Explaining food vs. nutrition: Michael Pollan talks at Google

Fingerprints for ID demanded from a woman without arms

Johannesburg – The department of home affairs has failed to put in place a system that will help people with disabilities to get identity documents, the SA Human Rights Commission said.

Spokesman Vincent Moaga said the commission was concerned the department had requested that a woman with no arms could not get an ID unless she was fingerprinted.

Victoria Modise, 37, of Diepkloof Zone, Soweto, who lost her ID last year, applied for a replacement but was told she needed to be fingerprinted.

Moaga said the commission was deeply concerned by this incident.

He said the department should refer to international practice and follow suit.

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Los Angeles Press Photographers Annuals covers

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Paul Krassner: Mountain Girl Remembers Albert Hofmann

On the day that the man who discovered LSD, Dr. Albert Hofmann, died at the age of 102, The Onion asked people what they thought. "It's just like I tell my kids," replied one. "If you get involved with drugs, you're going to end up dead." And the death of this renowned Swiss chemist inspired David Letterman to share with his audience that same evening the fact that researchers have "combined LSD with birth control pills so you can take a trip without the kids."

The New York Times obituary stated that, in April 1943, Hofmann "accidentally ingested the substance that became known to the 1960s counterculture as acid." But the Los Angeles Times obituary stated that he had "accidentally gotten a trace amount of an experimental compoundal compound called lysergic acid diethylamide on his fingertips and taken the world's first acid trip."

And the accurate answer, in Hofmann's own words, from his book, LSD: My Problem Child: "How had I managed to absorb this material? Because of the known toxicity of ergot substances, I always maintained meticulously neat work habits. Possibly a bit of the LSD solution had contacted my fingertips during crystallization, and a trace of the substance was absorbed through the skin."

At first, he didn't know what caused his mysteriously scary and beautiful reactions. He tried breathing the solvents he had used, with no effect. But then, he said in an interview on his 100th birthday, "LSD spoke to me. He came to me and said, 'You must find me.' He told me, 'Don't give me to the pharmacologist, he won't find anything.'"

Four weeks before his death, Carolyn Garcia (also known as Mountain Girl with the Merry Pranksters and as Jerry Garcia's widow) had given a speech at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, where Hofmann lived, and she was invited to meet him.

"He was so sweet to me," she recalls, "chatted and joked about musicians and black market LSD, chocolate and cherry trees, instructed me very seriously about the importance of hanging upside down every day, to improve the blood flow to the brain." He discussed with an old friend, Juri Styk, "whether Sandoz Laboratories would other chemical companies to make some LSD for the new studies being conducted in Europe. Important studies, on LSD and dying, cancer relief and spiritual psychological benefits of its use for rebalancing people in crisis. 'Long overdue,' they said."

Carolyn asked Hofmann if the purification of LSD was a long process. He denied it and said, "LSD is very easy to make, you just do the recipe, and if it crystallizes, that is it, it's done and very pure. No need to do anything else." She told him a little about the Grateful Dead, "and he lit up and said he had 'always been hearing about them, they played existential music, yes? And from small beginnings, it got large?'

"With the help of LSD, the energy and telepathic melting together as they played. He understood that. He asked about Jerry. And Juri reminded him about the Acid Tests, and he lit up again and said, 'Oh, yes, the Acid Tests, and the Grateful Dead played there long ago? And you were there?' And I smiled, yes, and pulled out the Acid Test diploma I had made for him. I presented it in the usual fashion, saying that he had proven beyond doubt that he had fulfilled all the requirements and had certainly passed the Acid Test, and had earned this Acid Test diploma."

When she left, he "smiled and asked me to come back, and bring the sun, please. The wind whipping the snow out of the trees as silent puffs of feathers. The walkway to the car was thick with ice. A few cat tracks showed the way. I didn't get to meet the cat, who sleeps on the doctor's bed since his wife passed away. Now where's the cat sleeping tonight?"

The United States government banned LSD in October 1966, and other countries followed. Hofmann insisted that this was not fair. He argued that the drug wasn't addictive, and campaigned for the ban to be lifted so that LSD could be used in medical research. In December 2007, Swiss authorities decided to allow the drug to be used in a psychotherapy research project. "For me," Hofmann told Swiss TV, "this is a very big wish come true. I always wanted to see LSD get its proper place in medicine."

On the day of his death, the Albert Hofmann Foundation declared that "Dr. Hofmann's discoveries have touched countless people and brought tremendous change to the world in more ways than can be counted. We are very glad that Dr. Hofmann could still witness the early stages of new studies with LSD that will start in Switzerland in the near future...."

http://paulkrassner.com/

The new job market

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www.ScreamingFrog.com
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Bob Dylan Radio Extravaganza

Links to every single episode of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour

Direct links removed by request. Just go to Nighttime in the big city, and here for more music from the amazing Patrick Crosley.

Ellingthoven

50% Beethoven, 50% Duke Ellington, 100% Bradley Sowash

A genuine masterpiece from http://bradleysowash.com/.

Watch it if you're a piano player and learn something, or just listen while reading the rest of Dareland.

Scuba diving for Chihuahuas

Mondex, a 5-year-old Chihuahua, poses as he walks the aisle dressed as a scuba diver during a dog show at a mall in suburban Manila on Sunday April 27, 2008. Mondex bagged first place during the fashion show category.

Photo by Aaron Favila

Bait

FREE SCRIPT FOR ANIMATOR

Yeah, I'm WGA and wrote for Steven Spielberg Presents "Animaniacs" and "Histeria!" and even saw scripts turned into comic books, but just try to get Warner Brothers Animation to do something these days.

Go ahead and make it. I offer the following shot list under a Creative Commons License and ask for nothing but story credit.

Bait

by Michael Dare

A lonesome ugly man walks down a pier prepared to go fishing. He is carrying a rod and reel, a tackle box, and a bucket. He sits down on a bench at the end of the pier, opens his tackle box, and looks through his equipment. He finds just the right hook, puts it on the line, adds a few weights, then looks in another compartment for some lures.

He pulls out a tiny mink coat, inspects it, decides it's perfect, and puts it on the hook. He stands, does a flawless overhead cast, and sends the lure flying into the sea.

A city street in Beverly Hills is double exposed with a bubbling fish tank, making the whole scene look like it's underwater. A beautiful woman comes out of Bijan's, heading to her car. She spies a mink coat lying on the sidewalk. She looks around to see who it belongs to. Spying no one, she sneaks up to it and quickly puts it on.

The man on the pier feels a tug on the line and immediately starts reeling it in.

The woman in Beverly Hills shrieks as she lifts off the ground and quickly flies into the sky.

The man takes out his net, reels in the woman, and nets her. Like King Kong, he gently takes her out of the net, removes the hook from the coat, and inspects his prize. She is quite a beauty. He holds her up against a chart to make sure she's above the legal size, then he throws her into the bucket.

Inside the bucket, the woman looks around for a means of escape but finds none.

The man looks through his tackle box for another lure. He finds an incredible shiny diamond bracelet, puts it on the hook, and casts again.

In an underwater mall, a lovely young girl in a sports outfit sees something glistening on the floor. She stops to tie her shoe, looks around, and grabs the bracelet. She stands, looks at it closely, then puts it on.

The man feels another tug on the line and starts reeling it in.

The young girl in the sports outfit in the underwater mall gives a yelp as she is lifted up by the wrist and goes flying into the sky.

The man reels her in and nets her. When he inspects her, he gets a bit puzzled. He reaches into his box and pulls out a copy of "The Observers Guide to American Women." He discovers she's a "full-blooded Cherokee Indian - extremely rare." He is extremely pleased with his Indian maiden. He throws her into the bucket with his other catch of the day, then hunts for another lure.

In the bucket, the two women look at each other in puzzlement. One climbs on the other's shoulders to escape but the top is too high and she falls.

Time passes. In rapid succession, the man catches a choir girl using a set of rosary beads, a biker chick using a Harley, and a hippie beauty with a spectacular nug.

The sun starts setting. The man looks in his bucket. It is full of beautiful women of all shapes and sizes, who are building a human pyramid to escape their mysterious fate. He decides to call it a day.

He puts away his hook and takes apart his rod and reel. He relaxes, removes a sandwich from his tackle box, and takes a bite. Suddenly, he goes flying into the air.

On another pier, a lonesome ugly woman reels in her prize, a miniature lonesome ugly man. She laughs.

Working together, all the female catches manage to overturn the bucket. They all exit the bucket, walk across the pier, and jump back into the sea.

The man's captor inspects him, looking him up in "The Observer's Guide to Aging British Male Rock Stars." She decides he's just fine, and throws him into her bucket.

The man looks around. His jaw drops. With him in the bucket are Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Elton John, and a guy who looks like Pete Townsend.

The woman packs up her gear and walks into the sunset with her rod, reel, and bucket.

The End

ADDENDUM: It's a running gag. The final joke can be rewritten hundreds of different ways by simply changing the title of the book. Make it "The Observer's Guide to Overrated Assholes" and fill the bucket accordingly. Hell, make it a game, like JibJab, let people fill in the faces. You have my permission to rewrite the ending any way you want.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

PERMALINK: http://dareland.blogspot.com/2008/04/bait.html

LSD vs Alcohol vs Tree

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