Okay, Let's Talk About Bill Cosby

I just finished binge watching "Cosby" (the 1996-2000) series on Amazon.  Or at least I tried: the show was pulled halfway through my binge, presumably to prepare for the unflattering "We Need to Talk About Bill Cosby" documentary that's coming out in a matter of days.  Not gonna lie, I was bummed.  Not because I'm a fan of Bill Cosby the man but because I find it annoying when hosting services randomly yank programs & leave us with no way to access them.  The internet should provide a place to watch any damn thing you want for free--particularly old syndicated shows.  It's the INTERNET goddammit, the information superhighway.  But I digress. 

While trying to scrounge up some episodes on Youtube I came across the same tired commentary under every video:  Why are Woody Allen & Roman Polanski still walking free while Cosby's sitting in jail? Nobody had a problem with what he was doing all those years--why wait so long to come forward?  They're just trying to ruin this man & destroy his legacy because he's a positive influence in the Black community!  I'm sure you've heard similar things if you've followed anything Cosby in the last decade.  

As someone born in the '80s and raised in the '90s, I definitely get Cosby's impact on popular culture & respect his role in bringing the Black family to prime time TV as well as his comedic and acting talent.  Nobody's denying any of that.  Not one person.  And nobody's asking you to throw away your Fat Albert or Cosby Show memorabilia.  What we are doing is asking you to acknowledge that Bill Cosby is not Cliff Huxtable, Hilton Lucas or any of his other lovable paternal characters in real life.  He's a wealthy, powerful and cunning narcissistic celebrity who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.  A man who used his position of power to do a lot of things--some good and some very, very bad.  The problem is the bad directly contradict the good & render him a hypocrite.  

Anti-Black Icon

Many Black folks are quick to rush to Cosby's defense, but one could argue that Bill Cosby is not so pro-Black at all.  Quite the opposite.  Recall back in the early 2000's when he made the rounds on college campuses, blaming poor Black folks for their own plight.  Some golden quotes from those speeches include:

“I can’t even talk the way these people talk, ‘Why you ain’t,’ ‘Where you is’ ... and I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk,” Cosby said then. “And then I heard the father talk ... Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.”

"These people?"  Wow.  And it gets worse:

"We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail."

Oof.  More "those people" rhetoric.  While some older & more conservative Black people agreed with him (as did plenty of smug white racists & neocon politicians like Mitt Romney), the part I take issue with is that he never once mentioned the systemic issues holding Black people back.  No mention of the FBI's COINTELPRO operation that hunted down & neutralized "Black messiahs" like Fred Hampton, MLK & Malcolm X.  And he never uttered a word about the CIA's cocaine trafficking into inner cities like Compton & Watts during the Iran Contra years, kicking off the crack epidemic of the '80s which was responsible for the incarceration, addiction & gang violence prevalent in so many Black communities.  The Bloods & Crips literally picked up where the Panthers left off after they were "neutralized," & many Black fathers are still locked up on ridiculous drug charges to this day.  And Mr. Cosby had nothing to say about the effects of things like Reaganomics, the Clinton Crime Bill, white flight & decades of thinly veiled "tough on crime," "welfare queen" rhetoric targeted at Black and brown people.  

Nope, it's the hippity hop music & baggy pants that are holding Blacks back.  

Furthermore, when you really hold his sitcoms up to the light, the cracks begin to show.  The characters inhabited a kind of colorblind fantasy world that simply doesn't exist in America.  While shows like The Fresh Prince & Family Matters also incorporated lighthearted, wholesome family themes, they made sure to address issues like police profiling, gun violence, absentee fathers and racist bullying in some episodes.  Not so with Cosby.  His shows were so busy trying to portray Black people as "normal" and "respectable" that they totally neglected to include the reality that Black people face unique social struggles & unfair treatment... at least SOME of the time.  And that's because, according to Cosby himself, any problems Black people faced were due to their own stupid, careless choices to be bad people. 

Beloved actor John Amos said he was admonished for uttering a curse word on the set of The Cosby Show, which shocked him.  Likewise, Eddie Murphy recalls receiving a phone call at his home from Mr. Cosby chewing him out for his use of curse words in his stand up act.  This makes it crystal clear that Bill's focus is on the superficial:  words, outward appearances, inconsequential behaviors.  He blames the symptoms rather than the underlying cause.  This would be merely shallow & rude if not for what he was doing in the dark to all those unwitting women.  Over 60 in all.  

The Black community can do better than Cosby's brand of superficial respectability politics and victim-blaming.  This delusion that he's being "attacked" or targeted because of the color of his skin is just that--a delusion.  Black people deserve better role models than this.  We all do.  And I don't suggest holding all actors and entertainers up as role models--Mr. Cosby did that himself when he went around acting like a paragon of morality.

John Amos--a real Black icon--on Bill Cosby

If identity politics has you siding with a serial rapist based solely on his skin color, it's time to take a long hard look in the mirror.  It's reminiscent of when Black folks rushed to the defense of "I'm not Black, I'm OJ" Simpson... a man who not only downplayed his Blackness for years but also happened to be a domestic abuser & murderer.  This ridiculous stan culture built on one-way parasocial relationships is not healthy.  You have nothing in common with Bill Cosby, Chris Brown or any other millionaire, yet you're willing to throw actual rape victims under the bus with crude judgmental comments that they could actually see.  Newsflash:  you're not in the same social class as Bill Cosby & never will be.  You're not a temporarily embarrassed millionaire; you're a loser & a peon in his eyes.  OJ didn't care about you & neither does Bill Cosby.  You won't get rich by osmosis & sucking up to celebrities.  Cope.

If you want to see a documentary calling out some other (white) Hollywood sex offender or abuser, by all means make one.  Lord knows there are plenty of others who have done things as bad or worse than Cosby:  Phil Spector, Sean Penn, Bryan Singer, John Travolta, Fatty Arbuckle, Robert Blake, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer & Robert Wagner to name a FEW.  But I'd urge you to instead focus on the victims, which is something no filmmaker has yet done.  Their stories should be front & center instead of incidental footnotes in the biographies of these worthless sex offenders.  They don't deserve all the disproportionate time & attention they've gotten.  These survivors are incredibly inspiring for not only living through this trauma but having the strength to come forward in the courts, on film or in the press knowing the backlash & threats they'd face from Cosby's fans.  All were young, hopeful & talented women with big dreams who were taken advantage of in the worst way.   

The abundance of powerful sex offenders in Hollywood is an indictment of society's celebrity worship & the greater enabling of men to get away with violent crimes against women.  It certainly doesn't do a damn thing to diminish Cosby's crimes and it makes you look psychotic for using it as a 'whataboutism' in an argument.  We truly live in a rape culture when it takes the word of tens of women to equal the weight of one man's word; it's never been "he said/she said" but "he said/she-she-she-she-she-she-she said".  And even then it's not enough to convince the doubting public.  

Thou Doth Protesteth Too Much

Ironically, it was Bill Cosby's preaching that got him exposed as a rapist to the public.  

In 2015, Judge Eduardo Robreno unsealed Cosby's court records to reveal his admissions of drugging & raping women.  His reason?  Cosby's role as "public moralist" during all those speeches such as the well-known "Pound Cake Speech" and similar ones given around that time.  Turns out you can't go around wagging your finger at the downtrodden, blaming them for their own misfortune in public while raping people in private.  If only Mr. Bill would've kept his ugly opinions to himself, the details of his crimes might not have become fodder for the pitchfork-wielding public.  But in true narcissist form he couldn't help himself.     

If there's one thing I've found to be true in my life, it's that when you see someone claiming to sit atop Morality Mountain out in the world, they almost always have skeletons piled a mile high in their closets at home.  

(83-year-old Bill Cosby was released from prison on a technicality in 2021 after serving 2 years & 9 months of a 3-10 year sentence).

P.S. - I found the entire "Cosby" series streaming online on a pirate site and, after watching the whole thing, I've come to two conclusions:  Madeline Kahn truly was a gem and secondly, every time a 20-something statuesque beauty of Caucasian or light-skinned African-American descent walks across the screen for a bit part, I wince.  Why?  Because I get the sinking feeling that these ladies went through hell in exchange for these throwaway gigs next to this monster.  He definitely had a "type".  In fact, several of the documented sexual assault allegations against him were made during this show's 1996-2000 run.  There was also this man's account which, while not quite rising to the level of sexual assault, doesn't paint "Dr. C" in a very flattering light.  

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The Mad (and Madly Accurate) Rantings of James R. Hoskins

Let me preface this by saying I don't condone this man's actions.  He murdered his girlfriend which makes him a violent POS deserving of death.  If he had lived, he would've likely spent his life in prison & become just another number in the penal system, and rightfully so.  Holding news anchors hostage is also psychotic, as is using disability money to buy drugs and hoard weapons which he admits to in the clip.  

In the early morning hours of October 15, 1980, James R. Hoskins stopped reporter Elaine Green in a parking lot & pointed his 9mm J&R semi-automatic rifle at her, saying he didn't want to hurt her but he had an important message he wanted the public to hear & he needed her recording equipment to do it.  Armed with a total of 6 guns, he took over WCPO in Cincinnati's newsroom, holding Green, her cameraman & 7 more people hostage at gunpoint while broadcasting his "message".

I first learned of this incident while watching The Killing of America, a 1981 shockumentary that you should definitely watch if you haven't already.  But that clip left me searching for the full interview which was hard to find online.  Until now.  

The Killing of America (1981 Documentary)

If you knew nothing else about James R. Hoskins, you might think he was a spokesperson for the poor & downtrodden sent to call out the evils of capitalism.  Listen as he speaks in 1980 about topics like police brutality, phony do-nothing politicians and other topics that are more relevant now than ever.  In fact, forget the speaker altogether.  It's the message that deserves a platform.  That message is one of accountability for a sensationalist media that only covers shallow, pointless stories while poor people suffer.  He calls on those in power to help the winos, the poor & to remember that "prisoners are people too" stating that "you can't rehabilitate someone who's never been habilitated [sic]"  His calling out of so-called revolutionaries like Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver who went on to become a Republican, Jerry Rubin & Panther-turned-mayoral candidate Bobby Seale also hit home as we watch politicians like The Squad try to change the Democrats from the inside & fail miserably.  

His words are also a reminder that "mental illness" is often a product of sociological problems like poverty & inequality rather than individual shortcomings like "chemical imbalances" or "childhood trauma".  When these structural issues aren't dealt with, we get desperate people who attempt to self-medicate & grope their way through a life that's hopelessly unfair until they give up or go out in a blaze of rage, taking others with them in worst case scenarios like this.  It's a pay now or pay later scheme--either we prevent violence by addressing systemic inequality or we pay later when these folks go over the edge after a lifetime of being cast aside & falling through the cracks.  

R.I.P. Melanie Finlay, former nun & 8th grade Catholic school teacher who was gunned down by Hoskins in their apartment.   

FULL CLIP:  

www.yahoo.com/news/news-under-siege-full-james-125100108.html

[Review] - Nuun Hydration Tablets (Tri-Berry)

As someone who drinks over a gallon of water every day due to severe dry mouth, I was not expecting to hear that I was "dehydrated" at the ER.  But that's exactly what the doctor said after I took a blood test and urinalysis while there for a suspected kidney infection.  How am I dehydrated when I drink so much water?!  Turns out drinking too much water can throw off your sodium and potassium levels, causing the tests show dehydration.  Not only does it show up on blood tests as dehydration, your levels of these electrolytes can actually be affected by drinking too much water, sometimes dangerously, resulting in hyponatremia (low blood sodium) in a worst-case scenario.  Yikes.   

There has to be a smarter way to hydrate.  Enter Nuun: a little tablet you drop in your water to increase hydration.  These handy little tabs come in a variety of flavors & formulations to suit your needs, including "hydration," "immune support" & "energy boosting".  I chose the Tri-Berry flavored Sports tabs which are the hydrating ones.  This category comes in the following flavors:  Citrus Fruit, Fruit Punch, Grape, Lemon Lime, Orange, Strawberry Lemonade, Tri-Berry, Tropical & Watermelon.  You can also opt to add caffeine to your tabs and open up a whole other world of flavors, but caffeine is dehydrating so that seems counterproductive.  

Nuun container, 10-count

Nuun tablets are vegan, kosher, gluten-free, non-gmo & contain no substances that are banned by sports agencies which is cool if you're a professional athlete.  Each of the Tri-Berry hydration tabs contains 15 calories and a combination of sodium bicarbonate & potassium bicarbonate as well as plenty of citric acid (which triggered my acid reflux, not gonna lie) and is sweetened with Stevia leaf extract & natural flavors.  Sweet!  

To use, simply drop the tablet into a glass or bottle of water & let it dissolve like an Alka-Seltzer tablet.  It bubbles for a minute or two and is ready to drink.  The Tri-Berry tastes tart like Kool-Aid or a Dum-Dum sucker & is actually quite tasty.  I do feel more hydrated after finishing half a tablet (I only use half at a time to reduce the reflux side effect & make them go further) & they've come in handy while battling COVID which can cause dehydration via fever and diarrhea, the latter of which I've been lucky enough not to have.  I paid $7 for a single tube of 10 tablets plus $4.99 shipping and a small state tax which was reasonable enough.  Shipping was relatively fast & I received updates in my email all the way, and the tablets work well for what they claim to do.  

In conclusion, I rate Nuun Tri-Berry Sports Tablets 4.8 of 5 stars for effectiveness, price & flavor. The only negative I can see is the company's often contradictory or unsupported claims on their website, such as the pushing of hydrating products containing caffeine, and the unproven claims of "immune support" which is a well-known alternative medicine lie.  Also:  the "non-GMO" claim is laughable; I get that people might be concerned about this but that doesn't make it relevant to anything.  It would be nice to see more science-based decisions by this company, but overall I'm quite happy with my purchase.   

On Gender Identity: The New Religion

The idea of the "spectrum" is appealing.  It allows us to envision things on a continuum rather than in stark black-and-white, this or that extremes.  In many cases, the spectrum is an accurate method of description: sexual orientation, disorders like autism & schizophrenia & the color spectrum (ROY G. BIV) can all be best summed up in this way.  Biological sex, however, is not among those things.  Humans are binary in this regard--female and male.  Genetic disorders like Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia & Klinefelter Syndrome notwithstanding, there are 2 human sexes just as there are with all other sexually dimorphic creatures.  

So what then is gender?  

Gender is nothing.  A man-made construct like "race" meant to segregate humans into neat little categories in the social hierarchy.  Other species do not have genders, do not "identify" as male or female and certainly not as unidentifiable in-between or outlying genders.  Humans have personalities that are developed by intricate interplays between genetics & environment.  Personality includes things like intelligence, temperament, sociability, life philosophy & mental stability.  

The mislabeling of personality as "gender" is a recent and regressive phenomenon.  Rather than challenging sex stereotypes by being androgynous or gender non-conforming in other ways, men are instead labeling themselves "women" and vice versa, totally denying reality & demanding we all play along.  The idea that souls have genders separate from their biological sex is equivalent to a religious belief and is based in nothing but feelings.  When asked "what does it mean to FEEL like the opposite sex?" the transgender person says you just have to trust them because they know, even if they can't quite articulate it.  Sounds a lot like "walk by faith, not by sight," doesn't it?

But a woman does not feel like anything different from a man when she wakes up--there's no innate drive within me to wear makeup, flirt with men, watch shitty RomComs or do other stereotypically "feminine" things.  I didn't play with dolls as a kid & I hate wearing dresses.  I'm not nurturing & I don't want children.  Does this mean I'm trans, or does it mean those stereotypes are wrong & should be challenged?  And what even IS trans?  If dysphoria is not required & non-binary people also fit under the trans umbrella, what meaning does the term even have?  It's like saying I have an exclusive contract to work for CBS but the contract is not required & anyone can work for them (thus there's nothing "exclusive" about the contract).  

Digging Deeper

MK-ULTRA child victim, aged 8-10

So what causes one to be so certain that they're transgender?  There are a number of reasons a person might feel uncomfortable in their own body:  autism, being conflicted about one's sexual orientation, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, a personality disorder like Borderline Personality that affects sense of identity, a history of severe unresolved trauma or abuse.  These are but a few examples.  None of these is addressed by transitioning and will often be made worse by adding more problems in the form of medication side effects, surgical complications, infertility, difficulties finding a romantic partner & more.  And that's assuming said person is an adult with a fully formed brain when they make the decision.  A child ruminating on whether to socially transition, take puberty blockers or have her breasts removed is operating at a disadvantage, making a decision with lifelong implications during the most chaotic period of her life, neurochemically speaking.  

Just as in the days of covert human experiments (MK-ULTRA, MKOFTEN), the current transgender craze appears to be a project with a two pronged objective:  to make massive profit for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic surgery industries while collecting data on human behavior by the government.  Since it's illegal to do experiments like this covertly now, they're doing it in the open by convincing the public that minors can consent & by simply treating prison inmates like they always have:  as property of the state to be abused as they see fit.  "Puberty blockers are harmless" is the new "OxyContin is not addictive."  Transferring male inmates into women's prisons allows them to run this experiment on the prison population just as they did in the MK-ULTRA days, and when women inevitably get raped, impregnated against their will & murdered the government's response will be "woopsie".  Again.  But nobody will be held accountable at a high level in a meaningful way because they never are.  

Pres. Clinton's Remarks on Human Radiation Experiments (1995)

And all the while, Roe vs. Wade protections are being chipped away at which raises the stakes even higher for "people with uteruses" who can get raped in prison and other women's-only spaces.  There is no reason they can't continue housing transgender inmates in protective custody & separate wings like they've always done.  And with all the money we pour into the American prison system, they could afford to build new gay and trans housing units separate from the general population if they truly cared about protecting this population.  But pushing male inmates, many of whom are violent sex offenders, off on women is the worst possible solution to housing problems for those who "identify as women".  Whatever that means.  

There has to be a deeper motive to this giant social experiment being run at our expense.  Who's going to pay for all the unwanted pregnancies that come about in these mixed sex prisons?  The transmission of HIV and other STDs which are more readily spread from males to females?  It doesn't even make practical financial sense for governments to do this, so there must be a bigger incentive that's not being disclosed (see:  unethical human experiments throughout our nation's history).  

I Want a New Religion

This book kicked off the Satanic Panic with the help of psychiatrists

We have to ask ourselves why sex/gender is the only trait one can identify into or out of.  Why not race, age, height, species, disability or social class?  Anyone attempting to identify into a different race, for instance, is labeled either crazy or offensive/racist--and rightfully so.  Why don't I as a woman have a right to feel just as outraged when a man of any race puts on womanface & identifies as a woman?  

This is where the "cult" element comes in:  The entire trans house of cards is based on abstract beliefs & desires just like religious beliefs are; if there was any scientific proof that one could "feel" their way into a new reality, it would exist for conditions outside of sex/gender.  Psychiatry would also encourage anorectics to diet & schizophrenics to listen to the voices in their heads instead of correcting the delusion to the best of their ability.  Self-harmers would be encouraged to continue cutting to release their pain/frustration and the clinically depressed would be reassured that "life really IS hopeless".  

This obviously isn't the case, yet clinicians are practically forced by the APA to affirm the gender identity of adolescents irrespective of any other underlying conditions that may be present.  Cutter?  No problem.  Let's lob off those breasts for the ultimate endorphin rush.  Borderline Personality Disorder?  Psssh.  Your gender identity is still valid despite an ever-shifting identity being part of the diagnostic criteria for your BPD.  Gay child from a conservative family who is having "unwanted same sex attraction"?  Right this way aboard the conversion therapy--err, transition--train.  

So why the exception for this ONE delusion?  

The only answer is that this is a case of the experts getting it wrong.  Just as they did with Satanic Ritual Abuse in the '80s, Refrigerator Mothers in the '50s and lobotomies throughout the 20th Century, the trans "science" is another case of psychiatry fucking up royally.  Psychiatry is a soft science after all, one in which the very existence of various mental conditions is voted on by a panel every few years (and the panel itself is staffed by members of pharmaceutical companies--up to 70% as in the case of the DSM-V panel).  That's not to question the legitimacy of psychiatry as a whole--there's no question that well-established conditions like depression, bipolar disorder & schizophrenia are real & pervasive.  But just because the field is currently riding this wave of child abuse & homophobic misogyny masquerading as transgenderism doesn't make it right.  The explosion in cases of trans-identifying youth in the last 15 years is proof it's a social contagion, as is the steady trickle of permanently mutilated detransitioners who feel abandoned by both the medical industrial complex & trans rights activists who treat them like heretics.  

Unlike other forms of misdiagnosis, the trans trend is creating lifelong patients who will require millions of dollars' worth of surgery, hormone therapy & "revision" procedures to fix the cosmetic & functional issues (NSFL) caused by these still-experimental surgeries.  They're stripping adolescents of their developing sex drives with puberty blockers & rendering young adults infertile with cross-sex hormones all based on a "feeling" that's often created & reinforced by a mass hysteria on social media.  This is malpractice.  For the adult professionals in the room to encourage delusions & irreversible mutilation of the body while a person's brain is still developing is nothing short of medical negligence, and the bill will come due sooner or later.  

Until then, expect anyone who speaks up to be met with a chorus of backlash from the True Believers.  This cult has backers in major political parties including the Democratic and Green Parties, the American Psychiatric Association, Hollywood, the pharmaceutical industry & big tech to name a few.  If you've read this far & still aren't convinced, I urge you to watch this short documentary entitled "The Call is Coming from Inside the House".  You'll see the points I've made above illustrated quite vividly (and at times, graphically).  Please share this article & documentary anywhere this insidious ideology is being pushed.  

The Call is Coming From Inside the House

For anyone tempted to dismiss this piece as "transphobic," please be my guest.  But I'd urge you to dig deeper & search for a critique that goes beyond the equivalent of "Suppressive Person!" or "apostate!" if you want to avoid the pitfalls of the very cult you're being accused of belonging to.  

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The Strange & Colorful History of MDMA

Today we're hopping in the time machine to examine the interesting & influential history of MDMA, aka Ecstasy, Molly or Adam.  What began as a legal substance used in the therapist's office inevitably made its way to the recreational market where it was placed in Schedule I for decades and has now come full circle, being approved for clinical trials in treating PTSD & other mental illnesses.  What happened along the way left a neon flashing, bass bumping mark on the collective American psyche.  

Many folks don't know that MDMA was first used in the 1950's by the CIA in its covert MK-ULTRA experiments on soldiers, mental patients, orphans, prisoners & other wards of the State.  That's understandable:  The experiments were highly classified & much of the documentation containing details about their outcomes was destroyed.  We'll revisit this later.  

So our story begins in earnest in the 1960's with MDA--methylenedioxyAMPHETAMINE--which was popular among hippies & in the gay bathhouses before its sister drug MDMA gained widespread popularity.  (MDA is like a longer-acting, more psychedelic version of MDMA).  MDA was used in clinical practice by underground therapists including psychedelic proponent Leo Zeff until its neurotoxicity was discovered.  Zeff then began searching for another alternative and, since LSD had already been banned, he decided on MDMA in 1976 after famous chemist Alexander Shulgin discovered its benefits in the mid-70s.  (MDMA is neurotoxic but less so than MDA).  

Chemist Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin in his lab

From 1975 to 1979, MDMA started popping up in street drug samples in more than 10 U.S. states, with the West Coast becoming the major "hot spot" of use.  Curiously, it was banned in Canada in 1976 which means our Northern neighbors had already caught onto what we were just starting to learn:  that Ecstasy was some seriously enjoyable stuff.  Americans were likely taking it at small house parties, on the beach & at other intimate gatherings long before it became the true "party drug" it's known as today.  According to the book "Ecstasy:  The Complete Guide" by Julie Holland, it's estimated that 10,000 doses of MDMA had been consumed in the U.S. in 1976.  By 1985 that number would jump to 30,000 doses per month.  

It was clear that MDMA, rebranded "Ecstasy" by a savvy dealer to increase marketability, was going to be the hot new drug of the '80s.  But one club in the unlikely location of Dallas, TX, became notorious for its popularization of the drug. 

MDMA Hub #1:  Dallas, TX

The Starck Club was nicknamed "the Studio 54 of Texas," and for good reason.  While Studio 54 was infamous for cocaine, Quaaludes & disco, The Starck Club became known for a new drug called Ecstasy & a burgeoning genre of electronic music called House, short for "Warehouse".  Ecstasy was advertised and sold at the bar openly because, until 1985, it was perfectly legal.  Granted, this was incredibly stupid knowing how the DEA operates in this country but you had to be there I guess.  The Starck was designed by famous designer Philippe Starck & co-owned by crooner Stevie Nicks.  It quickly became Ground Zero for the newest electronic music, the city's gay community & all the cool (read: rich & famous) people.  It even had elitist guards outside the entrance turning people away a la Studio 54.  

It was also instrumental in getting MDMA banned in 1985 when the DEA raided the club during one of their regular business nights, setting in motion the club's eventual demise.  But for those few glorious years, patrons young and old (some underage) could dance to their hearts' content in the Starck's deliberately cooled chambers while rolling on E & watching live shows by Grace Jones, Madonna, Prince, Cyndi Lauper or any number of other big-name stars of the day.  George W. Bush was even photographed there as was the Prince of Monaco.  Wonder what they were up to?  

Here's an excellent documentary about the Starck Club for you history buffs:

sex, drugs, design:  Warriors of the Discotheque

MDMA Hub #2:  UK via Ibiza

Ecstasy then made the jump across the pond in the late '80s where it birthed a new subgenre of House music:  Acid House.  It's said the drug came to the UK via Ibiza with some of the Rajneeshi cult members who had fled from Osho's red robed cult in Oregon after the infamous Salmonella bioterrorism attack at a local salad bar.  (Random af, right?)  Then in 1987, a shipment of over 15,000 pills was brought in from Amsterdam by people close to the always-smashed band Happy Mondays.  This giant supply fueled the rise of Acid House music in the North of UK according to someone close to the band.  

Headlines from the UK's "Second Summer of Love"

Meanwhile in the nightclubs the "in" style started to change.  The once-macho, hard drinking Rugby lads were suddenly seen sporting long hippie locks, silk pajamas, fezes & colorful accessories.  Music from Detroit & Chicago poured in & complemented the newly popular Acid House genre that was borne of MDMA-fueled dance frenzies, cuddle puddles & sweaty nights of smiling 'til your face hurt.  This culminated in the Second Summer of Love '88/'89 in the UK, which took its name from the original Summer of Love in '69.  While I wasn't there, I assume the kids of the time must've thought they'd discovered the new revolutionary drug just as the hippies had with LSD.  In a way they were right.   

The Spread of Rave Culture in the U.S.

Of course Americans are always late to the party, but when raves finally caught on they hit big, becoming the dominant drug scene for all of the '90s.  

The first American underground parties in the late '80s and early '90s were held in San Francisco and NYC, where DJ Scotto was pivotal in establishing the huge underground festivals. He hosted New York's first rave at The Ritz--former home of Studio 54--with Moby among its live performers.  DJ Frankie Bones soon launched his own raves throughout New York City, increasing their exposure and crowd size.  On the West Coast, the Bay Area was a rave hub for years.  Crowds of up to 20,000 people would congregate as the city had no curfew.  

Some early '90s American ravers enjoying themselves

Of course Ecstasy wasn't a requirement at raves but there's no denying its central influence on rave culture.  And so much culture was created around the rave scene, particularly in the music arena.  Electronic House music and its endless sister genres like Drum 'n Bass, Gabber, Trance & Dubstep rose to prominence in the rave scene, as did the Kandy Kid style of clothing.  The slogan PLUR:  Peace, Love, Unity, Respect took off & provided general ground rules for ravergoers who typically shunned alcohol & hard drugs like crack or heroin in favor of Ecstasy.  (Alcohol was banned outright at some raves).  And unlike in those other drug scenes, there was rarely if ever any fighting, assault or rape at these events unless someone was on another substance.  

Kandy Kid fashion

All of this remained fairly underground until about 1992 when mainstream media started wringing their hands about "the dangers of raves".  But the influence on popular music and culture had already started snowballing.  Popular bands like Soul II Soul, Neneh Cherry, Stereo MC's, Crystal Waters, Real McCoy, EMF, Ace of Base & Black Box incorporated the techno sound & rave aesthetic to great effect.  Try as they might, that's something no drug prohibitionist could contain.  Kids decked out in baggy pants, goggles, pacifiers, Kandy bracelets & other rave attire started popping up on popular talk shows of the day as well as fashion runways, cementing the mainstreaming of this once underground phenomenon once & for all.  

This was all a very welcome change for kids who grew up in the Reagan era of crack, AIDS, hair metal & Just Say No propaganda.  It was a new day, a new administration, a new scene & it was all fueled by a new substance:  Ecstasy.  

Coming Full Circle

Patient holds prescribed dose of MDMA in PTSD trial

MDMA has continued to be a staple on the recreational drug market throughout its time as an illegal substance, sold both on the street & the dark net.  But recently a push for FDA approval of the drug as a therapy tool has taken hold.  Organizations like MAPS have consistently petitioned for it to be re-scheduled so it can be used to treat conditions ranging from PTSD to end-of-life anxiety to autism in adults, which preliminary studies have shown it extremely promising for.  Not shocking since the drug got its start in the therapist's chair as a tool to help patients open up & connect.  Unlike antidepressants which need to be taken daily & can cause withdrawals upon cessation, MDMA can be taken a few times to achieve peak therapeutic effects.  This offers a clear benefit to patients (though maybe not to greedy pharmaceutical companies who would rather patients rely on a daily dosing regimen for profit reasons).  

Whether you prefer to use it as a lighthearted social lubricant or an introspective therapy tool, MDMA is a unique drug with limitless potential when taken responsibly.  Its journey from medical tool to illegal "forbidden" substance and back again just drives home how arbitrary & pointless our drug laws are.  Actually, the fact that it was used covertly by the CIA on unwitting subjects before the effects or risks were even known just goes to show how governments can get away with ANYTHING while the rest of us rot in prison for doing the same thing with consent.  For all the hand-wringing they do about Ecstasy deaths, barely a whisper is made over the fact that they killed poor Harold Blauer with an overdose of MDA in one of their covert experiments while he was seeking help for depression in a psychiatric facility.  And he's just one of the few cases we know about.  God only knows how many more were murdered in similar experiments.  

To believe that drugs should be illegal for common people while government & intelligence agencies are allowed to possess & administer them as they see fit is to make gods out of men & subservient slaves out of the populace.  Learn from history or be doomed repeat it.  And in this case, history is not something we should aim to repeat.  

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The Ethics of Having Kids in the 6th Mass Extinction

Pope Francis recently made the statement that adopting pets was "selfish" and people should instead be having children.  Obviously the Catholic Church has a disgusting history of anti-choice, anti-birth control views that are almost single-handedly responsible for the overpopulation & crowding in South America, Haiti & the Philippines, so this comment is not entirely shocking to anyone paying attention, but it's still offensive in the face of humanity's current status.  Religious types are thinking only of tithing when making such comments--dogs and cats can't put coins in the collection plate--and Jesus certainly wouldn't have made such a hateful comment.  He was more of a "bless the beasts & children" type.  

But this article is not a religious theology debate, it's a discussion about the very survival of the human race & every other living thing on Earth.  And sadly, the Pope is far from the only entity pressuring people to have kids in the 21st Century.  It's a common argument by governments who worry about keeping their economies, markets, militaries, elder care systems & prisons propped up (again, it comes down to profit).  Economists also seem curiously invested in what's supposed to be a personal reproductive decision between 2 people.  Various assholes ranging from religious fundamentalists, misogynistic men who want to keep their women barefoot & pregnant, and of course our government which subsidizes irresponsible breeding by giving tax refunds, child tax credits, TANF & other kickbacks to parents who often can't afford to feed their own kids also push the idea that those of us who abstain from having kids are somehow less than.

Ethical Considerations

While the number of childfree-by-choice are growing, we're still a minority.  It's a hardwired human drive to reproduce and that's not ever going to change.  The future of the species depends on it.  That's all well and good, but that doesn't mean it should be an automatic behavior that's done without serious consideration for the ethical implications to the child & society.  Especially with the current state of the world and America in particular.

So let's start with the child:  just how considerate is it to bring a baby into the world during a pandemic that's killed [checks notes] 5.48 million people worldwide in under 2 years?  Hospitals are overrun with infectious COVID patients & exhausted healthcare workers, so let's add another human to the pile.  That'll help.  /s

Even if the pandemic were to magically vanish tomorrow, the effects will be felt for years to come in the form of burnout, nurse/doctor shortages, patient backlogs & so much more.  What if your child develops cancer or another serious childhood illness?  The healthcare they receive will most certainly be subpar compared to what they would've gotten before the pandemic.  Even when they just need the basics like vaccines or checkups it will not be quick or easy.  God forbid this is still going on once they reach daycare or school age, then you'll have to navigate the horrors of distance learning or (gasp) "babysitting" your own kid.  

Injured Amazon worker lies on factory floor

And that's just the pandemic.  You'll also be birthing your baby into an economy unlike any this country has ever seen.  One in which wealth inequality is so extreme the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 92%.  Deaths of despair--suicide, overdose, obesity & alcoholic liver disease--are a veritable pandemic unto themselves & predate the COVID outbreak by decades.  Wages have not kept pace with productivity or the cost of living; if they had, full-time workers would be making between $92,000 and $102,000 per year.  Yes, even lowly fast food workers.  Corporations are buying up rental properties in cities across the country, driving up prices & pushing lifelong residents out of their neighborhoods.  There's not a segment of the population that's not affected by these corporate coup activities, and it'll only get worse as time goes on.  

Young healthy workers in their prime are being forced to take 2nd or 3rd jobs, sleep in their cars, go on welfare or sell their bodies on OnlyFans to make ends meet--people with college degrees & experience in their chosen field.  A "gig economy" it's being called.  Neither The Great Resignation nor the strikes across multiple industries have done much to change working conditions or laws in a meaningful way.  We still can't get the $15 minimum wage we were promised by Biden during his presidential campaign nor full student loan forgiveness nor universal healthcare.  Billionaires keep getting richer while we all die and there's no end in sight.  

The Real Existential Threat

The Poster Child for Climate Change

But all of that is small potatoes compared to what's coming:  the climate crisis.  In fact it's already here in the form of unstoppable wildfires, floods, deadly heatwaves, sinking islands, locust plagues, droughts & more. The average temperature globally in 2021 was 1.1 to 1.2°C warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution, which is perilously close to the 1.5°C "tipping point" climatologists have warned about.

Canada smashed records when a town in British Columbia recorded a temperature of more than 121°F, and the Greenland ice sheet experienced rain for the first time ever. In the U.S, it’s estimated that 1 in 4 people experienced a climate-related disaster in 2021. On the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ida traveled from Cuba to Port Fourchon, Louisiana, where it made landfall as a Category 4 & did not stop its path of destruction, winding through Mississippi & bringing heavy rains to Ohio & Tennessee before spawning flash floods and tornadoes in Pennsylvania, New York & New Jersey.  This massive storm was unique in the distance traveled overland & both the amount and type of damage caused.  News reports commented that cities like NYC were not structurally prepared for climate change as subways flooded & people in New Jersey scrambled to find shelter from tornadoes, which are next to nonexistent in that part of the country.  

In addition to the weather disaster aspect, the next stage of climate crisis will bring water shortages which will force cities & townships to ration the precious resource.  In my farming state this will look like fewer private lawns, public pools & farm/ranch crops that require watering.  In one Mexico town, Coca-Cola has taken over the only clean water source to make Coke products, leaving the residents to drink nothing but Coke or dirty, E. Coli-laced sewer water.  The rates of diabetes & related diseases in the town are sky-high as a result.  These people are the canary in the coalmine for what's to come when water is restricted elsewhere.  Corporations and the wealthy will always win in the resource wars.

Climate refugees fleeing to America & other wealthy countries will make the "illegal immigrant crisis" look like a Republican wet dream.  It's already happening as Guatemalans migrate here in droves due to crop failure from drought & flooding.  Jakarta, the former capital of Indonesia, is sinking so bad they had to move the capital to Borneo.  Ditto the Marshall Islands.  Once coastal U.S. cities start sinking, everyone will start fighting over land at higher elevations which could get ugly.  What do you think it'll be like here when major cities on the East & West coast start going under?  Here's a terrifying website that lets you see what your city will look like under water.  

Remnants of Jakarta, Indonesia

All the while, our leaders are snoring at COP25 & holding dinner parties where only the help wear masks.  Their only purpose is to aid in the upward transfer of wealth as quickly as possible as America makes its last death rattle before collapsing Soviet Union-style.  Soon our few remaining social safety nets (Social Security, public housing, etc) will be cashed in to pay off our country's debts & the oligarchs will flee with their spoils, leaving us standing knee-deep in flood water to watch as their rockets take off for a more promising planet.  They've been gradually desensitizing us to this reality for years by threatening to "cut entitlement programs" & such.  Members of both parties have said or attempted these things:  Trump, Biden, Neera Tanden, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton.  Yet we continue to vote for them every 4 years like clockwork.

And Americans are too busy with their faces planted in their iPhones to revolt or do much of anything.  It's the perfect mix of 1984 and Brave New World: a surveillance state dystopia combined with so much distraction and pacification that everyone is too dumb and docile to care.  Eat, shop, work, shit, piss, repeat.

Biden catches Zzzz's at COP25

To bring it back to the original topic.  More of my friends have had kids in the last 2 years than any other 2-year period of my adult life.  I can't help but wonder what they're thinking.  Are they doing it because they think they can give the child the best life possible, or are they doing it for themselves?  Because they wanted to make a baby?  Are they even thinking of the child's future and quality of life (let alone the future of the planet)?  Has COVID lowered their IQ?  

Maybe some of the other issues I've brought up are too "meta," so let me put it plainly:  Would YOU want to be born, helpless & innocent, into today's world exactly as it is now?  Everyone's face planted firmly in their iGadget, TVs tuned to their partisan news entertainment channel of choice, bickering with their neighbor about which political party is the lesser evil while we all slowly fry & work ourselves to death?  Social safety nets steadily disintegrating by the day, America's best days firmly behind it?  Is this the life you would've wanted for yourself?  

The days of crapping out a kid and hoping for the best should be well behind us.  You're sending innocent lambs to the slaughter while helping kill off the other precious endangered species on the planet.  It's irresponsible & cruel to add to the human suffering inherent in existence without first making some major changes to the way things are done.  We're in the 6th Mass Extinction--one entirely of our own making--and it's still unknown whether humans will survive it, not because there aren't enough of us (on the contrary, there are far too many) but because of the way we operate.  Ironically, having kids without thinking of the consequences is one of the main drivers of said extinction event.  

If you agree with all this, it probably doesn't apply to you.  But if it's got your knickers in a twist you might need to do some introspection.