I had a couple of days off from TV, after being subjected to it nonstop at Scarlet O’Hara International Airport all day Monday. I’m now home (where I have a TV as opposed to my studio, where I stay in the dark), writing an August horoscope column for one of those magazines that works far in the future…and I just turned on NBC news for a little relaxing entertainment — which is sounding the alarm: it’s official, it’s a pandemic.
Watch out. It could get worse. Earlier, we said it wasn’t time to panic. Now it’s time to freak out. Wear a stethoscope like an iPod and walk around listening to make sure your heart is still beating. Don’t eat tacos, tortillas or chimichangas. If you don’t freak out you’re a total fucking idiot. Egypt is killing all baby boys, even though they haven’t been associated with spreading the disease.
Don’t step in pig poo. It’s safe to ride public transportation, just wash your hands. Use Purell as lube. Cover your mouth when you sneeze. If you don’t have any tissues, use the corner of your elbow or wear a plastic bag over your head. In case of nuclear war, get under the kitchen table. Happy spring! Thinking about sex, peace or prosperity is known to spread the flu virus.
Just kidding! Cancel – clear – cancel – clear – cancel – clear
get any what? a good question. I have no answer.
Get any what on me?
On my now mythical day at O’Hara airport, I was sitting there with my laptop near the only plug I could find, which was under a TV, watching CNN, and munching some of that famous Chicago popcorn. About halfway through the bag, listening to the litany of fear, I started to wonder when the last time I washed my hands was. I’m one of those approx once per hour hand washers; but you don’t really do that in an airport, where you might need to the most.
What I’m most aware of not getting on me at the moment is fear — it’s never felt more important to observe that and let it pass through…
eric, say what you will. Just don’t get any on ya.
Antigone, have you seen the movie Grand Canyon. Not the most exciting movie and dear to me because it reeks to LA, she’s a virgo too, but this something more, it’s in all of us. And if truth be known, you, I, all of us as individuals are alot more important than we know.
Antigone, the thing about the dolphin, she knows. Her radar is of the highest caliber.
antigone, it’s a form of self innoculation. I am just not sure against what.
Good grief Queen V, gotta read your story.
re: Porky Pig graphic
Watch out for Warner Brothers’ lawyers on that one.
Sorry, you will have to cut and paste the link in my previous post.
from the British Journal of Psychiatry:
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/178/2/107
HISTORY OF THERAPEUTIC USE
The first formal report of cannabis as a medicine appeared in China nearly 5000 years ago when it was recommended for malaria, constipation, rheumatic pains and childbirth and, mixed with wine, as a surgical analgesic (Mechoulam, 1986). There are subsequent records of its use throughout Asia, the Middle East, Southern Africa and South America. Accounts by Pliny, Dioscorides and Galen remained influential in European medicine for 16 centuries.
It was not until the 19th century that cannabis became a mainstream medicine in Britain. W. B. O’Shaughnessy, an Irish scientist and physician, observed its use in India as an analgesic, anticonvulsant, anti-spasmodic, anti-emetic and hypnotic. After toxicity experiments on goats and dogs, he gave it to patients and was impressed with its muscle-relaxant, anticonvulsant and analgesic properties, and recorded its use-fulness as an anti-emetic.
After these observations were published in 1842, medicinal use of cannabis expanded rapidly. It soon became available �over the counter’ in pharmacies and by 1854 it had found its way into the United States Dispensatory. The American market became flooded with dozens of cannabis-containing home remedies.
Queen Victoria’s personal physician wrote (Reynolds, 1890), on the basis of more than 30 years’ experience, that “Indian hemp, when pure and administered carefully, is one of the most valuable medicines we possess”. He found it incomparable for “senile insomnia”, “night restlessness” and “temper disease” in both children and adults, but not helpful in melancholia, “very uncertain” in alcoholic delirium, and “worse than useless” in mania. It was very effective in neuralgia, period pains, migraine, “lightning pain of the ataxic patient” and gout, but useless in sciatica and “hysteric pains”. He found it impressive in clonic spasms and certain epileptiform convulsions related to brain damage, but no good at all in petit mal or “chronic epilepsy”, tetanus, chorea or paralysis agitans. It effectively relieved nocturnal cramps, asthma and dysmenorrhoea.
Reynolds was writing at a time when the zenith of cannabis as prescribed medicine and home remedy was already past. Although Sir William Osler was still recommending it for migraine sufferers in 1913, it was by then in steep decline because of variable potency of herbal preparations, poor storage stability, unpredictable response to oral administration, increasing enthusiasm for parenteral medicines and availability of potent synthetic alternatives, commercial pressures and American concern about recreational use. Cannabis was outlawed in 1928 by ratification of the 1925 Geneva Convention on the manufacture, sale and movement of dangerous drugs. Prescription remained possible until final prohibition under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, against the advice of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence.
In the USA, medical use was effectively ruled out by the Marijuana Tax Act 1937. This ruling has been under almost constant legal challenge and many special dispensations were made between 1976 and 1992 for individuals to receive �compassionate reefers’. Although this loophole has been closed, a 1996 California state law permits cultivation or consumption of cannabis for medical purposes, if a doctor provides a written endorsement. Similar arrangements apply in Italy and Canberra, Australia.
Oi Vey!!
And I just picked up dinner for my Second Born at Taco Bell!!
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/cannabis-science-inc-reports-prospective/story.aspx?guid={03D1AE62-679E-460D-988F-EE0966A80445}&dist=msr_2
the story about the 23month old was on the local news this morning, and as i searched for the story it became “alleged” until i found the same link on cnn. appropriately enough, democracy now is calling it the “nafta flu”:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/29/the_nafta_flu
If not for you, I’d never known. Chose to skip the news to read more of the responses here on PW. They run the gamut! Did they(NBC) give any advice as to how to remain calm and alive? Glad I’ve not recycled that pile of plastic bags yet, but will miss my chimichangas. You’re a good man Eric. . .. . .keep us alerted as to when it’s safe to come out again!