeper, we could sort all of this out.
there's some very cool activism going on in the youngster crowd, though.
Please tell me you're not talking about those smug self-rightous pricks in the Truthout commercials. I think incredibly uncool and clumsy Anti might as well be Pro.
Mellish:
I have to wonder what kind of pain is counteracted by watching the sink breathe and gazing in amazement at the equalization bars on the stereo.
Jesus! We're not talking about Northern Lights here! Probably.
I'd actually like to hear more about this - linky?
I'll have to work on that one. I think I just saw it this past week on CNN or somesuch.
Absolute...effing...truth. The crutches are worse than just letting go.
northsylvania
See, that's what I mean. The crutches are worse for you than just letting go. For other people the crutches are the only way to let go.
NYMary: I am not very anti-government-intervention on smoking. I think the rights of people who don't want to smoke are probably more pressing than the rights of those of us who do.
However, I think there are limits, here. Could we just have some bars where I could smoke and have a drink? Do health nuts generally hang around in bars? And I'm a little iffy about the prohibition of smoking in outside venues like restaurant decks. In Florida you're likely to be six feet from a roadway, or sixteen feet from a waterway crowded with power boats. I can't imagine that my cigarette 6 feet from you is much worse than the bus exhaust, brake asbestos from the road, gas/oil mixture from the boats.
We're smoking Labrador?!
Flory--I was visiting Ulcerville in 2003. I'm glad that's over.
Prepare for the next battle at the box office -
CHRISTIAN conservatives in America are marshalling their forces against Sir Ridley Scott’s forthcoming crusader epic, The Kingdom of Heaven, claiming the film is insulting and unfair.
Scott, 67, received death threats from Muslim fundamentalists during filming in Morocco two years ago when King Mohammed VI, who admired his earlier work, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, lent him troops from the royal bodyguard.
Yet it is Christian hostility that may ultimately prove more damaging at the box office. A spate of hostile reviews that are due to appear in the increasingly influential religious press this week will urge America’s 80m born-again believers to avoid the £100m film.
http://tinyurl.com/dswad
Q:
Don Rickles?
That would be about his speed.
I thought THC was mainly for chemo-related nausea, not pain.
Please tell me you're not talking about those smug self-rightous pricks in the Truthout commercials. I think incredibly uncool and clumsy Anti might as well be Pro.
IIRC, they revamped those commercials this year because they were received so poorly. I think the new ones could be far more effective on the kids, since they're a bit more on the postmodern/laugh-at-lame-sitcoms side. More seductive to a coolness-starved teen audience, I'd say.
Although to me it just looks like effort, which is not in itself cool.
That blog report they do? It's pretty silly. And, like Atrios says, bad television. Except for the two hotties that host it.
Actually, I was thinking of all the furor stirred up by the pee stain in Illinois that supposedly looks like the Virgin Mary. Agree on the hotness observation, however. In a liberal, non-exploitative way.
-
People who don't understand the nature of addiction never cease to amaze me. They seem to think an understanding of the harmful nature of your drug of choice would be enough to make you quit.
Moreover, somehow smokers are the last group of people you can openly discriminate against -- segregate 'em, shut 'em out, tax the fuck out of 'em, etc.
Sure, you can chastise us because it's our choice to smoke & we can always stop at any time, not like being born a certain way, i.e. black, female, disabled, gay(although some might argue that's more of a "choice" than something that you're born with), so as long as we "choose" to smoke we deserve any derision we get.
Well, try this experiment: walk up to an obese person & say "Hey! I think you're way too fat. How about you just stop eating?" Or how about forcing fat people to eat removed from other "normal" people in restaurants. Fuck all your "it's glandular" excuses... if you're fat, it's because you made the choice not to stop stuffing your fat fucking face.
And to the people that would say "well, smoking harms people around you, while being fat only harms the person who's fat", I won't argue that smoking affects people other than yourself. But consider this: fat people pass on their eating disorders to their children, & their children's children, breeding a new generation of fatties who are a health risk to themselves as well as placing a burden on your health care system.
I've actually had complete strangers come up to me & tell I'm disgusting because I was having a smoke. Ironically enough, the majority of these people have been fat. My stock response is "judging by the size of your fat ass, we both have our oral fixations to deal with". My second choice is "I could wake up tomorrow & decide to quit smoking. You'll wake up tomorrow & still be fat".
I realize I'm trying to defend the indefensible, but still... this shit pisses me off.
(For the record, I've quit smoking for 3 months & counting, but smoker discrimination still pisses me off. And fat people offend my aesthetic sensibilities)
Wow. No Brownsville Station references yet. I'm impressed.
pbg--
Before I entered the monastery I rolled my own Balkan Sobranie cigs (White Label) & smoked Balkan Sobranie (Black Label) in my pipe -- I sure didn't smoke it because other people liked the smell!
The new monastic dormitory with smoke detectors in every room made a difference in my life (a good one I think)
--Prior Aelred
Yes, yes! What Blak said. I had misremembered it. Yes, it's going to be a vaporizer/inhalant thing instead of what I said.
Thanks.
And guess what the biggest black market item (after 1970s-era American toilets) is going to be on the Canadian border next year.
I think the new ones could be far more effective on the kids, since they're a bit more on the postmodern/laugh-at-lame-sitcoms side. More seductive to a coolness-starved teen audience, I'd say.
Although to me it just looks like effort, which is not in itself cool.
They're an improvement in that the self-rightous jackasses are gone, but you're right that they still have that flop-sweat trying-too-hard vibe.
Melee in Colorado Springs:
Senator Salazar is making up some lost ground.
I thought THC was mainly for chemo-related nausea, not pain.
the bitter Dr. Pedant
Maybe my foot does still hurt, but I care a lot less.
Balkan Sobranies, mmm.
The last ones I smoked, the lady at the tobacco shop had to open several tins, picking out the ones without little bug holes, to make up a pack. Seems like the fucking Bosnian wars had cut the supply, and what she had was the last in the universe, the bastards.
Balkan Sobranies and Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee - ultimate sin.
raff,
Liked your riff. But no one chooses to be fat, I don't think; at least, not the way they choose to smoke. I think fatness is pretty complicated, all in all.
People like us, people like us: we don't want justice, we don't want freedom, we just want someone to love.
A spate of hostile reviews that are due to appear in the increasingly influential religious press this week will urge America’s 80m born-again believers to avoid the £100m film.
80 Million? Hmmmmm That'd be maybe 28% of the population? I tend more cynical than the next guy and that still seems like "padding the Bra" to me.
And there are several levels that frighten the inner cynic.
.
(after 1970s-era American toilets)
I'm scared to ask.
Well, try this experiment: walk up to an obese person & say "Hey! I think you're way too fat. How about you just stop eating?" Or how about forcing fat people to eat removed from other "normal" people in restaurants. Fuck all your "it's glandular" excuses... if you're fat, it's because you made the choice not to stop stuffing your fat fucking face.
Something that's said a lot is that obesity is the last acceptable area of bigotry in this country. The way I see it, problems like smoking and obesity are medical problems best treated with medical solutions, not with ridicule or other juvenile tactics.
Raff--obesity is proven to be a more complicated phenomenon than overeating. Once again, I'm not hopeful for more research. We have a born again fitness freak running the show; if he can spend three hours a day exercising, why can't everyone?
NYMary,
Please accept my apologies, I did not know that this issue had affected you so deeply.
I'm just a crusty old fart who wants not to be picked on for the bad habits I have retained over the yrs. I have my good and my bad points, and I have earned both of them.
I was thinking in the personal, not the unversal.
SD
My mother smokes--2 or 3 packs a day. Whenever I visit, I point out the "time to quit now" ads on the TV. The truth is, she's probably never going to quit. My mother is schizophrenic and I have learned that some schizophrenics learn to self-medicate with tobacco. I'd rather have my mother alive and smoking rather than institutionalized or dead. But I do wish I could come back from my parents' house without smelling like I've been in a dank, smoky bar.
My sister doesn't smoke and she's quite militant about it. She'd probably kill her kids if she thought they were smoking. Our brother does smoke, but he does it outside. When I visited him in Houston 18 months ago, he would go out to his patio in the rain to smoke. Not because of me, but because of his sun conure (bird).
One of my uncles is on oxygen because he smoked and smoked when he was younger. If I'd ever had an inclination to smoke, watching him doing breathing therapy definitely swore me off that.
I am surprised to find out that a letter I wrote to the Arizona Republic will be published in tomorrow's paper. The paper opined that it was a great thing that Pope BXVI was elected, because he'd speak up for "enduring moral principles and traditional values" and I wrote in to say, basically, that people could disagree with those values and still be people of faith. Here's hoping my father doesn't read it--not because he'd disagree, but because he'd think I was bringing unwanted attention on the family. O Well.
nd fat people offend my aesthetic sensibilities)
raff
I'll try to stay out of your field of vision. Sorry for existing.
urge America’s 80m born-again believers to avoid the £100m film.
What percentage of those 80m watch *any* film?
I live Syracuse NY, which has banned smoking in bars and restaurants for a couple of years now. When I recently traveled to D.C. I was eating at the bar of a nice restaurant and people started smoking butts. It really sucked. And made me appreciate how it is back home.
"The way I see it, problems like smoking and obesity are medical problems best treated with medical solutions, not with ridicule or other juvenile tactics."
I agree with Matt here. I'm just not optimistic about continuing research into the CNS and the like regarding this.
We're smoking Labrador?!
Toby Petzold
"I had to follow that dog around for days, man. Hey - Bendecko!"
-
1970s-era American toilets
You don't want to go there.
as for smoking - started when I was ten - a pack a week until 16 or so when it climbed to half a pack a day because I could afford it - grew up in an era where you could smoke anywhere including the classrooms of colleges provided you furnished your own ashtray - worked in nightclubs after university and quit smoking - was up to a pack a day and got disgusted - quit for 4 years and smoked for 1 quit for 2 and smoked for 1 quit for 1 and smoked for 1 and quit for 1 smoked for 6 months quit for 6 months... etc. I now have 3 years under my belt of not smoking
I tortured myself there a bit because I always felt i had quit once so I could do it again I was stronger than nicotine and was somehow in control - and the last few times I quit, I got night sweats for two weeks or so during withdrawal - nasty, unpleasant, exhausting things - I've always believed that my nightsweats were produced by the new chemicals they put in butts and the extra nicotine they spike it with -
Anyhoo to quit this time I'm just sticking with the very simple idea of thinking like a non-smoker - i.e. after a good meal or sex a non-smoker does not reflect on the cigarette he is not having - Think of something else! After a while it goes away - be patient, it does! - Respect nicotine - Do not fool yourself a year after you've quit that you can have a puff or two - And immediately put Colon Blow or some kind of heavy duty bran cereal on your breakfast menu as at first your body will not be getting its early morning cue
Think of cigarette companies the way you do Republicans and you'll never smoke again -
Actually, I think that's yet another factoid I'm fucking up. It's Canadian toilets that are hot items, right? Jeeze. I better just go to bed.
urge America’s 80m born-again believers to avoid the £100m film.
What percentage of those 80m watch *any* film?
Haven't they learned yet that there is no better way to hype a film than loudly denouncing and boycotting it?
Haven't they learned yet that there is no better way to hype a film than loudly denouncing and boycotting it?
That's partly how Passion of the Christ made all it's money. It's the film the Jews don't want you to see!
Night Toby. Thanks for stopping. Really.
Mellish:
Actually, I was thinking of all the furor stirred up by the pee stain in Illinois that supposedly looks like the Virgin Mary.
Oh! Hadn't heard about that one!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go appear on a tortilla in Mexico.
Toby acting like a homo sapien really scares me. it's creepy. I know, we are supposed to believe that some of the Thugs actually have red blood cells running through their veins, but still, I find it hard to believe this one does.
Fluffy:
Didn't you treat us to a draft of that letter? Or am I misremembering.
Congrats, either way.
How about we stop letting the insurance industry cause us to marginalize the "obese", the "addicted". and the otherwise less than perfect among us?
How about we understand that we are not going to look the same, no matter what (unless we have sseveral generations' worth of genetic manipulation)?
How about we leave each other the fuck alone??? You want to exercise? Fine. Do it.
You want to eat a banana split instead? Great. I'm with you.
You want to smoke? You want to drink? Terrific.
You want to be a vegan? Swell.
Everyone has a choice. This bullshit that those of us who fall outside the supposed "safe" norm should be brought to heel because we endanger the sensible Whole is bullshit built upon the Ideal of the insurance companies who want to lower the odds they will ever have to pay out anything at all.
Don;t get me started.....
Eli-
Yep, but just watch the press coverage that this gets with "Justice Sunday" and the Pope.
Yeah. See ya. Can't promise what will happen next time, of course. Unless my offer on that house today is accepted. And, then, I'll just be too happy to go looking for fights.
For the record, I consider discrimination on the basis of weight to be the same as discrimination based on skin color, national origin, etc.
Raff--it's one thing to be honest. It's another to be insulting. You're welcome here, but please mind your manners. Thank you.
just plain creepy
Toby acting like a homo sapien really scares me.
Sure. Then let me just prime the Pump of Pre-emptive Hatred for next time and say that veganism is wrong.
Morally wrong.
I think it's better to talk to people when they're acting like human beings than to not. We are not completely divided from everyone who disagrees with all of our points of view. Sometimes, maybe, we can connect on a non-hostile basis. (Although I am no longer permitted to be in situations where alcohol and mixed company, politically, meet.)
Toby,
I hope you get the house.
A man needs a home.
"What percentage of those 80m watch *any* film?"
I think 80m is a very high estimate. Off to check out the Fundamentalism Project's stats...
Perhaps not, but there is every indication that Toby was name-jacked tonight by a passing Good Samaritan or something.
'Cause when you're driving through these neighborhoods on a beautiful spring day like today ---when the bluebonnets are still out and the Indian paintbrushes are just starting to come into their own--- and there's that scent of grilled hamburger in the air, you know that God's in his heaven and all is right with the world.
Pez:
A man needs a home.
And a maid. Thanks.
Atrios, yet again you know nothing about what you speak. You know nothing about addictions or addictive personalities.
But then again, all of us are ridiculous, weak individuals.
Toby -
I'm probably joining the discussion late, but are you looking for a house in the Austin area?
I used to live in the RoundRock/Georgetown area. Went to school in Georgetown.
Austin kind of exploded that direction.
and there's that scent of grilled hamburger in the air, you know that God's in his heaven and all is right with the world.
Toby Petzold
From what is yelled at me, God is in His heaven even when the scent of gilled human flesh is in the air.
Speaking of smoking, anyone want to check out one of my Anasazi Clay Babies?
Front and Back
Many Years old, still kickin' it.
(Sorry about the quality, video capture.)
veganism is wrong
Veganism is fine, but I have known proselytizing vegans who were cigarette smoking smack heads.
I still do, but also maintain the habit our of defiance of an intrusive, prudish, and ultimately deluded health culture.
I have to say that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard anyone say about cigarette smoking.
My father died of lung cancer 3 years ago. It wasn't pretty. It started in his lungs, of course, and moved on to his lymph nodes, his liver, his abdomen and his brain.
The last week of his life was spent in a hospice with tumors literally popping up on his body like mushrooms after a spring rain. Luckily the tumor on his brain stem stopped his breathing before he got to the point where he was screaming continually.
It was the most grotesque death I could imagine.
So go ahead and smoke in fucking defiance of those well meaning, but ultimately prudish folks who tell you that smoking will kill you.
God but that makes me angry. Sorry for the rant, but nothing makes me more furious than the casual comment, "well, ya gotta die from something."
You don't have to die from that. And believe me, you don't WANT to die from that.
Not that there is anything wrong with cigarette smoking smack heads.
Then let me just prime the Pump of Pre-emptive Hatred for next time and say that veganism is wrong.
Morally wrong.
Toby Petzold
I don't know how to arrive at that conclusion, but from some of the late-night threads I've seen on "where to get the tastiest burger in LA," I'd say there are quite a few members of PWETA here (People Who Eat Tasty Animals).
-
Bill:
I'm probably joining the discussion late, but are you looking for a house in the Austin area?
Yes. I live in Austin. And you went to college in Georgetown? If so, you went to a damned fine school.
Perhaps not, but there is every indication that Toby was name-jacked tonight by a passing Good Samaritan or something.
one night of pleasantries does not make up for all the hatemongering it displays on its vile blog. but whatever, I guess neo-fascism can sometimes wear a happy face and be full of good cheer.
Alright, off to bed. Damn final papers and exams, needing sleep to function and all. If only I hadn't used up my caffeine tolerance already.
Until next time.
(cue "We'll Meet Again", from Dr. Strangelove)
Quentin-- you beat me to it.
I don't believe I shared it...so here it is:
Pope should clean up church's act
Apr. 24, 2005 12:00 AM
Regarding "Act of faith" (Editorial, Wednesday):
I was astonished by the editorial lauding the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and particularly by the assertion that this pope will speak up for enduring moral principles and traditional values.
It doesn't seem, in your praise of the new pope, that you considered that some of your readers, people of good will, may disagree with some of the moral certitudes that Benedict XVI will enforce. In particular, the Catholic hierarchy has been less than willing to consider the full personhood of women; instead they relegate us to a subordinate, second-class position. This is not a position that is taken by other religious organizations.
advertisement
Also, I question whether it is appropriate to follow the moral certainties of the head of an organization that has shown severe lapses in judgment all over the world when it comes to child sexual abuse by priests and others.
It seems to me that Pope Benedict XVI would do better to concentrate on cleaning up the Catholic Church's moral sewer rather than pontificating to us about traditional values.
The History channel has a special on FDR. They argue that FDR deceived, lied and tricked the American people into war. They argue that FDR loved secrecy and clandestine operations and deliberately kept the american people in the dark regarding his intention all along to send american boys into harms way.
FourLegs--head over to NTodd's for a 2-for-1 Saturday Samblog!
Fluffy--outstanding letter. Thanks for letting us see it.
I just don't get veganism. Life comes from death, you know. You don't have to be cruel, but come on!
I think one of the impeti to our evolution was the high rate of protein consumption derived from carnivorism. Meat-eaters have to be clever to get their grub on. Or, at least they used to be.
vonnegut.
“I’ve got a lawsuit against Brown & Willliamson now. Because I have been chain-smoking Pall Malls since I was 11. And on their package they promised to kill me.” (laughs)
aye,
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
b...e=2004414154812
That was a great special, sdf. Be sure to catch both nights. Fantastic color footage of things I'd never seen before. Very much worth checking out.
tricked the American people into war
Not to mention those suckers, Hitler and Tojo.
The History channel has a special on FDR. They argue that FDR deceived, lied and tricked the American people into war. They argue that FDR loved secrecy and clandestine operations and deliberately kept the american people in the dark regarding his intention all along to send american boys into harms way.
It's all part of the great normifying exercise. Just like how everyone says "nukular" on 24, and they torture someone every week. All perfectly normal, admirable, and necessary, and certainly nothing to be alarmed about.
Benedict declared war on relativism. I think we're a longer way from seeing liberation theology (i.e., a Latin American Pope) take over the Vatican than what I thought just a few weeks ago.
Few things are more annoying than self-righteous veggies who smoke.
And yes, it's even worse when you know they do harder drugs as well.
Eli--24 is one fucked up show. it's starting to feel like a long advertisement for the policies of the Bush regime.
However, I think there are limits, here. Could we just have some bars where I could smoke and have a drink? Do health nuts generally hang around in bars?
Uh, hate to break it to you, but many of us who don't smoke and don't want to breath in cigarette smoke do like to go to clubs.
Why should you inflict your cancerous habit on the rest of us?
I'm allergic to it like Thers, I literally can't be in a smoky club for too long- I break out in hives.
Michael Schiavo has a wife. A fully conscious one by whom he is a father to her two children. The legal guardianship of the severely brain-damaged Terri Schindler Schiavo should have reverted to her parents years ago.
The Left have been salivating over this thing for nearly two years now because they want someone in George W. Bush's White House to pay. But let's not forget: Joe Wilson was the one who outed his own wife.
I'm always a little bit fascinated with people who publicly advocate the United Nations. Why would anyone do that when the UN has proved itself time and time again as nothing but a corrupt debating society for the detritus of the world community?
like I said, very creepy.
You don't have to die from that. And believe me, you don't WANT to die from that.
fourlegsgood
I'm sorry for the loss of your dad. I lost my own father to smoking, and (with the help of hospice) nursed my stepfather through his death from lung cancer in 1999. An uncle died from emphysema and a cousin also died from lung cancer.
I wish these experiences could help me, my sister, and my stepbrother with our smoking, but they didn't.
I have no problem with no-smoking rules in bars and restaurants. I'm used to it, and I'm quite fine with it. Same with no smoking on flights. Nothing worse than spending half a day in a tin can with recirculated air--even worse with smoke in it.
(I'm a smoker, too.)
Eli--24 is one fucked up show. it's starting to feel like a long advertisement for the policies of the Bush regime.
I stopped watching somewhere in the middle of the drug cartel season. I just couldn't take the ridiculous plot contortions any more. Or the implausibility of Jack Bauer's clueless daughter being a CTU agent.
I have a coworker who keeps me up-to-date on the latest torture and Jack-quitting-CTU-and-going-rogue-so-he-can-do-
what-must-be-done... again developments.
doh. thought I closed that url. apologies.
FourLegs--head over to NTodd's for a 2-for-1 Saturday Samblog!
Sally, already was over there.
This thread is too depressing. I can't believe the number of you who smoke.
That makes me sadder than I can express.
The History channel has a special on FDR.
sdf
I've seen that ridiculous conspiracy show. It's concocted from a batch of hearsay that would make the Swiffer boat vets blush from shame. All of the main contentions have been disproved many times over from reputable historians.
In fact, the only value to that show is that it makes it apparent that the powers behind The History Channel have an agenda, and it isn't history.
-
I'm allergic to it like Thers, I literally can't be in a smoky club for too long- I break out in hives.
I'm not that bad, but I can't making it through a complete sentence without choking/gulping for breath.
G'night lovely Moonbats!
Smoke up or not, but...
Be well.
Mrs. Ibrahim--that's beyond creepy. That's sick. Twisted and sick.
Toby:
While I think that people can eat what they want, I respond to vegan moral preaching by saying, "I have officially notified the rest of the animal kingdom that, upon my death, they are perfectly entitled to eat me. And for that matter, if any of them think they can take me out and hasten the process, they're welcome to try."
Three fundamental facts that a lot of the deep ecologists have a problem with are that we 1)eat; 2)shit; and 3) die. And so does all other life.
Aw Fuck
Afghanistan woman stoned to death
A woman has been stoned to death in Afghanistan, reportedly for committing adultery.
The killing is said to have taken place in the Urgu district of north-eastern Badakhshan province.
A local Afghan government official confirmed the death, and said the government would investigate the case.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the woman had been sentenced to death by a decree from the local religious scholar.
----------
I think it would be a righteous use of US military force to hunt this fucking religious scholar down and tell him that our religious scholar decreed that he should be strung up by his balls until the buzzards had their fill, then do it as a test for effectivness against such human depredation.
Mrs. al-Jaafari, I stand by the last two passages, but I don't think the first one is quite right. The Schindlers are too deeply and unhealthily in denial to have ever been the responsible kind of custodians to their daughter that Michael Schiavo was.
Nothing worse than spending half a day in a tin can with recirculated air--even worse with smoke in it.
Cell phones.
What's the problem with that FDR special? I thought it was remarkably candid. Seriously. What's not to like?
the History Channel is to History what MTV is to Plumbing.
BTW, I hope Austin's no-smoking ban will pass. Everyone is bitching and moaning here but they'll get over it.
Other cities have done it and lived through it. Do they really think that people will completely stop going to bars at all?
God, I'd love to be able to go to clubs again.
The History channel has a special on FDR. They argue that FDR deceived, lied and tricked the American people into war.
sdf
I understand he also reversed all of Hoover's fabulously successful economic policies.
Mrs. Ibrahim--that's beyond creepy. That's sick. Twisted and sick.
agreed. you will find many examples of sick and twisted hatespeech on the Toby Channel. be sure to shower after visiting.
Mrs. al-Jaafari, I stand by the last two passages, but I don't think the first one is quite right. The Schindlers are too deeply and unhealthily in denial to have ever been the responsible kind of custodians to their daughter that Michael Schiavo was.
who gives a flying fuck what some asshole spouting neofascist talking points thinks. fuck off and die, stormtrooper, or at least go back to posing with your fish.
Yo, pbg - it's late, and I can't resist going all "fanboy" on yer ass - what was the title you had the most fun with, and what are you up to these days? I haven't had the dough to collect as much as I've wanted to for a few years now.
-
Where to start? Dad was a 3-pack per day, Camel no filter smoker,AND an alcoholic. When he had to be at work by 5AM, he'd be up drinking warm Genesee beer at 4. He died at age 57, after losing the right side of his jawbone to cancer, and living the last 7 years of his life as an invalid.
I think it is probably a combination of genetics and environment. I started smoking at age 20, in college, and quit when they got to $1/pack here in Calif. I am definitely my father's son, in that I seem to have the addictive personality, not to mention a powerful taste for the hops, and a significant capacity for the booze.
The good news is that I quit smoking and never looked back, and don't seem to be in any danger of needing alcohol rehab. Maybe I'm, the exception that proves the rule. 
Selah.
After reading this thread so far I find I feel re-affirmed in an opinion I have had for a very long time.
Addiction to nicotine and smoking (note the way I said that) is very personal. One man with a heavy habit may well find it possible to cold turkey while a less frequent smoker cannot. Each person responds to some degree to a single therapy. Again some succeed, some do not and the number of cigarettes consumed or such is not much of a predictor. I agree with the statement that you have to want to quit, but I feel that is not the end all. It is a shame that something medical and absolute does not exist. I would be, considering the consequences, happy to take some long term replacement medication if it did not carry serious side effects in place of nicotine. But I doubt that will come to pass, just as I feel an absolute in medicated cessation does not exist as well.
fourlegs, as I mentioned before, although I smoke, I, too, have no objection to seeing the ban enacted.
I think it's a legitimate role of government to discourage such a thing when its effects on the health of the citizenry are so obviously deleterious. We expect the G to stand in and demand clean water, safe food, and quality cars. Why should we be surprised when they take a stand on what is unquestionably a widespread health hazard that is breaking the back of public health care?
(Damn. What a conservative I am!)
I find the no-smoking in bars thing hilarious. Pickled liver, ok - smoked lung, mmm, not so ok.
[Bars - not restaurants.]
OK how about a good laugh to end the night? This is from the USA-Canada hockey game the other night in Quebec City. She forgets the lyrics, goes to get them then falls down when she gets back on the ice.
http://tinyurl.com/7k7dh
at least go back to posing with your fish.
If you'll tell me what that means just once, I'll never ask again.
4LG, et al....yeah, some - perhaps several of us smoke. I don't do it to offend you.
If you can's stand to be around it, then don't.
I would prefer that there were some bars who permitted smoking. The ones that did not, I would not smoke in, of course.
There just has to be room for all of us, with all our imperfections.
But, fer chrissakes, I do get weary of those (and I do not count you among them) who want to tell me how inferior I am because I do indulge.
There are just so many more greater "sins", I think.
Anyway, to bed, to bed.
Sweet dreams, no bedbugs. And, if there are such, may all of them be non-smokers, for those of you who are offended and harmed bt ones who do.
SD
Fluffy:
Great letter.
I'll admit, it's nice to go to a show and not have the place smell like an ashtray.
Cell phones.
"Other cities have done it and lived through it. Do they really think that people will completely stop going to bars at all?"
Even Dublin (Ireland) banned smoking in clubs and bars, and apparently it's not hurting business.
LA seems to be doing fine with the smoking ban in place.
The History channel has a special on FDR. They argue that FDR deceived, lied and tricked the American people into war. They argue that FDR loved secrecy and clandestine operations and deliberately kept the american people in the dark regarding his intention all along to send american boys into harms way.
sdf
I thought the special was even-handed, taking into consideration the History Channel's conservative bent.
FDR was the only President any adult knew from the depths of the Depression to the inevitable victory of the simultaneous global war in two hemispheres.
He had, from 60 years hence, some glaring faults. He did *not* stand up for blacks in their extremis in the south during the 30's. His wife, in her "eccentic" uppity fashion did, though. He also *swore* to the 1940 voting public that he would stand steadfast against sending theor sons overseas to participate in foreign conflicts.
He also struggled mightily to not only lie his own ass off, but to convince the mass media to be complicit in his deception about his own physical handicap.
But,here is one thing he did manage to do. He convinced, at home and abroad, a heretofore unprecedentedly splintered world that the United States represented the last best hope for the salvation of our species.
FDR made a shload of corrupt bargains to get there. And he gave up his health and ultimately his life to get there.
George W. Bush would be well advised to heed some of that man's compromises.
(Damn. What a conservative I am!)
It isn't going to matter to the anti-war Left, but the ties between international Islamofascist terrorism and the Saddamites are now unmistakable. Osama has cast his lot with Zarqawi ---a murderer who was in Iraq long before we showed up and who must have had at least Saddam's tacit approval to be there, being a major league Kurd-killer.
a conservative and a fucking idiot.
'night and pleasant dreams, SD.
"the History Channel is to History what MTV is to Plumbing."
Mrs. Ibrahim--that's destined to become a classic
Sweet dreams, no bedbugs.
I hear there is a new epidemic of bed bugs spreading around even the high-class hotels. End times.
Then refute what I wrote, moron. Can't? Ain't no big surprise.
Flg:
Other cities have done it and lived through it. Do they really think that people will completely stop going to bars at all?
Speaking as a CA ex-smoker - it really helped me to quit when they made it impossible to socialize and smoke at the same time.
And I seem to recall reading a study somewhere that showed there might've been an increase in bar revenue as non-smokers could stay around and drink longer.
if someone wants to suggest a commenting system that's simple and amenable to 600 post threads, feel free, but I haven't yet seen one.
Atrios
lj - open source, images, you can sell icons, + plus there's that whole angsty teenage girl thing. I have seen more than one 5000-comment thread there. It's got the sub-thread feature without the annoying /. crap (and the sub-sub-thread etc) - click once on "thread" and the whole damn thing opens. Click "back" once and you're back to the main thread.
I don't know why all the activist blogs don't just band together, buy the servers, hire a developer and start up fuckbush.com. Or maybe Ben & Mena Trott (6-Apart) could become your best friends. Supposedly, they are working at integrating the typepad/movabletype/open source platforms anyway.
Re: Cell Phones:
Haloscan fucking fucked me.
G'night ya'll, I refuse to deal wi' it.
Sweet dreams, no bedbugs.
No bedbug, no problem.
sallyh,
thanks. night time for me too.
don't let Toby's temporary charm fool you, he's just another fucking Thug ready, willing, and hopeful to send us all off to the camps.
Nightcha, moonbatriots!
Time for me to hit the hay, too. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, and all that crap.
I keep trying to quit.
Then I read Eschaton.
"Aw fuck America's still going to shit oh Goddammit I need a cigarette."
Pretty much the exact words.
The way I figure it Atrios owes me $464.75
Okay, some of it's the extra-shitty weeks at work.
Stupid (?) question to vegans and vegetarieans here:
How do you abandon meat and still maintain the essential proteins necessary for heart and liver and muscles, etc?
I realize that the dairy-eating Hindus have been doing so for millenia, but they have this tricky diet where you have to eat this bean with that rice and you can't eat certain veggies, especially spinach. Or something like that--I should look it up.
Or vegans--I've known about 20 and I've yet to find one who doesn't cheat. Follow their strictures and you'll run down your heart and your muscles will go flabby. Don't tell me about bean protein and a bicycle--if you don't at least have a cheese sandwich and some eggs twice a week, something will go wrong.
As for fruitarians, I've never met one, but I'm sure they cheat.
Any militants want to dispute my life experience? Please recommend a good site, like classic Hindu. Or Vegan Without Cheating.
George W. Bush would be well advised to heed some of that man's compromises.
Pez
My bad. My previous comment was about the "FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance" special that HC aired last year. Obviously, this is a different show (probably calculated to ride on the coattails of the upcoming HBO movie starring Kenneth Branagh).
I still think they are a station that would air a special on "CIA mind control through tooth implants" if they thought they could get a good share out of the deal.
-
CIA mind control through tooth implants
Scheduled sometime this summer, I think.
"Scheduled sometime this summer, I think."
Is this before or after we bomb Iran?
Night batses!
Toad licking is the way to go. It provides a low cost organic high for pennies and the toad doesn't care.
And it doesn't make you smell bad either. All you do is just hallucinate like a whacked shroomer and pass out.
Just make sure to lick the right kind of toad because not all toads are good for getting high.
Just make sure to lick the right kind of toad because not all toads are good for getting high.
Rodger
Don't bogart that toad!
-
Toby, you misunderstand the nature of the Mooj and the nature of Saddam. Pre-March 2003, if any serious al Quedan could get within striking distance of Saddam with a grenade, it would be mixed giblet stew time. Likewise, to get the main al Queda bosses (back when it could have helped our natsec way more than now), we needed the help of Arabs willing to get close to them and take them out, or bring us in. Saddam had a stable of just such boys, so trained, and we could have done a deal with them just like we have done in the past - get UBL, we lift sanctions, just no WMD. Not that we should necessarily have done either, but that is the dynamic, use it or not. Al Zarqawi probably intended those crude BW he was cooking up in his "hideout" as much for Saddam's gang as for anyone. A hideout, by the way, in the Kurdish-controlled northern no-fly, no-drive zone, in our cross-hairs for years, easily vaporized at our whim, but protected by our crazed civilian leaders who don't know how to read an intelligence report, but who overrode military commanders who want to grease the sucker, all because they want to keep an "al Queda" threat on the scope to dupe the weak-minded to support their fucking war against people who had nothing to do with 9/11, while they let the 9/11 perps fade.
Fucking cocksucker.
My Dad used to say that quitting smoking wasn't so hard, it was not starting again that was murder. He developed diabetes in his fifties, had heart surgery at 59, and died of a massive coronary at 63. He smoked Pall Malls (no filter) until he learned of his diabetes, and quit for good. He exercised, changed his diet, but he had done far too much damage already. I tried a non filtered Camel when I was thirteen, and never picked one up after that. My Mom had 3 sisters, 2 brothers and her father all die of lung cancer. So all of you "cool" dudes and dudettes out there, just realize that the Russian Roulette you are playing is with cigarettes, not bullets.
Fielding--the most fun? Hard to say. I had fun with nearly all my stuff.
I'd work with Tom Artis on anything, anytime, anywhere. Tailgunner Jo was a complete joy to do.
And I really loved working with Tom Sutton on the Black Flame for First Comics.
While it's hard to call Strikeforce Morituri a 'fun' book, Brent Anderson and I got along so well it was like a dream.
Got to choose one? Well, I'll fudge a bit and say my long run on What If? Tom Sutton, Pat Broderick, Ron Frenz, Kelley Jones, Jackson Guice, even *gasp* Steve Ditko! And I got to do such insane stories as What If Spider-Man became a Movie Producer? and What if Captain America were not revived until 1984?
As to what I'm doing today--I've got this Internet comics project becalmed for lack of funding--and a fantasy novel (all done) that I'm shopping around due to the death of my previous literary agent...
And if you want to download a free .pdf teaser story set in my fantasy novel's world, download here.
Smoked for 10 years many moons ago when cigarettes were 35 cents a pack in KY. Boy am I glad I quit. How folks can afford it is beyond me.
What if Captain America were not revived until 1984?
I still have this one.
Toby, you misunderstand the nature of the Mooj and the nature of Saddam..
I've been intrigued and irritated by the tendency of many to resort to the "all Mideasterners are alike" stereotype ever since the war drums started sounding in September of 2002. As I often expressed to my co-workers, Saddam was a secular leader. There was no way that he would brook any sort of fundementalist Islamic movement within his sphere of power, precisely because he was a dictator. It would be completely out of character for Stalin to welcome a Rasputin, and would be equally ridiculous for Saddam to welcome an OBL or a Zarqawi.
BTW, has anyone ever definitively determined if a 'Zarqawi' actually exists, or if he is just a convenient amalgam of "fanatic fundamentalist terrorist?"
-
Anyhow...smoking. I used to smoke tobacco. Used to dip it, too. Quit smoking because it was too goddamn expensive to buy a pack of cigs in Florida. Quit dipping because the only less disgusting habit is washing your socks in public drinking fountains.
Had a friend who quit smoking cigs by smoking weed when he wanted a cig. Didn't work quite as well as you'd expect. As for me, all I smoke is stuff that'll make the music sound nicer. In fact, it's recently come to my attention that I'm a guy who'll light up a little of that stumble grass if no one else will. Actually got pulled into an alley this evening to burn one with a rather attractive young lady who works as a teller at my bank.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
Reefer madness.
Actually, joints helped me kick for three years. In fact, with all this talk, I'd better roll one up for dreamland.
pbg - thanks muchly for the response - like Blak1, I think I've got some What If? titles around here (carefully stowed away, though for me it was always about the reading, never about COL-LECT-ING).
Ditko was a pleasure that I didn't fully appreciate until years after I read his first titles (still got the original appearance of The Scorpion around here somewhere). That said, I still don't grove on Gil Kane. Quite a trauma for me when he took over from Romita.
All good things for you in the future. I loved your stint on Dr. Strange - thought it was the best thing done with the character since the first issues of the new series in the mid-70s (Silver Dagger, etc.) Cleo was a babe!
-
Sleep...
Whose arms are these? Morpheus - that you?
Backslider - yo! *waves*
Where the heck you been lately? You've been leaving Simels to shoulder all of the music burdens!
-
What If? rocked. The first series, anyway. Right before I quit comics for good (so far, anyway) Marvel tried a second series. Never got it to work, which I thought was a shame. One of my favorite concepts is the story that doesn't get told. My current songwriting muse is those of the rich dudes in the songs like "I'm Just A Country Boy"; the non-romantic hero who's trying to get the girl, if that makes any sense (which it might not in this frame of mind).
Fielding Melish,
The ice weasels have been calling, and that takes up my time. Rest assurred, I have been paying attention. However, as my old pappaw used to tell me, if you got nothing to add to the convorsation, don't add nothing to the convorsation.
Bolton battle turns attention toward Bush
In the span of just a few weeks, President Bush seems to have lost a little of his grip on the flow of events in the nation's capital. This is astonishing because his second term was off to such strong start and because some good news is finally beginning to come back from Iraq and the Middle East.
Cocksucker.
'Joe Kidd', on AMC - Robert Duvall does a version of the voice he used in 'Tender Mercies', but my favorite voice of his was Jackson Fentry, from another Horton Foote triumph, 'Tomorrow', from a Faulkner story.
"Marry me, Sarah."
And steve simels knows his shit. He doesn't need my help.
Backslider, ask Steve S. about 'You Really Got Me'. You might have missed that exchange on these boards a month or so ago.
And steve simels knows his shit. He doesn't need my help.
Backslider
He may not need your help, but why should we settle for Beethoven when we can have the lovely Ludwig B and Mozart?
Just being shellfish.
P.S. what's your take on the early Jazz masters? I'm getting into Jelly Roll Morton lately.
-
I notice 'Tomorrow' was filmed near your old stompin' grounds, Backslider - Oakland, Tupelo.
Say, do any of ya'll love to hear Amos Lee like I do? Boy's got soul.
The early jazz and swing stuff I dig; it's when the bop thing started happenined that I cool to jazz. I like melody and swing, something I can shake a leg to. If it's too complicated, I lose concentration and, to my fault, it becomes background noise. I dig me some Jelly Roll, of course, and lately I've been digging on Mingus...but then again, who wouldn't?
Right now, I'm gonna dig on the sack. Be well, my fellow travelers.
Wow, Atrios, you should see all the 18-year-olds in the south who smoke. They still come out of high school thinking it's cool.
|
nobody
I see a correlation here with the fact they are from Red States.
(shudder)
Say, do any of ya'll love to hear Amos Lee like I do? Boy's got soul.
QuentinCompson
Call me a total ho for pop culture exposure, but I like him and Chris Thomas King of "O Brother" fame. Nothin' like sucking down some cold ones in a tiny blues joint and just loving the tunes. Hopefully without a lot of college girls going "wooo!" I mean, college girls are great, but jest shaddup and dance, yaknowwhadimean?
-
That's true. Every time I quit smoking, I notice how much more people and places stink and how many more assholes there are to deal with.
Toby Petzold
He has something here... smoking allows you to deal with assholes more effectively. I have never smoked...no wonder assholes have attacked me so much of my non-addictive personality life.
Well, depending on why they're going "wooo!", yeah.
mingus always swung.
Basie.
I was hoping to go to bed a while ago, but then I found this at Kos' site.
Are you people so hellbent on sinking Bolton that you would stoop so low?
mingus always swung.
Olaf glad and big
Speaking of swinging - "Let me tell ya a story about Minnie the Moocher" - thought the greatest thing about The Blues Brothers was the fact that Cab Calloway got a decent paycheck out of it.
-
Mellish:
As I often expressed to my co-workers, Saddam was a secular leader.
Oh, so that's why he had an entire Koran written in his own blood!
I hear Bush is cheating on his own blood-stained Bible by using the blood of young Jews to finish the Old Testament.
As low as you misrepresenting a link?
Man, I'm probably going to lose a lot of "cool" points here (somewhat ironically) but I just love the whole 60s school of "cool" jazz. I'm listening to "Take Five" right now. Over and over again. I think Paul Desmond was about the best damn alto sax that ever played.
-
Are you people so hellbent on sinking Bolton that you would stoop so low?
Bolton was one of Bush's lawyers during the re-count in 2000.
Get a clue.
As low as you misrepresenting a link?
I didn't misrepresent anything. The link to the original Kos post (and to the "news" story on which it is based) are both included in my own post.
This is despicable.
fourlegs:
Bolton was one of Bush's lawyers during the re-count in 2000.
That isn't the point. The point is that Kos is posting doctored photographs at his site. Or, he's allowing them to be posted.
Atrios has never done that.
I quit from a 30 a day habit six years ago, but find that I'm still able to have a smoke with a beer (a natural association) every now and again without re-lapsing in any other part of my life.
If you are gonna smoke, smoke rolling tobacco - there is definitely something in carton brands that makes you want to light another immediately, I never ever got that feeling with roly....
Oh, so that's why he had an entire Koran written in his own blood!
Dude! You got a link for that that isn't from Newsmax or something? Seriously, I'm an open-minded sort of fellow, but this is not something I've heard of prior to your statement here.
-
...are both included in my own post.
I was hoping to go to bed a while ago, but then I found this at Kos' site.
Are you people so hellbent on sinking Bolton that you would stoop so low?
Your shitty site and your shitty post and your alter-ego site of eliwallach?..dude, you suck.
Man, in my life I watched these guys run this country into the toilet 3 times. First Nixon, then Regan/Bush, and now Cheney/MiniMe. People FINALLY stand up and say "Alright, that's IT. Screw this crap we want our country BACK you assholes" and what do they do? Whine and puke that it's us, the vast majority of decent Americans who DON'T go around stealing everything in sight and pushing everything to the freaking brink of doomsday, who are "Hellbent". What a sorry bunch of corrupt maroons. Get a life and stop ruining everyone else's.
Mellish:
Dude! You got a link for that that isn't from Newsmax or something? Seriously, I'm an open-minded sort of fellow, but this is not something I've heard of prior to your statement here.
I think I saw that on a Frontline documentary, but I'll firm it up for you when I can. Right now, I want to know why people are pushing a fake photo of John Bolton in Florida four years ago.
i've heard the thing about hussein having the koran written in his own blood before. never seen any evidence for it though. as far as i know it is made up. for starters, blood would not be an appropriate substance to write the koran in. in fact i'm pretty sure it would be sacrilegious. plus, the way i heard the rumor he used like 20 pints of his own blood, which seems like an awful lot, even for the whole koran. plus blood doesn't make very good ink anyway. it congeals pretty quickly.
Here you go, Fielding.
toby, how do you know the picture is fake?
Dear Friends:
This past week we learned of Microsoft's abandonment of equality for gays in Washington State, where Microsoft didn't support an anti-discrimination measure, and actions against the company are in development at many gay organizations and web sites.
Diaries :: MPetrelis's diary :: :: Trackback ::
To help create as full a portrait of the corporate giant's executives and their politics as possible, I did a search of Federal Election Commission files on the CEO, Steven A. Ballmer, and his family.
As you can see from the attached list, he and his wife donated money to the reelection of Bush and Cheney. These records come from www.tray.com.
Michael Petrelis
^^^
Ballmer, Connie E
9/21/2001 $5,000.00
Redmond, WA 98052
Homemaker -[Contribution]
MICROSOFT CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
Ballmer, Connie E
7/15/2004 $5,000.00
Redmond, WA 98052
Homemaker -[Contribution]
MICROSOFT CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
BALLMER, CONNIE E MRS.
9/3/2003 $2,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
HOMEMAKER -[Contribution]
BUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC
Ballmer, Deborah
9/25/2003 $1,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
None/None -[Contribution]
INSLEE FOR CONGRESS
BALLMER, STEVEN
9/16/2004 -$2,000.00
REDMOND, WA 98052
MICROSOFT CORP -[Contribution]
PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY U S SENATE CAMPAIGN
BALLMER, STEVEN
9/22/2003 $2,000.00
REDMOND, WA 98052
MICROSOFT CORP -[Contribution]
PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY U S SENATE CAMPAIGN
BALLMER, STEVEN
6/29/2004 $2,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT CORPORATION -[Contribution]
FRIENDS OF SESSIONS SENATE COMMITTEE INC
Ballmer, Steven
10/6/2004 $1,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft/CEO -[Contribution]
NORM DICKS FOR CONGRESS
Ballmer, Steven
10/8/2001 $1,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft/CEO -[Contribution]
WISCONSIN LEADERSHIP PAC
BALLMER, STEVEN
9/16/2004 $2,000.00
REDMOND, WA 98052
MICROSOFT CORP -[Contribution]
PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY U S SENATE CAMPAIGN
Ballmer, Steven
9/25/2003 $1,000.00
Hunts Point, WA 98004
Microsoft/Ceo -[Contribution]
ADAM SMITH FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE
BALLMER, STEVEN
9/10/2004 $2,000.00
REDMOND, WA 98052
MICROSOFT CORP -[Contribution]
PEOPLE FOR PATTY MURRAY U S SENATE CAMPAIGN
BALLMER, STEVEN
11/19/2001 $1,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT -[Contribution]
STEVENS FOR SENATE COMMITTEE
Ballmer, Steven
7/6/2004 $2,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft Corporation/CEO -[Contribution]
VOLUNTEER PAC
Ballmer, Steven
12/5/2003 $1,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft/CEO -[Contribution]
IMPACT AMERICA
Ballmer, Steven
6/29/2004 $2,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft Corporation/CEO -[Contribution]
PETE SESSIONS FOR CONGRESS 2004
Ballmer, Steven A
9/21/2001 $5,000.00
Redmond, WA 98052
Microsoft/Chief Executive Officer -[Contribution]
MICROSOFT CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
Ballmer, Steven A
12/31/2002 $5,000.00
Redmond, WA 98052
Microsoft/Chief Executive Officer -[Contribution]
MICROSOFT CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
BALLMER, STEVEN A
6/30/2004 $2,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT -[Contribution]
LEAHY FOR U.S. SENATOR COMMITTEE
BALLMER, STEVEN A
9/26/2003 $2,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT -[Contribution]
FRIENDS OF BYRON DORGAN
BALLMER, STEVEN A
9/30/2004 $2,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT CORP -[Contribution]
FRIENDS FOR HARRY REID
Ballmer, Steven A
7/15/2004 $5,000.00
Redmond, WA 98052
Microsoft/CEO -[Contribution]
MICROSOFT CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
BALLMER, STEVEN A
9/30/2003 $2,000.00
HUNTS POINT, WA 98004
MICROSOFT -[Contribution]
FRIENDS OF JOHN MCCAIN
Ballmer, Steven A
10/1/2003 $5,000.00
Redmond, WA 98052
Microsoft/Chief Executive Officer -[Contribution]
MICROSOFT CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
BALLMER, STEVEN A MR.
8/6/2004 $25,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT/C.E.O. -[Contribution]
2004 JOINT STATE VICTORY COMMITTEE
Ballmer, Steven A Mr.
7/30/2004 $5,000.00
Hunts Point, WA 98004
Microsoft/C E O -[Contribution]
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE
BALLMER, STEVEN A MR.
9/3/2003 $2,000.00
BELLEVUE, WA 98004
MICROSOFT/CEO -[Contribution]
BUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC
Ballmer, Steven A.
10/6/2003 $2,000.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft/CEO -[Contribution]
KEEP OUR MAJORITY PAC
Ballmer, Steven A.
8/25/2004 $892.00
Bellevue, WA 98004
Microsoft -[Contribution]
ARKANSAS LEADERSHIP COMMITTEE 2004 FCRC
Ballmer, Steven A.
9/16/2003 $2,000.00
Hunts Point, WA 98004
Microsoft Inc./CEO -[Contribution]
AMERICANS FOR A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
"I want to know why people are pushing a fake photo of John Bolton in Florida four years ago."
I'd like to know why they were pushing the fake yellowcake story.
I'd like to know why they were pushing the Lewinski bit for 3 years.
I'd like to know why they were pushing the non-existent Iraqi WMD's.
I'd like to know why they were pushing the Swift Boat bullshit.
I'd Like to know why they were giving out nobids left and right to Halliburton.
I'd like to know why they shredded the Constitiution so they could check up on who's reading what in our Librarys.
I'd like to know why they all of a sudden decided what we really need is blackbox voting with no paper trail.
I'd like to know why they stopped publishing the intelligence estimate.
I'd like to know why we have not been developing alternative energy for the past 40 years.
I'd like to know why our childrens future is being mortgaged to the highest foreign/corporate bidder.
I'd like to know why 45 million Americans have no healthcare.
I'd like to know why 99% of the media has been turned into all propaganda all the time for this agenda.
That last comment isn't mine.
But this one is: I just made an error in judgement and wrongly asserted here and elsewhere that a photo included in a post at The Daily Kos of John Bolton and Charles Burton was fake. It is not.
I apologize for my error and arrogance in asserting it was so.
That isn't the point. The point is that Kos is posting doctored photographs at his site. Or, he's allowing them to be posted.
Nope. The point is, and continues to be, that you are so blind that you assume that something damaging to your side has to be fake.
Does it occur to you that our other evidence of bush asshattery is real as well?
Last Updated: Saturday, 23 April, 2005, 17:08 GMT 18:08 UK
Afghanistan woman stoned to death
Map showing location of Badakhshan province in Afghanistan
A woman has been stoned to death in Afghanistan, reportedly for committing adultery.
The killing is said to have taken place in the Urgu district of north-eastern Badakhshan province.
A local Afghan government official confirmed the death, and said the government would investigate the case.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the woman had been sentenced to death by a decree from the local religious scholar.
Under Afghan law, cases such as this should go through the local courts.
A reporter for the BBC Pashto service in Afghanistan said the woman's husband recently returned from Iran after five years away.
The wife asked for a separation on the grounds that her husband could not support her.
However, he said she was having improper relations with another man.
It is not known if the couple had any children.
Correspondents say this is the second time a woman has been stoned to death since the ousting of the Taleban in 2001.
Both events happened in the same area.
During the Taleban's rule, women were regularly stoned to death for adultery.
-------
Nice, huh? Wouldn't it be even nicer to have Laura Bush's view of this?
Don't be one bit surprised to have this kind of thing springing up in that other country Bush "freed".
The American People That's Who, it's a good list of topics for exploration and if we ever have real news again maybe they'll be discussed there. But that will have to be after the junta falls.
About smoking. The reason smoking seems glamorous is probably the movies and TV. Product placement has put it into a lot of places it wouldn't have been seen. Greedy producers, directors, actors, all looking to swell their obscenely huge bundles of money. All saying that it doesn't matter.
Buying them is expensive, and there is nothing inherently glomorous about holding one to your mouth to breathe in stinking smoke that makes you stink, cough, hack, hock up phlegm, and will eventually lead to a plastic tube up your nose so you can breathe oxygen for the last months of your shortened life. There is some indiction that they reduce potency. They are a product that has to be sold with lies like the Marlboro man.
No one in my generation of my family smoked, several in the next generation do and I'm angry about it.
Morning Mooonbats,
EPTropy:
The British tried to bring Afghans into the 20th Century by force and failed. So did the Russians. Westerners don't understand these people. Anymore than we have any understanding of the tribal nature of Iraqis. We hear now that the Kurds are trying to prevent a government from forming. Aren't the Kurds our friends? How about Serbs and Croats fighting over slights that occurred 500 years ago. The Taliban were horrible. But why didn't the Afghans themselves rise up and dispel them? We are literally playing with fire in that part of the world without any knowledge of what the outcome will be. Policy wonks who have studied the area for decades are ignored or fired for speaking out. We have spend $300 billion in the past three years and what do we have to show for it. We are worse off now than we were before. We have been shown to be a paper tiger.
Howdy, all.
On my second ciggy.
Gosh, I'm on-topic and all!
.
QL, No argument here. In "Foundryese" they have screwed the pooch - big time.
Course, no one will ever notice cause we had elections and the schools the schools!
(Alternative universe again, damn!)
morning bats of moon.
quitting smoking is probably the hardest thing i've ever done. i started smoking at 13, and made my way up to 3-4 packs a day before i finally quit.
i haven't smoked for about 15 years, but i still feel the negative effects of smoking all those cigarettes. i find myself shorter of breath than most other people when i'm physically exerting. i think i did some serious damage to my lungs, despite what they say about the damage eventually reversing itself.
i don't know if one lives longer after giving up smoking, (they probably do) but i sincerely believe their *quality* of life improves.
Some information about the effects of Cannabis on MS can be found at this site:
http://www.mssociety.org.uk/
rese...annabis_ms.html
Check out the CAMS study.
her eyes - good on you. I have quit more times than I can count. Currently back up to 15 a day. I found the sympathy and non-judgmental attitude of the Atriots quite refreshing and heartwarming.
True story. My Quaker grandma, who never smoked or drank, or wore makeup for that matter, died at 56 from a massive stroke. The other three grandparents (including the Quaker) all smoked like chimneys and drank like fish and lived into their nineties. Not scientific, I know.
DWD - Did you make a decision re Challenge yet?
Wouldn't it be a hoot if the business repukes became Democrats?
lived into their nineties.
it seems like you have longetivey in your family, which i believe is hereditary. so, QL--you are going to be around fo a long time!
there have been a ton of longitudinal studies on the effects of smoking--but why have there been no longitudinal or even short term studies on the effects of drinking alcohol?
there are a lot of alcohol related deaths that authorities seem to gloss over.
but mention marijuana, however, and suddenly there are "stories" of how some crazed pothead went beserk and killed people, causing ordinary folks to believe it is the worst drug ever and that it shouldn't be legalized.
Smoked, quit, smoked, quit, smoked, quit. I don't smoke now, but am not self-rightous about it. I do miss my morning coffee ciggy.
there have been a ton of longitudinal studies on the effects of smoking--but why have there been no longitudinal or even short term studies on the effects of drinking alcohol?
there are a lot of alcohol related deaths that authorities seem to gloss over.
So true here. Hell, I can think of three instances in my own family where booze was the killer, and given I've got a couple of uncles who are stone drunks, we'll kick that number up a notch or two soon.
but mention marijuana, however, and suddenly there are "stories" of how some crazed pothead went beserk and killed people, causing ordinary folks to believe it is the worst drug ever and that it shouldn't be legalized.
I've heard the same stories for decades, but the only time I ever knew someone who went off the deep end while smoking weed, it turned out the stuff had been laced with PCP. All the other times anyone whose been smoking grass is usually too mellow to want to do anything other than eat, watch TV, or maybe have sex.
Really, the idiots who go on about grass making people become insane grasshoppers have watched "Refer Madness" one too many times.
and for all the men in the audience who have tried to quit smoking--
now you have an inkling as to what pms feels like.
why quit caffeine?
I realized that it was a trigger for my occular migraines.
but mention marijuana, however, and suddenly there are "stories" of how some crazed pothead went beserk and killed people, causing ordinary folks to believe it is the worst drug ever and that it shouldn't be legalized.
Having grown up in the East Village in the Sixties and having spent time in Haight Ashbury, I feel qualified to say that all those stories of crazed potheads are absolute rubbish. In addition we went from being daily imbibers to not a toke in less than 24 hrs. when we moved to Italy. Not one withdrawal system. Of course, we did learn to enjoy a fine red wine. That was 30 years ago.
And besides, if I gave up smoking I would be perfect!
alcoholics can die two different ways--a long drawn out death due to alcohol related problems, i.e. liver failure, kidney disease, stroke, heart attack, blah blah, blah...they tell you it isn't conclusive that it is alcohol related, but it is the same with smoking cigarettes. check out what these people have been doing for the past 40 years, and you see there is a direct correlation with the drinking.
or they can simply drop dead from alochol poisoning.
and did you know, (at least in ma, anyway) that if you die from acute alcohol poisoning they list the cause of death as "natural."
but, alcohol is big business too.
just try to make joe sixpack's sixpack illegal, like marijuana.
and no, i am not a marijuana smoker, i just find the hypocrisy, like every other hypocrisy, ludicrous.
what the federal government doesn't realize is this: that if they made marijuana legal, and could control it, they could tax it, and it would increase their revenue.
just sayin'
French and Italians don't have heart attacks. They just don't. A doctor on 60 Minutes admitted that it was the wine, but he didn't recommend it because it might lead to alcoholism. Jeesh. He went on to recommend grape juice as a viable alternative. However, further study noted that grape juice did not have same effect as red wine. I almost cheered out loud on the subway when I read that.
Having said all that, I lost my little sister to alcoholism. Who knows why people do what they do. She had been a junkie and kicked that, only to pick up alcohol. I'm lucky, after a glass or two I fall asleep.
You are not smokers, you are SUCKERS. YOU SUCK.
An interesting point to note... Hops ( a key component in beer making) are direct family links to cannibus.
How, as one would say, interesting.
what the federal government doesn't realize is this: that if they made marijuana legal, and could control it, they could tax it, and it would increase their revenue.
On of my good buddies that used to be a cop in north Jersey said that if all illicits were legalized and put the under the control of the gov't (like the Treasury w/ booze),
that, along with the benefits you mention, her eyes, that organized crime would drop dramatically.
QL--so sorry to hear that about your little sister. i lost my big sister to alcoholism, and since it was just the two of us, well, i miss her.
and she didn't have to die.
in between the "legal" drugs, cigarettes and alcohol, i've lost more family members than i care to list.
i, myself, avoid everything.
that organized crime would drop dramatically.
and gang violence which is sometimes drug related.
think of the industries it would open up--marijuana farming, packaging, vending...
joblessness would drop
From the National Center for Biological Information a database Bu$hCo hasn't managed to completely suppress yet, we get tidbits like:
Is initiation of smoking associated with the prodromal phase of schizophrenia?
Riala K, Hakko H, Isohanni M, Pouta A, Räsänen P.
J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2005 Jan; 30(1): 26-32.
Prenatal and perinatal risk factors for schizophrenia, affective psychosis, and reactive psychosis of early onset: case-control study.
Hultman CM, Sparén P, Takei N, Murray RM, Cnattingius S.
BMJ. 1999 Feb 13; 318(7181): 421-426.
Smoking is associated with schizophrenia. Whether it causes it or suppresses it is uncertain. That it increases your ability to focus- even on a consensual fantasy- can't be denied.
As a teenager 30 years ago I smoked, and did a lot of other things as well. In a space of 5 years I lost many good friends to substance abuse related incidents and accidents.
I noticed my own physical abilities were adversely affected by what I was doing. I noticed that drugs like cigarettes or illegal ones really help maintain the illusions that trap society. So I stopped using them all.
Well- I still drink a bit when I'm partying with friends.
It helps if you have other passions.
Now I'm a zen runner, a compulsive workaholic breeder, and one hack of a recreational blogger. But I don't abuse myself with drugs, legal or illegal. I'm not a better or smarter person for that.
But I'm alive to fight the Powers that Be- and I intend to do so for a very long time to come.
It helps if you have other passions.
think of the industries it would open up--marijuana farming, packaging, vending...
joblessness would drop
Yes, but would WalMart carry it? I could see them only importing cheep-ass ditch bud from Mexico.
'Serious' users of marijuana for pain - ingest it through cooking made with butter. There are 2 types of cannabanoids only which when ingested, release an opiate-type pain relief that lasts for an extended period of time.
The prison industry would collapse.
But I'm alive to fight the Powers that Be- and I intend to do so for a very long time to come.
yup. i think that's what keeps me going sometimes too. my outrage against the injustices of the bush regime distract me from substance abuse. or make me want to abuse more substances, i can't remember--too many dead brain cells.
It helps if you have other passions.
truer words were never posted.
The prison industry would collapse.
oh my good golly! we can't have *that*!!!
anyone ever read "the rich get richer and the poor get prison" ???
eyeopener, that.
what the federal government doesn't realize is this: that if they made marijuana legal, and could control it, they could tax it, and it would increase their revenue.
It doesn't matter, her eyes on the horizon.
Marijuana (and high quality LSD, mescaline, or peyote) make people much harder to control, and incourage radically independent thought, although its adverse physical effects are no worse than the combination of nicotine and alcohol.
They are going to stay absolutely illegal, because they make you very disbelieving that a Spirit in the Sky would speak through the likes of Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Joe Ratzinger, or George W. Bu$h.
They make you think Adversary of a Sky-Spirit might, though...
They are going to stay absolutely illegal, because they make you very disbelieving that a Spirit in the Sky would speak through the likes of Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Joe Ratzinger, or George W. Bu$h.
They make you think Adversary of a Sky-Spirit might, though...
While on the other hand drugs that are used to make us "normal" and allow us to "fit in" are big biz since they pretty much keep us docile and easy to control. Who needs Soma when you have Prozac?
QL in NY, had a short power outage so couldn't read you. You are right, of course, modernity can't be imposed by a colonial power but if they'd spent a small fraction of the money they spent on Iraq on the Afghans they might have been able to help.
I read somewhere that the Afghans were relatively enlightened for that area before the Second World War. That the king caused a stir when he had his wife unveil.
The Taliban seems to have been imposed by Saudis through their funding of those awful "schools". Apparently you can impose a brutal, superstitious, terror state on people from the outside. The United States certainly has done it in the past. It seems to be doing so again in Iraq. For all his many, many sins, women as a whole were better off under Saddam than they're going to be under the Imams. Riverbend has done some fastinating and heartbreaking posts on the subject. She might be the first blogger to win a Nobel prize in literature someday.
Maybe democracy can't be imposed but it can be cultivated. The effort wasn't made in Afghanistan but it certainly would have been worth it.
About your grandmother dying, did she live with the smoker? I've known of a couple of non-smoking women who died from their husband's second hand smoke.
It's one of the many things I'm very allergic to so there wasn't ever a danger of me taking it up. Like Clinton, I couldn't inhale pot either. Didn't want to, though. I couldn't play worth anything if I was high. Nothing compares to that feeling.
Have you considered a recorder? They're cheap and easy to learn and have a good repitoire. Bet you could find a really good teacher where you are. Good for the breathing, or so my recorder playing friend tells me. Maybe I should take up my own advice on the subject.
Alcohol is far worse on the human system than practically all the drugs mentioned here.
That is the merican-oxymoron - follow the dumbest and stupidest ideas!
Other than lung problems with smoking, and physical addiction associated with opiates, drugs simply open the mind - except for alcohol - it completely fogs the mind into a mindless stupor. That is why alcohol is legal and everything else is opposed....
allow the little people to drink themselves silly - don't let them touch that stuff which might make them think!!!
Who needs Soma when you have Prozac? -
Truth is, I have lots of other medications that I can take less of, with the assistance of some decent pot. Not only does it help with the side effects of many of them, but it also reduces the muscle spasms associated with my back disorder.
And that in and of itself, makes the days go by one hell of alot easier.
So, for me it's a pretty simple choice - less pharmaceuticals, and a little herb, or 3-4 more 'scripts.
Pretty simple.
So true, Big Daddy Mars. Huxley would recognize these compounds and what they're used for instantly. Keeps you a calm and functionally acute worker.
Did you see what Alice Marshall found last week?
The presidentially appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a report in July 2003 urging enactment of widespread screening for children to identify and treat mental illnesses. Defenders of constitutional liberties have good reason to be very skeptical of at least one objective. The report in Recommendation 4.2 states: "The key to improving academic achievement is to identify mental health problems early and, when needed, provide appropriate services or links to services. The extent, severity, and far-reaching consequences make it imperative that our Nation adopt a comprehensive, systematic approach to improving the mental health status of children."
Later, the Commission's report in Recommendation 4.3 states its backing of "systematic screening procedures to identify mental health and substance use problems and treatment needs in all setting in which children [and] youth...are at high risk for mental illnesses or in settings in which a high occurrence of co-occurring mental and substance use disorders exists. In addition to specialty mental health and substance abuse treatment settings, screening for co-occurring disorders should be implemented when an individual enters the juvenile or criminal justice systems, child welfare system, homeless shelters, hospitals..."
Bit by bit, bureaucrats at HHS could take such language and slowly but surely push its boundaries, continually expanding its reach. Unless institutional checks are put in place to prohibit unwarranted expansion, eventually your child could visit the hospital to have his tonsils removed and also receive a free mental health checkup, too, courtesy of Uncle Sam. If your child is full of energy, as many children are, his rambunctiousness could be grounds for receiving a prescription for Ritalin.
So, for me it's a pretty simple choice - less pharmaceuticals, and a little herb, or 3-4 more 'scripts.
The other reason that reefer remains illegal, Barn. Drug companies want you to need those 3-4 more 'scrips.
Even if they used marijuana to make some of the drugs that alleviate the symptoms you describe and many more, the profit margin that these companies reap from other drugs just wouldn't be there with pot.
Plus, they would sell a lot less of any reefer-based drugs because the effects could be obtained from smoking or injesting the weed, so why buy the drugs?
"systematic screening procedures
any time they use the words "systematic" and "procedures" in the same sentence, be afraid, be very afraid.
The presidentially appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a report in July 2003 urging enactment of widespread screening for children to identify and treat mental illnesses. Defenders of constitutional liberties have good reason to be very skeptical of at least one objective. The report in Recommendation 4.2 states: "The key to improving academic achievement is to identify mental health problems early and, when needed, provide appropriate services or links to services. The extent, severity, and far-reaching consequences make it imperative that our Nation adopt a comprehensive, systematic approach to improving the mental health status of children."
To me, this goes hand-in-hand with the over-diagnosis (in my opinion) of ADD among school kids of all ages. To me it's mostly bullshit: a cheep way to get the kids on drugs and turn them into mind-controlled zombies. No thank you.
Now, I do believe there should be a far more serious effort to identify possible mental health issues among pre-teens and teenagers. How to go about doing this, I'm not sure, but a real effort needs to be made, not just doing this "Oh, your kid doesn't listen in class, therefore he/she is probably going to turn into a serial killer before they're 21 . . . so you should just give them these" crap.
I know they 'want' me to have the other 3-4 'scripts. Fuck that. Who's body are they going into?
Oh. That would be me. I am not a profit machine for their shareholders.
Kelly - I heard about that report. Since they have not implemented it, it is another directive that that flies under the radar. How many libertarians are gonna want their kids tested? This is appalling. Right up there with passing that creepy law about all miscarriages are now to be treated as death and must be reported as such. They are amassing records on all of us.
Remember in "Handmaid's Tale" how easy it was to just stop women from having control over money. First issue i.d. cards to every citizen that are doubling as debit cards. Then pull a switch that prohibits anyone with a card denoting female from using it. The subtle power shift in relationships, even with a sympathetic partner, is impossible to avoid. This stuff really scares the shit out of me.
his rambunctiousness could be grounds for receiving a prescription for Ritalin.
I was at the doc's a couple of weeks ago and asked him about ADD, which I have been concerned might be one of my problems recently. He asked me the questions, and lo and behold, he said I probably do have the disorder and prescribed me Adderall.
I filled the prescription and took the first dose. A few hours later, I was speeding. I googled Adderall and learned that it is a combination of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine salts. Ritalin? Methamphetamine.
I got a big kick out of that.
Back to the ADD. I have been afflicted my entire life as I understand more about the disorder. I always had a pretty easy time with school except I had trouble studying and doing my homework. I was always told by my parents that I was just lazy (and the like). Problem was, my mind was always wandering. To this day, it never quietens. Always something cranking in there. Hopefully, the Adderall will work.
My younger daughter has a very high i.q. but only did average in school, until she hit college. There was talk of her being mentally overactive and some nitwit suggested she might do better with ritilin. I suggested she might do better with a more advanced curriculum. Asshole!
ADHD myself. My brain is constantly spinning, and I used to never be able to stop my body from doing something either.
The discipline from Marine training took care of most of it. It taught me how to focus my energy, and compartmentalize my thoughts. Oh, I still skitz out now and then, but it's not as bad as when I was younger by a long way.
Being aware of your triggers is half the battle.
Mr. QL's younger brother was actually hyper active and I saw him without meds go completely bonkers. So I am not saying ADD doesn't exist, or that meds should never be given. I am saying, however, that they are too easily dispensed to cure all problems and exert control. Imagine if Mozart was considered menatally hyper and given something to calm him down? The world will not be a better place if we are all drugged to the gills, stifling energy that could be directed to productive and creative means.
My younger daughter has a very high i.q. but only did average in school, until she hit college. There was talk of her being mentally overactive and some nitwit suggested she might do better with ritilin. I suggested she might do better with a more advanced curriculum. Asshole!
This was one of the arguments I had with my ex over my son. The teacher was telling my ex that my son's mind "seemed to wander" and that he probably had ADD. I told my wife the teacher was probably teaching at the lowest common denominator level and he was bored--not to mention that a teaching shouldn't be making a medical diagnosis like that.
Christ, I'm sure I'd have been loaded up on drugs when I was a teenager had teaching been doing this shit back in the 1970's. Not that I wasn't loaded on some kind of drug from time to time, mind you . . ..
QL and Big Daddy:
Funny that you should write about ADD at the same time I was composing the last post.
I also agree that probably too may children are put on amphetamines as it is the easy thing to do. And, with the other problems with speed being a very powerful drug in itself that lends itself to abuse, one should think long and hard prior to starting kids on it.
Let me try again, morning moonbats- had a nap attack!
Now for the big question of the day. I am not outraged, and in a fairly peaceful hopeful mood. As GWPDA said yesterday, we are beginning not to lose.
Should I turn on the Sunday bobble head shows and ruin it?
Anti-Psychotic Sundae:
Two scoops ice cream, sherbet or sorbet, of the patient's favorite flavor, but something that mixes well with an orange-flavored syrup.
Dosage-appropriate amounts of Depakote (divalproex sodium) and Topamax sprinkles.
Dosage-appropriate amounts of lithium citrate syrup.
Two maraschino cherries, one red, one green.
Pour lithium syrup over scoops of ice cream (or whatever). Top with Topamax and Depakote sprinkles. Place one of each type of cherry on top of each scoop of ice cream. Mellow-out and enjoy.
Pfffffft. And you thought you were talking about drugs...
Have smoke for 30+ years. Quit once for 12 years, then 2 year, then 1 year, now I've been quit again for 1 month. I LOVE SMOKING. 50% of lung cancer deaths are non-smokers (lived with smokers?). We all have to die somehow. Cancer, Alzheimers, Heart?
Hard to resist and harder to defend.
I told my wife the teacher was probably teaching at the lowest common denominator level and he was bored--not to mention that a teaching shouldn't be making a medical diagnosis like that.
Big D - that is one of the things about myself that I have noticed, if I am interested in a subject, I have no problem concentrating, but it is very, very easy to get bored.
I also agree that probably too may children are put on amphetamines as it is the easy thing to do. And, with the other problems with speed being a very powerful drug in itself that lends itself to abuse, one should think long and hard prior to starting kids on it.
Having dabbled with speed in the mid-seventies, I completely agree. But then, none of these things being handed out today are nothing to fool around with lightly.
Should I turn on the Sunday bobble head shows and ruin it?
give yourself the day off QL, you deserve it.
Big D - that is one of the things about myself that I have noticed, if I am interested in a subject, I have no problem concentrating, but it is very, very easy to get bored.
Same here. I think just about everyone is like that--if you like the subject you'll feel as if you're zooming along. If the subject is a bore--or the teacher is just phoning in the lession--then you're going to be bored on your ass.
And these days with the government insisting that everything can be solved by rote work--shit, man, just place a punchbowl of stuff at the entrance of the classroom, as I'm certain just about every kid in that class is gonna wish they were somewhere else!
Having dabbled with speed in the mid-seventies, I completely agree. But then, none of these things being handed out today are nothing to fool around with lightly.
I loved it back then. Cheap trip and one could drink massive amounts of booze and still be rocking.
Of course, the doses we did back then and what the doc has me taking on a daily basis differ by a factor of 5 or 10.
If you are talking of ADHD or ADD or ODD - I guess I am familiar with most of them.
The problem is, as noted, schools are not designed to take care of people who do not fit their idea of what a student should be. Sometimes, I believe we are the most evil institution in the world for SOME children.
Our problem is that the dictates from society demand that we do things a certain way. It is not the best way, but it is probably the cheapest. I have often felt that students who do not fit into our profile of what a student should be: need something else. But, as a society, we would rather medicate than educate. It is just easier - and given the requirements of the task - probably necessary.
But, if money and faciliites were available, there are much better ways to do it.
Should I turn on the Sunday bobble head shows and ruin it?
QL - don't do it. Don't waste good energy on those assholes.
I watched the first of Maher last night and loved the interview with Jane Fonda (what a lovely lady, mentally and physically). Then Scarborough comes on and I'm pissed. Click. I turned over to ESPN and watched hoops.
I agree that ADD is way overdiagnosed. And Ritalin, etc., is prescribed mostly for young boys, hardly every girls.
Should I turn on the Sunday bobble head shows and ruin it?
give yourself the day off QL, you deserve it.
After looking at today's lineup on Daily Kos, you'll really need drugs after today's bullshit.
Gallipoli marks 90th anniversary
Okay, you smokers in the crowd, here's what I don't get: the problem with smoking isn't the nicotine. Nicotine's a fun drug, from everything I can gather, and I understand why you'd want to use it. It's also a notably safe drug, doctors and pharmacologists tell me.
It's smoking that isn't safe, not nicotine: the delivery system's what creates the problems. The delivery system is also what upsets bystanders (honest to God, most of us aren't assholes who want to impose puritanical standards on you; we'd like you to be able to do whatever makes you happy, it's just that even a little tobacco smoke smells awful and makes us feel sick).
Nicotine is available without a scrip at any pharmacy. It looks pricy, but then, so do cigarettes. Every time I see it I wonder: why wouldn't you just go for the pure, safe, non-noxious drug? Why use cigarettes at all?
My wife, my daughter, and I went to Delaware Park to play some slots last night. Something we never do.
Anyway, it was raining like hell and we couldn't find a parking place so I paid the valet deal and we go in. I bought a Glenlivet on the rocks and a G&T for the better half - $11.25. Shit, I'm pissed. No one told these Delaware folks that you want people drinking as they will blow more money in that state.
Anyway, I am no gambler and am pissed at the rain, etc. I put a buck in the quarter slot and rang up four credits. BINGO. $160. I put another buck in and won an additional $25. All of a sudden I'm having a good time.
My better half laughed at me because I cashed out at that point and only fed the bandits about $5 more, when realizing my lucky streak was gone, I quit and retired to the bar.
Daughter won $50 and the better half got skunked.
TRUE STORY:
The Ratzi Nazi pope tells the NYT today that he decided to become a Nazi because of a "vulgar" student at Tuebingen, Germany in 1968 at this well known meeting.
I WAS THE VULGAR STUDENT. The vulgar word was "Nazi" and we were arguing about Kuchen-Kinder-Kirche and I was the ONLY vocal feminist on campus that year.
I was so well known, I was in Der Spiegel, the top magazine about politics. I was deported from Germany because of my rabble rousing.
I was famous as the Violent Hippie. I gave classes to women in how to physically intimidate men.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Der Papen ist ein Nazi.
Gads. It is all in my blog.....
is there a horrible process to quitting smoking? I ask in all seriousness. Within arm's reach of where I sit are about five pipes (in a drawer of my desk), and some completely dried up and worthless pipe tobacco (in a tin). I stopped after I got married (my wife hates the smell), took it up again from time to time, and haven't smoked a pipe since my daughter was born.
My father, on the other hand, smoked like a chimney. I can remember the den with a layer of smoke just at the level of my head when I sat down; like smog over L.A. He tried to shift from cigarettes to pipe, and then "quit" after his first heart bypass. Two heart attacks and another bypass later, his car still smells like a rolling ashtray, and he "sneaks" out to the side of the house thinking no one knows what he's doing.
I've been told "addiction" is simply a personality trait, not a physical problem. My father's father was an alcoholic, (the one I'm named for), yet I've been known to nurse one bottle of Scotch for a decade or longer (I forget it's there).
What I truly find odd about smoking now, having grown up with it, is how nasty it is. I grew up in a house as permeated as a meat smokehouse. Now (except perhaps for some pipes), I find the smell repellant. 'Course, I never found it all that relaxing or soothing, either.
Nicotine just never did it for me. Marijuana, either, back in the day (college). Caffeine, though; now that's relaxation!
I have a daughter with ADD. She hates the meds, how they make her feel, so she just stops taking them.
Result: Report card arrived yessterday, and in 5 of 8 courses, the notation is the same--homework missing, student often unprepared, etc. Failed two. I asked why, and she shrugged. "I don't know."
I hate to make her take the drug (Concerta), but it seems like she really needs it. Any alternate advice is fully appreciated.
went into a restaurant once, supposedly good food, etc. but not a huge fancy place, nothing overly special about it.
there were four of us, and we sat at the bar waiting for our table. the bar order was: one irish whiskey (forgot the brand) a beer and two red wines (nothing high end). i put a $20 bill onto the bar. it was ignored. i received a little slip from the cash register. $32.50!
almost choked.
I knew we met. I felt it in my bones. I racked my mind trying to picture him as a younger man in 1968.
And lo and behold, he himself points me out as the terror of his existence! Oh, I was the unholy terror of the philosophy/religion department that was in Der Alte Halle.
Hahaha. I was called, "The Whore of Babylon" by him and was so proud of this, I had a shirt made with the Durer woodcut of the Whore.
Gads. Small world!!!!
NY Mary: throw away the TV and video.
Your daughter's "disease" is too much stimulation that is electronic.
Time to sing, "It's a small world after all.."
"Actually, after a point, lung cx is fairly quick. Miserable, but relatively quick."
If it's lung cancer. If it's emphysema, you have NO idea what you're in for. That's how my otherwise healthy dad died at 63: suffocating, counting the minutes until his next Xanax, years of immobilized misery.
LPR
Hey NYMary,
Substitute DWD for your daughter and you would not be far wrong.
I hated school. I did not do well in school. School was a big problem. My problem was a little different than most though: I just loved to read too much for school.
School is designed to teach children who are at a level that is consistent with learning. (Seems an odd statment, let me explain.) Those students who are out of the norm are regularly neglected in school. If you are too low, then the material will not make sense. If you are too high, it is not so much that you already know it: it is more than you have moved beyond making it necessary for you to learn it. The knowledge will come to you when the time is appropriate for you to use it.
I remember being made to learn phonics in elementary school and getting in trouble cause my workbook was not done and my mind was wandering. (This was at the same time that my reading scores were beyond their ability to measure) So, was I able to state all the rules of Phonics the teacher presented: no. Did I already understand the area: Yep.
My guess is that your daughter is one of those who has already passed the need for the knowledge that the teacher is presenting: even though they might not actually KNOW it. The trick with children like this is to not allow them to think they are deficient. Encouraging them to do better in school will help, but not solve the problem. Medication will help, but it is not an answer because the problem is not in learning: it is adhering to the dictates of the school. You know?
Emphysemia you drown.
"I've been told "addiction" is simply a personality trait, not a physical problem."
Robert, take it from this PhD in neuropharmacology, addicition is very much a physical (biochemical and physiological) problem, actually it can be seen in fruit flys. Some people are more prone to it (empirical observation) for reasons that would be very interesting to know.
Make a political statement, burn a blunt for Ba'al.
I hated school and got high grades.
I also hate TV so didn't have that monster in my life. TV is pure poison to the brain. Get rid of the thing.
Congratulations? ELaine,
From what I have read of the new pope: I find little to recommend him as human or leader. Now you are telling me he is conformist as well.oh well .. . .
When I was teaching, I some 16-year-old students with smoker's cough. So depressing.
I never inveighed against drugs or alcohol with my students, but I did encourage them to quit smoking (or never start) and helped to publicize the annual Smoke Out event on our campus.
the problem, i think, is that schools tend to put kids into a box, and if they don't fit into that box, they are going to try and *make* them fit into that box, by either giving them drugs, or whipping them into submission. those who do not adhere and fit into the box are labelled "delinquent" and cast aside.
what is the parable about the squirrel haing to learn to fly and the eagle having to learn to swim?
the really good teachers recognize each kid's special talents and encourage and nurture those.
DWD,
I understand completely. Unfortunately, we still have several years of the system to get through. I used to assure her that as she got older she'd have to do less of what she didn't like and could focus on her interests. She's starting to believe me, and wants to start a creative writing club at her school. (She comes from the line of a pretty famous genre novelist, so she's got it in her blood.)
Last week, when complaining about how she'd never need geometry, I made her help me measure the roof and calculate the square footage so we could figure out how many shingles we'd need. Heh.
And the PS2 is gone for the rest of the school year, Elaine, though historically that hasn't affected performance. (In kindergarten, she was given an award: "Most Introspective"--translation? "She lives in her own head.")
NYMary:
I googled Concerta and it is the same compound that is in Ritalin: methylphenidate (I stand corrected as I said Ritalin was methamphetamine in an earlier post).
Methylphenidate is supposedly a milder stimulant than amphetamine (in the Adderall I take), but being a stimulant, has side effects that your daughter doesn't like and causes her to not want to take it.
My daughter suffers from migraines that are alleviated by taking beta-blockers (slows heart rate) which when she used to run track in HS, slowed her down so she stopped taking the medicine. Still does not want to take it to this day.
Talk to your doctor and ask him if there are other treatments for ADD/ADHD that do not involve stimulants as therapy.
Her eyes, I actually wrote a fairly long post about this very thing: but Heloscan lost it.
I am disgusted with my profession at this moment. My students do not have sufficient books or supplies. I provide most of the things they need. I have not had a raise in three years. Our facilities are inadequate for teaching special needs children.
The federal government has cut education funding, as has the state. Our property tax base is almost non-existent. At the same time teachers have not had a wage adjustment: the administration has raised their own salaries by double digits.
They demand that we fix problems without giving us the means to do so. It is preying on my mind and giving me dark thoughts . . .
Money will not solve the problems of the schools, but lack of money will certainly make things much much worse
NYMary, as a teacher I am sure you are aware that grades in school are more a measure of compliance than they are ability. I think you are doing the right thing with your daughter. Just remember to tell her that it is a stupid game and if she wants to succeed; she must play the game.
Sad commentary that one. I am sorry of this as it is wrong. Schools should measure learning: not compliance. But we do not. I have had gifted students who did not do very well with homework and such but did well when we tested. I gave them decent graees. One girl, in particular, asked me why. I told her that my fuction was to teach. If she was learning, then I am satisfied. (But I am different, you know?)
Some people are more prone to it (empirical observation) for reasons that would be very interesting to know.
Obviously. Since, in matters of personal discipline, I am hardly a Marine DI by nature.
Interesting.
I also wonder hos much "ADD/ADHD" is a matter of framing. I have a friend whose son carries that diagnosis, and was given Ritalin (the ironies of treating behavior problems with drugs abound, especially for a man (his father) who knows how many substance abuse problems are people trying to self-medicate). He told me his son was like Davy Crockett, and in a different age, would have had no "problems" at all.
I've no doubt the diagnosis has a basis in reality, and that some people don't "fit in" as well as others, and the resolution is complex. Myself, I'm an autodidact, a jackdaw of the mind. I dive down on the pretty things that interest me (well, follow my blog, and that's obvious). I did middling well in school, and my daughter is now re-tracing my footsteps. My best academic performance was in seminary, my worst in law school (I graduated, but that's all).
And now I keep following what interests me, and damn (almost) the consequences. Some of us just go through life semi-sideways, I guess.
My way of saying, NYMary: you have my sympathies. And all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Oh boy, Elisabeth Bumiller coming up on Little Georgie Stephanapolous. Maybe she'll tell us what Fredo's favorite late-night snack is!
Elaine,
Wow. Double wow. (As a Canaanite fertility god I must say that I would feel a certain affinity to any Whore or Babylon).
Did you have contact with Kueng?
One girl, in particular, asked me why. I told her that my fuction was to teach. If she was learning, then I am satisfied.
That's beautiful, DWD. I wish I had more teachers like you when I was in school.
My old man was a teacher, then administrator and I can vouch for all you say about education.
NYMary - have you eliminated all the sugar from her life?
Also she might just be bored.
NY Mary, I made a lot of money tutoring kids like your daughter.
I had two rules: No TV type stuff and
You have to memorize something new each week. Shakespeare or multiplication tables or maps or names of animals or whatnot. I played memorization games.
This was great fun because I wanted them to enjoy this process. The whole family had to participate. Mom and dad had to memorize and repeat the same stuff.
Heh.
Boy, people would get mad. "I WANT TO RELAX AND WATCH TV" the parents bellow.
Yup.
NYMary, Let me make a teacher guess. You daughter is between 9-12? If she is even close to that age, can I send her one of my little books I wrote for my children? She might like it, and it might encourage the writing thing. Her Eye's son read it and loved it. (I am not recommending you read it though. I am a pretty decent writer but my editing skills leave something to be desired. )
omg..Elisabeth Bumiller...what an idiot.
I hate to make her take the drug (Concerta), but it seems like she really needs it. Any alternate advice is fully appreciated.
I hate the idea of drugging kids. If ritalin had been around when I was in school, I would've been a great candidate (though my parents prolly would not have forced it on me). I think you need to talk with the school and work out a strategy that takes your daughter's needs into consideration--harness the energy she has. Don't fuck with her brain chemistry.
Ja, ich kennte Herr Dr. Kueng.
I was famous on campus because my dad interrorgated many Nazis for the Nuremburg trials. We talked about this.
Many professors were...Nazis once. Ahem.
(But I am different, you know?)
and thank god/goddess for that!
your students are fortunate to have you.
Well, here's the latest -
I went to get this beautiful cat yesterday at the rescue place, a gorgeous, tall, and very dear Siamese mix boy and by a strange turn of events he needed to stay at the hospital
until Monday. As I was leaving, the rescue person just begged me to also take a little traumatized beat up cat who just had no chance of adoption because he is so different and funny-looking.
He's kind of shell-shocked and his ears all ragged and he can hardly move because he's been in a cage for a really long time and his legs are weak. He's terribly thin
with his bones sticking out. It really tore at my heart because I wanted to help, but I don't want three cats, you know, my little girl that I have here is just my heart and I already didn't know if I could even handle one more, much less two!
But anyway I took the little pitiful one home against my better judgment and, well, you know the rest of the story.
He's black with the biggest green eyes, and so sweet and grateful for anybody to be touching him and feeding him. In just a few hours he started grooming himself and he ate a ton and went in his litter and did everything just perfectly.
I'm going to keep him and I might name him Angel. I won't take the other one now, and I hope the gorgeous one will find a home very quickly. He's so stunning and lovely, and I think he'll be adopted in 10 seconds.
It's been a freaky 18 hours! You know what the famous John Lennon quote is... Life is what happens when you're making other plans... or something like that.
*
TV fucks with the brain chemistry hugely.
This is the cure. 100%. No TV. My kids do not watch TV as adults now. They think it is silly.
David "Bobo" Brooks, inadvertently sums up his success as a pundit and editorialist in his column:
"The shallowest people end up blissfully happy and they are so vapid they don't even realize how vapid they are because vapidity is the only trait that comes with its own impermeable obliviousness system."
good morning everyone, just stopping in for a few seconds. No one should smoke, if for no other reason b/c of the industry you support by doing so. World class scumbags.
Jenny good on you! you won't be sorry! what a lucky little kitty!
Elaine--i especially loved the part about the philosophy debate! you really are a hero! an unsung one.
Yeah! Jenny!
This was a bad week to quit smoking.
Reality Check Bouncer -12:08 am
Mornin', Sam...
Mornin',Ralph...
this is a bad century to quit smoking. fortunately, i quit LAST century (tobacco, anyway)...
cheers, chers...
wildly o/t but so what.
the kid just told me that george lucas is thinking about two teevee series. one is futuristic the other is about the media.
he, (g.l.) thinks they will be too controversial to air.
Bobo can't help but preen himself in front of his mirror, no? 
God bless you Jenny.
Bumiller has to keep quiet during this segment b/c she has nothing to contribute. Instead, she is bursting with information about the contents of Fredo's medicine cabinet.
BlakNo1
Teachers have the toughest job there is. I suspect that anytime you have a situation where one teacher guides some number of kids that is between 10 and 40 depending on the funds available, kids who have some traits that are rare in the population (i.e. some kids in every class) will fail to thrive. It may be unavoidable, and if so, I wish I had a solution.
That said, DWD describes a pervasiv situation that is found in so many places. Nobody can work at education at any level without these dark feelings. But especially at the crucial K-12 level where DWD works.
Some of the shit is self-inflicted, or inflicted by people with the best of intentions.
We spend so much time on accountability and outcomes measures that we can't actually do our jobs.
A few years back our administration embraced "Technology in the Classroom" in a big way. Sounds great. Actually it sucks. Now faculty give these hideous pre-worked Powerpoint lectures and hide behind their podiums and completely bury students in useless detail. Ba'al prefers a high degreee of improvisation.
My preference would be to stand outside and scratch on the mud with a stick.
DWD,
She's actually almost 15 (which makes me... ulp!). This last week, she and a friend have been collecting money from friends, and yesterday they made t-shirts in preparation for the Hichhiker's Guide movie this coming weekend. A remarkably creative and lively young woman. (Maybe she'll piss off a pope someday ) Aside from academics, she's fabulous. But I have to get her through school. I feel a bit guilty telling her it's a game, though I have done.
I thought dietary treatments had been discredited, Honey Bear. Is that incorrect? When I was a kid, I knew lots of kids who were not allowed sugar because they were "hyper."
her eyes -
I'm pretty ecstatic. And it looks like my cat is going to accept him really quickly. He's not a threat to her because he just sits really still on his blanket, he can hardly move. It's all going to work out just fine, I think.
Bobo Waxing Autobiographical
"The shallowest people end up blissfully happy and they are so vapid they don't even realize how vapid they are because vapidity is the only trait that comes with its own impermeable obliviousness system."
Attaturk 9:50 am, quoting Bobo...
my god, atta, this nicely summarizes the entire GOPoundit-ocracy...So true it deserves a place in the Banality Hall of Fame...
Jenny ft Blog, What a touching story! I get so tired and depressed hearing all the bad news all the time that it's nice when I'm reminded that good things happen too.
Honeybear -
Thank you so much. You know, I've been up most of the night with him, it's only 6:45 in the morning here! And it seemed really natural to turn on the computer and tell my Atriot folks the news!
Robert, take it from this PhD in neuropharmacology, addicition is very much a physical (biochemical and physiological) problem, actually it can be seen in fruit flys. Some people are more prone to it (empirical observation) for reasons that would be very interesting to know.
Take it from this PhD who smoked for 20 years (including two full packs -during- my orals) and quit, with the aid of the magical medicine Zyban six years ago with no further cravings -at all-; addiction to nicotine is truly as horrifying as it is to heroin. But sometimes, blessedly, it is not an addiction, but an habituation, and those can be conquered.
I am stunned to read that so many prized Atriots still smoke. I gave it up when I found myself driving out to the Reservation for cheap cigs - and the day of my physical when my doctor informed me that I had emphysema. Carrying around oxygen bottles is not something I want to do - exerting that much effort to get a fix was nothing i wanted to see myself doing.
The consequences of smoking and giving it up have been physiologically nearly devastating - the cigarettes even further impaired my genetically fragile thyroid, while masking the destruction. But what the hell - reality bites. I wouldn't start again for anything in the world.
And hey! good morning!
I quit HS in my junior year myself. I owed about 25 detentions or so and was flunking algebra for my second year in a row. Then, I found an alternative HS where teachers actually gave a damn and I aced algebra I and II within a semester.
2006 Minnesota Senate
Rod Grams has pulled out of the race to replace Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN). This clears the field for Mark Kennedy, the strongest Republican contender. No strong Democrat has yet entered the race. Kennedy could win in a walk.
Wonder who Bobo filched that comment from?
I am SO going to hell for this caption!
Since everyone is talking about their smoking experiences, let me say this ...
My parents both smoked (pack a day each). I was sick for my entire childhood: ear infections, bronchitis, asthma, colds, flus, you name it. My parents called me a "hypochondriac."
AS SOON AS I MOVED OUT I began to be sick like a normal person, i.e., a cold once a year, bronchitis one in a blue moon. I have never had another ear infection. And I no longer have asthma..
For those Atriots who smoke, if you can't quit for yourself, do it for your kid.
Aatturk, reminds me more of the Golden Calf.
Jenny--so glad it is working out
SMOKE MORE POT!
mer -
Yes! The big picture we live with is so bleak and then something comes along to remind us that life is really special and we can make a difference, even if it's just giving comfort to a sad little creature and watching him blossom. I've seen a remarkable change come over him in just the past 12 hours... Unbelievable and what a blessing.
Hmmm.... Can't get to your bloviatings, Attaturk. And I had a schweet Reservoir Dogs joke!
NYMary, Usually these problems first surface between fourth and sixth grades. That is when the amount of material that must be covered increases and students are expected to begin the process of learning to be responsible for their own learning.
I wish I had the answer to the things wrong with schools, but I am afraid I do not. If I were king, there are several things that I would do.
1. Make all education multi-level. And I mean extremely so. From K - 12 in the same room. Education is such an artificial environment that we are not even teaching people how to get along in our society. At no point in your life will you ever work with 400 other people and be confined to one particular space in this population where you are with everyone your own age. By making educational delivery multi-level, it is possible to address the needs of students who can move through the material quickly - and more slowly. By making children learn to get along with older and younger students: we would be teaching nurturing and tolerance skills.
2. I would make students much more independent by delivering most of their learning on the computer or by books that are designed to allow them to move as quickly as they could.
3. I would try to facilitate "themed" learning. Like you did with your daughter, there are ways of teaching what seems irrelavent. But not in the classroom.
4. I would severely reduce the time in the classroom. Longer days just make school much worse for some students. When I first started teaching, our day was from 9:00 - 2:40. Now my students come in at 8:20 and leave at 3:30. We have no additional resources to share: so we do more of the same. Ideally, school should be about five hours long with another hour devoted to nurturing some special interest in the hands of someone who can teach it: whether it be computers or art or music or dance or writing or something . . .
Aatturk, reminds me more of the Golden Calf.
mer
That too. But I guess I've been waiting to use that quote from 'Almost Famous' for more than a year.
Morning, rational and wise ones.
Jenny, good on you. As a friend of The Pasadena Humane Society and all such efforts, I've gotten all of my pets from that source. Because I don't have young children, have a large fenced yard, and am at home more than a fully employed person probably ought to be, I generally take home a 'special needs' cat or dog.
The rewards for this have been tremendous. The pets (dogs or cats) seem to know that they have been rescued and lavish love on me. Sometimes I have to work hard to overcome some bad habits (usually involving fear of anyone or anything strange), but it's been well worth it.
Sometimes the down and outers just need a chance to blossom.
Atatturk, how about this caption...
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition, blast-off!"
Res,
Yes! I grew up thinking a cold that lasted from October to April was perfectly normal! Same reason!
I find that when the world becomes too bleak, kissing Rosie's tummy until she belly laughs is a good corrective.
Atatturk, how about this caption...
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition, blast-off!"
Ba'al
Also good, but I don't want to steal possible lines from "Watertiger" or "Holden".
...although I must add, if you look closely at that picture of the pope, you'll notice he lifted JP II's cool bowling shoes before the latter was planted.
I find that when the world becomes too bleak, kissing Rosie's tummy until she belly laughs is a good corrective.
The rest of us might get in trouble if we try your remedy..
Lord Ba'al,
Awkward as it is to contradict a Cana'anite fertility deity of such awesome power and affect, still i beg to differ.
First, it is a mistake to adjudge the USer School System as benign. It isn't. In the term of Louis Althusser, it is an unalterable Institutional State Apparatus (ISA), tasked with the formation of the skeleton of the official state dogma in youth, and the and the inculcation of that dogma as the foundational epistemological structure upon which all subsequent social and political decisions are to be made...
Teachers themselves fall into roughly three categories:
1) altruists, who want to save the world through the children...
2) lifers, who found teaching to be a secure, albeit frustrating, career--and not as dirty as plumbing...
3) administrator wannabes, who teach only long enough to get into the Office, from whence they only depart into the next level of management...
Members of two of the three classes view students merely as objects, instruments by the manipulation of which their ulterior aims should be assured.
two out of three, in this case, is bad...
just sayin.
Caption...
"Stop, take that thing out of that woman..."
The rest of us might get in trouble if we try your remedy..
NTodd
I dunno NTodd, she's a pretty indiscriminate giggler. Though those with long hair and glasses and loopy earrings would be advised to show caution.
WGG, I figure I am a teacher cause I am doing penance for being such a thorn in the side of my teachers and administrators.
I always figured there were two kinds of teachers, those who like to help children learn and those who are on a ego-driven power trip getting their jollies from being the smartest, biggest, and bossiest son of a bitch in the room. Unfortunately, we have about 9 of the latter for one of the former.
Now faculty give these hideous pre-worked Powerpoint lectures and hide behind their podiums and completely bury students in useless detail. Ba'al prefers a high degreee of improvisation.
Lord Ba'al speaks. And speaks wonders.
The Powerpoint scourge also permeates the business world. Mindnumbingly boring speakers and their idiotic Powerpoint presentations replete with meaningless graphs, etc.
I am a proponent of your style, Lord Ba'al. Heavy on the improv. Relate the theory to situations in everyday life and the comprehension level improves dramatically. I think a lot of it has to do with whether the teacher/speaker has a perconality or not also. Many of the speakers/teachers I encounter are about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Wow. What a difference between the overnight Atriots and the early morning Atriots.
NYMary I can only tell you that it worked for my son. I just wouldn't give him drugs and did my own research and said he doesn't need sugar, it will make him healthier to live without it, it's gone. He's 34 and doing pretty good. He also has the loveliest teeth.
Jenny rescuing an animal is an act of kindness from which you'll get many rewards. We rescued a Chow many years ago and had 15 years of joy with her. She died a couple of years ago and I still haven't gotten another pet.
NYMary - I am the soul of caution.
I am SO going to hell for this caption!
If you do you'll have plenty of good company.
By the way, who would be B16's Jimmy Page? Law the Letch?
My pedagogy is about 25% stand-up. I rarely use notes. I have them, and sometimes check them, mid-conversation, to make sure we're covering what we're supposed to cover, but that's about it. (And that's mostly because I have multiple sections I need to keep roughly together.)
Perconality = personality.
WGG
I agree with you completely.
I might add, though, that even if ALL teachers and administrators fell into your group 1, there would still be some kids whose needs would not be fully met as long as each teacher guides the learning of 10 or more students. It would be much better than it is now, and it would be possible to implement some of the ideas that DWD mentioned. But it would still be less than perfect.
Life is what happens when you're making other plans... or something like that.
*
Jenny from the ßlog • -9:49 am
Jenny, I love you for your warm, loving heart. You did good, gurl...
.
Bobo can't help but preen himself in front of his mirror, no?
One would have to assume, however, that he actually has a reflection.
Oh dear, is that Sully is on Tweety?
My preference would be to stand outside and scratch on the mud with a stick.
Ba'al
===
You'd like my classes ,then.
Elaine, very impressive indeed.
jenny, bless yore heart girl. I had an all black kitty once named Angel Eyes ( after lee van cleef in tgtbatu)
Good morning and fuck boosh!
It is Sully. It must have taken a lot of effort to suppress that aristocratic accent that I hear slipping through. That phony!
Jenny - Do you suppose that there's some connexion between your little black kitty and the formerly lost little one known as String?
And you wanna make sure about the um, gender, so's we don't have to go thru the process again?
NYMary
My approach also. And when I see their eyes starting to glaze over I stop, back up, and figure out where they are getting hung up, or I just let 'em go until next time.
Powerpoint people just go on and on until they have covered all 52 of their slides
Reading..... Every..... Word......
DWD/Ba'al:
i neglected the fourth class of teacher: the person (my brother's wife; DWD?) who so loves childrren, knowledge, and learning that they could do nothing else...
in teacher ed, we talk about teachers who teach kids and teachers who teach subjects...i usta try to discourage folks in that latter category; which did me no advantage in the eyes of our dean, who thought it our duty to 'retain' as many as possible of our 'majors' as possible (i.e., keep enrollment numbers--and budgets, and therefore her salary--up)...
I chew toobackee.
The young picking up smoking probably has something to do with rebelling.
No. They're stressed. You see a lot of smoking among stressed teens and young adults. I see the cigarettes popping out around finals time at Hopkins every year...although it's still very much a minorty of students who do it openly. And you see a hell of a lot of smoking among stressed gay youth.
I took up smoking cigars in my mid twenties, largely because I could never get cigarette smoke into my lungs. Smoking, and taking long walks through the neighborhood, were a big stress relief. I had to be careful though, because even among smokers, cigar smoke isn't always welcome.
Report card arrived yessterday, and in 5 of 8 courses, the notation is the same--homework missing, student often unprepared, etc. Failed two. I asked why, and she shrugged. "I don't know."
When I was in high school, that was simply called "being a teenager." She doesn't need any prescription. She needs an "alternative" high school, if they still exist, with less structure.
THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING FROM LAST WEEK IS ON CSPAN RIGHT NOW.
It's the one where Voinovich stopped the meeting and asked for more time.
This is an amazing meeting.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND WATCHING IT.
WGG,
Writers are teachers too, you know? we just choose to try to find a larger audience to teach.
Actually, when I am not teaching: I am still teaching and learning. I think it just makes me obnoxious though.
WGG
Oh my god, the curse of "student retention". That means let them spend years failing at something that they hate (but don't know that they hate it). Instead of forcing them to accept reality and move into something they can be good at.
I always ask students who are manifestly failing to thrive as Biology or Biochemistry majors what they do for fun. Then I get them to change to whatever that might be. Sometimes it takes a while to get them to see that.
Ba'al,
They laugh when I stop and say, "Are you with me? What do we not get?" Of course, I'm in the humanities, so it's a bit different than the sciences, but breaking it down into steps and keeping it light enough so that they don't actually see that they're mastering complex concepts until after the fact--and then they sit there, shell-shocked for a minute, usually.
I have a lot of return business.
Meteorological Report, Southern Rockies/Northern Sonoran Desert
Rain...a really wet spring...the ticks are legion this year...i don't know if it's cold enough still at altitude to turn the precip into snow, but i wanna tell all and sundry that the Rockies crowned in white while the green of spring frames the brilliant blue sky? Probably tomorrow will be stunning, aesthetically..
Well, let me tell you about it, and y'all stay home, cuz its pretty nasty,m and Albuquerque's got a crime problem, wages are low, prices are pretty high, and...and...
At the University of Houston we have a very large population of students who are immigrants and childrent of immigrantws. Vietnamese, Pakistani, Salvadorian, Nigerian, Iranian, you name it. They are something more than 50% of the students, more in science.
They have tremendous family pressure to be physicians or some other health science professional. Some would in the heart of hearts prefer to do theater or interior design or education or psychology, or literature, or law or, anyway, something else.
It can be a big problem.
Powerpoint people just go on and on until they have covered all 52 of their slides
I hate "death by Powerpoint". I approach pretty much all my classes the same way now: only lecture maybe 1/3 of the material and the rest is case studies, exercises, chalk talk, discussion, etc.
Actually, when I am not teaching: I am still teaching and learning.
==
You touch on the reason I teach, DWD. I realized I had better, after many years of avoidance. For some people, it's a character flaw.
The religious right led by the lunatic James Dobson and his cohorts are holding a "Judicial retribution day" today and they are pulling out all the stops to propagandize on their vast radio, TV and Internet networks to get the word out to the faithful that the US judiciary is not sufficiently controlled by ass-heads like Dobson, Falwell, Robertson & Moon.
These power rapacious fools think they speak for "God" and are trying to return us to the dark ages when religion ruled and people starved.
See, dave, part of me really believes that (though there's no rhyme or reason to the good/bad courses. It's not like "good in English and history, bad in math and science" as one might expect). But we live in a testing culture, and a particularly test-y state. That's not bad, and we have excellent standards, but that means her margin of error is somewhat diminished.
I was a stressed teen and used to smoke in high school. Then I went into the military during Basic Training where it wasn't allowed. The stress was incredible and you were so exhausted, all you wanted to do was fall asleep. It was several weeks when I realized I wasn't smoking anymore. Haven't smoked since or chewed tobacco.
BTW, I've got some more on the installation of da Pope.
2 seconds of Andy and I'm back to ESPN.
Bolton was wrong on Cuba, dickhead.
Frist!
...oh,bugger.
Powerpoint people just go on and on until they have covered all 52 of their slides
A couple of my law school professors use powerpoint. It never helps. The class winds up tuning out during those moments b/c it knows that the professor will post the slides online and they can just go grab them before the exam.
Plus, people tend to get all excited about the functionality and over-do their slides with all these bells and whistles.
Another reason to hate Microsoft.
Now faculty give these hideous pre-worked Powerpoint lectures and hide behind their podiums and completely bury students in useless detail. Ba'al prefers a high degreee of improvisation.
Fools drop in where others talk wisely, but it's Sunday morning, so I have an excuse....
I can't get organized enough to prepare PowerPoint presentations. I walk in talking (my daughter insists it's like Snape a la Rickman), and wing the whole thing. Helps if I've actually lectured on it before. Sometimes I fall flatter'n a pancake, but I figure I'm the teacher, why should it always be "entertaining"? And when I don't know what to say, I pull shiny things out of my nest of bright treasures (the benefit of being a jackdaw!), and toss a few in the air, and HEY! PRESTO! class is over 'til next time.
Most people stop listening after 20 minutes anyway, so I write a lot on the board, too. I'm hell on white boards and dry erase markers. Keepin' those marker people in business singlehandedly.
Is it just me but does it seem like every day is now Easter/Armageddon day or what?
Report card arrived yessterday, and in 5 of 8 courses, the notation is the same--homework missing, student often unprepared, etc. Failed two. I asked why, and she shrugged. "I don't know."
Do NOT get me started on 'homework.'
It's SOLE AND ONLY purpose is to train students to the habit of accepting the taking of their work home with them LATER, when bosses want them to work harder, be more productive, for less investment...
"unprepared"? unless you have lately sat in on a High School class, in any subject, you probably have no idea how routinized, how regulated, how unimaginably unimaginative and ennervating they average class can be...
this is another way by which the school 'teaches' students to be optimal 'workers': do it because you're told, no matter if it makes your teeth ache and your eyes glae over...
yeah, verily, as i have written numerous times: The USer School System exists primarily for the purpose of assuring that as few as humanly and bureaucratically possible of the next generation of citizens actually escape the socio-economic niches to which and for which they were born...
.
Bolton was wrong on Cuba, dickhead.
HoneyBear ... On Little Georgie this A.M. this third panelist (don't know his name) kept emphasizing that Bolton has been wrong on a lot of stuff and why was everyone focusing solely on his nasty personality?
Atrois has risen!
RMJ,
LOL.... that's me, if I remember to use the board at all. I got Snape on Ntodd's Harry Potter quiz yesterday, too. They ususally get a "fifty cent word of the day" (Thursday's was "archetype") and enough laughs to keep them awake. That can be hard, depending on the subject.
"unprepared"? unless you have lately sat in on a High School class, in any this is another way by which the school 'teaches' students to be optimal 'workers': do it because you're told, no matter if it makes your teeth ache and your eyes glae over...
===
Absolutely dead on. And it must be subverted at every turn. So I tell them this is why your day looks like it does, and your future looks like it does. And ask them to reflect on this. It's satisfying to see otherwise unengaged kids start to think, for them and for me.
WGG - I did warn you about the storm coming thru yesterday - for us, it moved on to the east in the afternoon and then by-God it came back! Major, major rain, huge wind, knocked over things, knocked one of my younger trees sideways (no real harm, but strange to see), poor short, hairy guy had to guard me valiantly all night long. It's so soggy and nasty now, just exactly like Buffalo in January, I can't imagine anyone wanting to be anywhere in the neighbourhood.
And, btw, the real issue with those damned powerpoint slides? They elide the historical record. Right now I can go over to UC San Diego and obtain the lecture notes that John S. Galbraith used and actually come away with some content and proto-history. Slides? Nothing. They have no content, and the event is neither documented nor retained. Not good for researchers in a lot of fields - catastrophic for folks working in business, military, political or governmental history. Big problem.
Bushboy, the stooge of the religious right
Said "Jesus Christ" was his teacher and light
Moneylenders caused Jesus to fuss
But Bushboy protects the usurious
By signing bankruptcy laws giving creditors new might!
RMJ,
LOL.... that's me, if I remember to use the board at all. I got Snape on Ntodd's Harry Potter quiz yesterday, too. They ususally get a "fifty cent word of the day" (Thursday's was "archetype") and enough laughs to keep them awake. That can be hard, depending on the subject.
I teach one Freshman English class at a private high school, so on the test as bonus questions I gave them lines from the theme to "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."
NYMary, I can relate to what your daughter is going through. In the 70's I was on Ritalin-from age 5 to 10. My older sister was on another ADD drug. My parents decided to stop to drugs on put us on the Feingold diet-no additives, artificial ingredients. I got excellent standardized test scores and bad grades. Only my parent seemed to understand if I had better teachers that I would have better grades. I even did well in an 8th grade math class because my teacher was excellent. College was better because for the most part I got lucky and had excellent profs. I'd also learned to play the game with the profs were teaching by rote, of giving them the crap that they wanted.
If you daugher really, truly, seriously has bad ADD, look into biofeedback. But something tells me she's got ADD plus boredom and an unwillingness to play those stupid little games of learning by rote. There are some good books out there, for both parents and children, to let them know they're not alone, and they most certainly aren't stupid.
And, DWD, I do so wish I'd had you as a teacher when I was in secondary school! I'm surprised I survived long enough to get into college-I thought college was going to be as stupid as secondary school.
My middle nephew is lucky, for the most part he got teachers who recognized he was a very smart kid and challenged him. He somehow also learned to play the appropriate rote learning games when had classed that bored him.
Frank Rich has his usual tour-de-force column in the NYTimes today.
He rails against the Frist fraud, the MD who would be president, even if it means lying about making a diagnosis from video tapes of Schiavo.
Fristy also will address the Dobson religious spectacle today to denounce the judiciary - by video.
He's too afraid to show up in person and reveal what a sycophantic weasel he really is!
i certainly wasn't the greatest teacher, but the much maligned chalk-n-talk is far superior to powerpoint. Powerpoint makes students believe that if they just copy down and memorize every bullet point they'll get an A.
Increasingly, students expect it from a class.
Harpers new magazine issue devotes much to the menace of the rise of fundamentalism in America.
The lunatic religious right not only wants to prohibit abortion but contraception too.
Pharmacists refuse to issue contraceptives to adults who want to make the purchase.
Bushboy, the stooge of the religious right, and being the depraved moron and irresponsible coward, is playing with a fire that can get totally out of control.
But he's too stupid and ignorant to know it and he's callously indifferent about visiting misery and death on fellow humans to care!
The alternative HS I went to didn't assign homework.
Maybe teenagers smoke BECAUSE it's perceived as dangerous, but it's not as immediately scary as, say, bungee-jumping. It's a way to look "edgy" and "Xtreme" without actually having to look over the Edge right away.
Just an idea.
My pedagogical style differed depending on the level of the students. With undergrads, because they would seldom actually read assignments, the style was almost homiletic: i frequently found myself reading from an assigned text and asking the students leading questions...
With grad students, i was much more improvizational...
In neither case did i make use of powerpoint--again, to the displeasure of the dean, who thought we should model leading-edge technology in our own instruction, an idea at which i balked...
.
People don't realize how HARD it is to quit. I started smoking when I was 18 (when I thought I was going to be a rock-star)... I told everyone for the next 12 years that it was ok to smoke, because I was going to quit on my 30 birthday... well that day came and went and I was/am still smoking. I've made the attempt, tried all the plans, several times over... I'm a year and 1 month away from my 40th birthday... and even though I hope to be a fully reformed smoker by that birthday, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still struggling with it... Quitting smoking is near impossible for some... I happen to be one of those, it seems, who may - in the end - find that it was easier just to kick the bucket than kick the haabit... I hope not, but that seems to be where things stand for me today.
With that said, I still fon't think there should be smoking bans... the government (local, state, and the Feds) should stay out of it. Let busenesses decide if they want to be a smoking environment or not. If people want to take their chances with lung cancer, or whatever, that should be a personal choice.
My father-in-law smoked a pipe in the 1940s and 50s when it was "fashionable" to do so. He quit when the Surgeon General's warnings came out in the 60s. 40 years later, he contracted oral cancer, which eventually killed him. Doctors told him his cancer was unquestionably caused by pipe-smoking.
Tobacco kills. It's amazing people can't seem to understand that simple fact.
Remember it's young women smoking that has skyrocketed. I think slightly more young women smoke than young men now (51% or so). It's almost a right a passage where I go to college. Although I hate smoking quite a bit.
In Boston, it seems like everybody smokes. People who visit me from other states always comment on that.
My daughter is 23.
Started sneaking them at age 11. I did everything to get her stop. (And yes I went through all the stuff when she was young about why it was bad).
Well, the kid got asthma 2 years ago. Wound up in the hospital in October for almost a week - the first couple of days in the ICU.
Like drugs and gambling, I've never "gotten" smoking. Might as well light the money up and watch it burn.
Pay a bundle for something that is going to make me sick? No thanks, I'll pass.
It's a dirty habit, it's not "cool" and you pay a big price, both monetarily and health-wise.
So why bother?
I heard Pickles Bush smokes like a chimney.
It I was married to THAT, I'd be smoking stronger shit than tobacco.
As for (M)ann Coulter looking "younger" from smoking. Nope, it's no good for your skin and ages you.
I can tell when someone is a heavy smoker. They reek of the shit. It's disgusting.
I'm less concerned with uneccesary prescriptions than I am with people not receiving the proper medication and who desperately need it. Thats the backlash I fear from rants that America is overmedicated, that the clinicaly depressed (like myself) might feel ashamed to receive treatment. Mental Health screenings sound like a fantastic idea if it means finding a debilitating illness early, even if it's courtesy of Uncle Sam.
I'm getting sick of my Diet Coke addiction. I need something new and I don't want to eat too much and get fat.
I also want to look cool and French while I'm sitting in my elitist NYC cafe reading Sartre and hating Merka.
What you need to an espresso habit. Euro-coffee pisses off the Merkans almost as much as French wine.
"what you need to cultivate is an espresso habit"
Caffeine makes my brain get ahead of my fingers.
No one realizes how the smoking bans hurt progressives. All that sanctimonious moralizing rubbed anyone with a slight libertarian streak the wrong way. The left should've stood for more education, more *proven* quit-smoking programs (the patch reduces success; it's just well-marketed), and the position that some of us agree and some of us don't. Now, even though Repubs like Bloomberg and Pataki and Romney were behind the bans, believe it or not, Dems get the blame from the working class.
Big D - that is one of the things about myself that I have noticed, if I am interested in a subject, I have no problem concentrating, but it is very, very easy to get bored.
Billy B
Then you don't have ADD.
You have a bright mind that is easily bored by the tedious bullshit around you.
Lay off amphetamines. They are addictive. They will make you psychotic. Actual Ritalin (Methylphenidate) isn't an amphetamine, but has some similar effects.
If your doctor has prescribed ampetamine for ADD, he doesn't know what he's doing. (Caveat: I have a Ph.D. in pharmacology but constantly piss off my "betters" with MDs who want to hand out prescriptions like candy) Wean yourself off, replace it with caffiene, which won't stone you, but will give you the juice to deal with the tedium.
My uncle, an interesting, lively, and quite successful man, has about two weeks left to live, thanks to his inability to kick the habit.
Damn! A thread I can really appreciate and it's too damn late because I had to be at work!
WARNING; Buying cigarettes contributes to assholes in government.
Cuz spitting up rust-colored blobs of ropy phlegm is soooooo sexy!
I'm shocked by the number of people on this thread that say they love smoking. I've only heard that one other time in my life, from a guy who had done 7 years for manslaughter.
I've been struck lately how stupid and tasteless most young people are today. Whether they are smoking or not phases me very little.
I'll say what I always say when the topic comes up. We're all sucking on tailpipes, smoker and non alike.
I'll give up my car as soon as I figure out a way to do it (maybe a move to NY is in order). That way I'm walking the walk too.
Started at age 19, quit at age 27 after seeing my best friend in hospital after a quadruple bypass. From smoking too much.
I started smoking when I was 13. The reason for starting was because of how cool and older we felt. It has been 13 years since I had started and there has been a lot of times I wish I had never started. But when you're young, you tend to do stupid things and you end up paying for it in the long run. To a certain extent I do believe that if you do quit smoking you can possibly end up gaining more weight than you had bargained for. So, my advice for anyone who doesn't smoke is DON'T DO IT!!!
Smoking has become a lower-class habit in this country. Middle and upper middle class people generally don't smoke anymore, including youngsters (obviously there are plenty of exceptions). People with less money have less access to healthier rewards, so they're more likely to smoke, drink excessively, and eat high-fat junk food. They also tend to live day-to-day, rather than planning for the future, kinds of lifestyles (these are also the people who live paycheck to paycheck), so they're less likely to think about long-term consequences. The kids who take up smoking are usually in this group, and many of their parents smoke as well. I'm sorry if this sounds elitist, but those are the trends.
I can think of few things that are as conformist, Corporate, anti-environment, and Republican as lighting up a cigarette. How is smoking an act of rebellion?
Grow up. The people who think smoking makes you cool are the biggest suckers for Madison Avenue corporate bullshit.
Well, since the entire world is going rapidly down the shitter, why not smoke? Long life is not looking like a good thing right now.
I knew a few college kids about 5 years back who would buy individual cigarettes at a coffee shop -- they couldn't really afford smokes, but there was apparently something cool about smoking socially in certain contexts. I think this is really just continued evidence that each generation thinks of itself as immortal, and thus values current coolness more highly than (impossible) addiction, let alone (unimaginable) future hassle of quitting. They think they can just always be a few-cigs-a-week smokers, like they toke with friends or do ecstasy for a few months in sophomore year...
Ex-smoker. I first tried cigarettes around age 12, started smoking regularly around 15. I attempted to quit, unsuccessfully, around 19. I finally quit altogether at about 25 after having a 2 month long bout of bronchitis. I didn't smoke that much while I was sick and once my lungs cleared up, cigarettes tasted like cat shit, so it wasn't to hard to quit.
The moral of this story: if you want to quit, get sick! Seriously, patches, gum, etc. just prolong it and make it more difficult. The best way to quit is cold turkey. Stop completely and after a few months it doesn't even occur to you that you've been x number of days since the last smoke.
Floridia -- nicotine is a POISON. It is an insecticide. It is not a "safe" drug at all. In fact, taking a direct hit of it will kill you -- instantly and painfully.
If you're talking about the gum and the patch, shoot, you may as well smoke. Those things are worse than useless for helping you quit. Cold turkey is the only thing that works.
I'm an ex-smoker who's recently quit for what I hope will be the last time. I never want to pick up one of those g.d. things again.
Do I miss it? Of course. I'm an addict. I've had days when I broke down and sobbed for hours because I wanted a cigarette so badly. Weekends, away from the structure of work, I exist in a state of constant rage, I have to stay home because I literally cannot be trusted to behave normally around other people who might inadvertently frustrate me and unleash a really frightening torrent of undeserved rage. I hate myself for being so weak, so in thrall to this addiction to a dangerous, filthy, expensive, disgusting, think like a cigarette and yet I want one so badly there are moments I would sell my entire family's soul for one.
So, someone asked about the question of personal choice vs. addiction. As a smoker, of course it was my choice to indulge in this dangerous "habit." But when addiction comes into play, how much of a "choice" do you really have? People who have never smoked have NO idea how difficult it is to quit -- they say insane things like "Well, just stop buying cigarettes."
The government, of course, loves the gum and the patch and the total lack of acknowledgement that cigarettes are highly addictive. They love it because the pharamaceutical companies and the tobacco companies love it. Because a real concern for their citizens' health would force them to find REAL measures to curb this deadly addiction, not fake palliatives whose usefulness had been debunked by every reputable study out there.
Cigarettes are Republicanism perfected, and that is reason enough for me to quit.
I'm a militant nonsmoker. I think smokers are the filthiest, rudest people on earth.
Well...besides Republicans and Libertarians.
Let them kill themselves, fine, but in private please. And first cancel their health insurance.
I drink, but don't pass on second-hand alcohol to anyone.
Two thoughts on the upsurge in smoking:
(1) some of it is "rebellion". Remember that just because it's promoted by Madison Ave. doesn't mean it ain't "rebellion" from the POV of a teen. Indeed, since the point (evolutionarily and socially speaking) of teenage rebellion is to transition from being a kid listening to your parents to being independent by focusing on what your peers say, rebellion is all about conformity not non-conformity. And rebellion is all the better from the teen POV if you're doing something bad for you: after all, your parents are always making you do stuff that's good for you, so what better way to rebel then to do something bad for you?
(2) I wonder if the recent upsurge in smoking corresponds to a downsurge in sexual activity. I know I am very, shall we say, lonely, and I do smoke occassionally (maybe a pipe a week and a cigar every month or two), and I can say that it really takes the "edge" off in a way that even, shall we say, "taking matters into your own hands" doesn't. Nicotine is certainly better than anything else at ridding you temporarily of a lonely, depressed feeling (although after a day or two without, you feel even worse than you did before - such is the nature of an addictive substance) -- indeed, one of the old-school tobaccos currently sold by House of Windsor has as its motto "when a feller needs a friend"; I wonder if maybe as more people (well, more guys ... it seems that every woman I meet who's my age is either married/engaged/has a steady boyfriend, is undesirable because she is insane/obese/a looser, or is a cold fish who won't date anybody unless they are cool/well-hung/a superhunk/filthy rich&ask them out in just the right way) are, for various reasons, remaining un-attached, more people are turning to tobacco to fill the void left by a lack of companionship in their lives.
Bill (or an incredible simulat,
Are you my dad? You sound just like him (and my dad is a recovering Republican himself), though you have a different first name (though since you have the same first name as his grandfather, maybe you are my dad?).
Interestingly, my dad's wrath is mainly directed against cigarette smokers. He cannot stand cigarette smoke at all, though he has happily stood around pipe and cigar smokers breathing in all sorts of second hand smoke.
Yet many cigarette smokers cannot stand the smell of pipes or cigars.
How odd is the world?
I don't know, DAS, I am as well, how did you put it, lonely, but I don't think I'd ever turn to a cigarette as a substitute for a man.
And for the record, I am none of those things you described single women your age as being. Of course, I don't know your age, so maybe that's the trick. I'm tired of meeting guys who are too selfish to share their lives with the person they picked to date. What is THAT about?
Cigarettes are Republicanism perfected, and that is reason enough for me to quit. - Crazed Opossum
Yep. Cheap shoddy product designed to appeal to the masses.
Not to mention there is the general argument: a factory owner's right to make a profit versus your right not to have your body and/or property exposed to pollution, a fundies right to exercise their religion by taking advantage of government resources to try and convert you or at least to shape laws to the peculiar dictates of morality versus your right to moral autonomy and to make moral decisions about your own destiny -- all parallel to a smoker's right to smoke versus your right to not have to inhale the stuff.
Smoking really is a good way to illustrate the difference between the Republican and Democratic philosophies of "liberty".
BTW - am I the only one who finds it odd how Christian fundamentalists, not historically famous for respecting any culture of life or people of faiths (other than some particular brand of Christianity) when in power (remember the middle ages?), are harping on the "sanctity of life"? If the life of each individual is so holy, shouldn't we be treated with respect and as a morally autonomous agent capable of making moral decisions for his or herself and thus demonstrating his/her holiness unto God rather than having pseudo-religious folk dictating morality to society and thus treating the members of society as children incapable of knowing right from wrong and even incapable of becoming holy? At the very least if the life of each individual is holy, isn't pollution interfering getting into our lungs morally the equivalent of assault and people putting profits above others immoral?
Funny how the religious right never really actually supports the sanctity of life for all of their hot air they blow about it.
Isn't this quandry (youths starting smoking despite being aware of its dangers) somewhat analogous to poor people voting for Republicans?
Dude, when you start smoking at 15, the concept of quitting when you're 30, or of being 30 for that matter, is totally meaningless and abstract. When I was 15 I didn't really care if I was alive at 35. Now I'm 35 and staring Nicorette in the face. Kids are idiots.
And for the record, I am none of those things you described single women your age as being. Of course, I don't know your age, so maybe that's the trick. I'm tired of meeting guys who are too selfish to share their lives with the person they picked to date. What is THAT about? - mothra
I am 28 -- will turn 29 in July. I won't comment on my degree of selfishness, though. But I will say I've known many women who pine for, persue and date such "selfish" guys but who have turned down guys who would have share their lives with them. Many a woman I know would prefer a "cool" guy who is attractive, but aloof and maybe even a bit selfish to one who really wants to share his life with her.
And for the record, I am none of those things you described single women your age as being
BTW, if you're in the NYC area, feel free to drop me an e-mail
cigarette's,
right?
Self medication, duh
My babes:
Immobilien Aachen, Immobilien - - Immobilien Bochum, Immobilien - - Immobilien Bonn, Immobilien.
q
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
