No Easy Cure for America's Cold, Black Heart

It happened again.  A school full of innocent teachers & children was attacked by a maniac with a semi-automatic weapon while cops stood by & did nothing.  Everyone wants convenient, black-and-white answers to complex social problems like mass shootings, the drug overdose epidemic & poverty.  Unfortunately that's not how it works.  We didn't get to this dark place in our nation's history quickly & we won't get out with catchy soundbite answers like 'gun control' or 'mental health' or 'good parenting'.  These issues are a result of decades and decades of social rot & will require the sustained efforts of all our institutions to even START to correct them.

Let's start with the obvious.  There are more guns than people in the United States.  You can't talk earnestly about fixing the mass shooting problem without mentioning sane gun laws.  There's no reason anyone who hasn't taken a serious gun safety/firearm handling course should ever own said weapon, nor should anyone with a history of violent crimes like domestic violence be allowed to legally buy a firearm.  Yet this is the norm.  Gun shows allow virtually anyone of age with enough cash to walk out with as many guns as they can carry which is insane.  Families in which kids "accidentally" shoot their siblings or others are often not held accountable legally in any meaningful way despite the weapons not being secured out of the child's reach.  The problems with our gun laws (or lack thereof) could fill a book.

But it doesn't end there.  

Canada has (or had) as many guns as the U.S. at the time the movie Bowling for Columbine was made, according to filmmaker Michael Moore.  But they didn't have anywhere near the number of mass shootings & other violent gun crime.  That means there's more at play than the sheer number of guns.  A quick look at our nation's discretionary budget tells us that 50% of it goes to funding our military which commits atrocities around the globe daily.  Does anyone care about THOSE innocent children and women being slaughtered?  And what about our militarized police here at home with their bloated budgets that steal from social workers, teachers, mental health & other departments only so they can fail to stop school shooters & take days to identify killers like the Brooklyn subway shooter?  They're not exactly a benign presence in our communities either with all their killings of often-innocent, unarmed citizens for which they're rarely held accountable.  

If you think this violence at home and abroad doesn't influence our populace, you're dead wrong.  It's deeply entrenched & celebrated by our media which I'll get into below.  Our government sets the example for the populace.

U.S. military budget for 2020 (in blue)

The way the news covers these horrific mass shootings is particularly dangerous.  Rushing to break the story before the details are in:  the death toll, the name of the villainous shooter & all the tawdry details of his social media posts--all this does is encourage would-be shooters to go through with their plans to do the same.  These things are EXACTLY what other countries know not to do in the wake of these tragedies because they inspire copycat shootings.  This is a fact.  But does American media care?  No.  If it bleeds, it leads.  24-hour news stations feed on these stories like vultures, covering them around the clock for months.  While us sane people may not see the issue with that, to any would-be suicidal maniacs, this is exactly the kind of thing that could push them to say "Fuck it.  I might as well go out in a blaze of glory like that guy.  Suicide by cop seems easy enough, and I'll take out some other folks on my way to Hell."  

That's how these rage-filled monsters think.  If they don't value their own lives, why would they value the lives of strangers?  Throw in some hyper-realistic violent video games, movies & music on a loop for months on end and you've got a recipe for disaster.  (Of course, the deeper issue is that the parents are often too busy working or doing drugs to supervise their kids & prevent this type of rumination.  Kids today are often raised by grandparents, friends or simply couch-surfing & have no sense of family because of the drug and poverty crisis which is a whole other issue.  Refer to "it's too complex to fix with any single solution" in paragraph 1.)

The last piece of the puzzle is our lack of universal healthcare which includes mental health.  While some people truly can't be helped (psychopaths & others with severe personality disorders), that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.  We're the only developed nation without it, and a good chunk of school shooters/other mass shooters have had diagnosable mental illnesses or sought treatment before committing their crimes.  Men in America (males make up 99+% of mass shooters) often have the attitude that the only acceptable emotions are "happy" and "rage" which is why feminists say that patriarchy hurts men too.  In a sane society, men would feel comfortable expressing a range of emotions such as sadness, loneliness, embarrassment, fear, hope & admiration without having a second thought about their masculinity.  Seeking therapy or taking medication for a mental illness would be as natural as wearing a cast for a broken arm & everyone could afford to do so. 

But we don't live in a sane society.  We live in America, where healthcare is privatized & guns outnumber people.  

There's a list floating around on social media of all the school shootings that have happened since the 1990s and it's breathtaking.  There have already been 27 shootings in K-12 schools in 2022 so far (it's May).  As I've said before, America has a serious issue not learning from history: ours or anyone else's.  Until we decide to try new methods of attacking our recurring social problems, nothing will change.  More innocent people will die in the prime of their lives.  From shootings, from pandemics, from drug overdoses & any number of other preventable causes.  And the world will keep spinning.  

~Rest in Heaven to the victims of the Uvalde massacre.  May your memory be a blessing forever.~
 God help this country.

Opioids Are Safer Than Alcohol

That's right.  As the late comic-prophet Bill Hicks would say:  "You can stop your internal dialogue now."  

Here's why:  Opioids up to and including fentanyl do not cause organ damage even when taken daily for the duration of a person's life.  They have legit, proven medical uses unlike alcohol which is a toxin in any dose or form.  Ethanol is a Group I carcinogen according to the IARC.  This means it's in the same class as asbestos, benzene, formaldehyde, Hepatitis B & HPV in terms of cancer risk.  It causes cancer of the esophagus, stomach, liver, colon, rectum & breast among others.  In 2020, an estimated 741,300 new cases of cancer worldwide were caused solely by alcohol consumption.  It also causes chronic liver damage in the form of cirrhosis when consumed long-term; if continued beyond this point, liver failure will ensue.  There's no equivalent type of chronic organ damage with opioids.*

Both opioids and alcohol have addictive potential, but the true potential for addiction lies within the individual.  For instance, if a person dislikes the effects of alcohol & prefers the way opioids make them feel, they're more likely to become addicted to opioids.  And vice versa.  It all comes down to genetics, metabolism, brain chemistry & other unique traits.  Both substances are capable of causing overdose--opioids by respiratory depression and alcohol via ethanol poisoning.  

Where alcohol is worse is in the withdrawal department.  While opioid withdrawal is indisputably miserable, it's not fatal as long as the person avoids dehydration.  Alcohol withdrawal can kill by causing seizures, convulsions, psychosis, coma & other severe complications resulting in death.  There's also the kindling effect in which every successive withdrawal is more severe with alcohol.  Alcoholism can also cause TWO types of dementia--Wernicke encephalopathy & Korsakoff Syndrome which often occur together.  The horrifying video below illustrates just how life-destroying these conditions are & how much they resemble other types of dementia.  

A Case of Confusion (Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome)

There's no other drug as detrimental to a developing fetus as alcohol, which has its own "syndrome".  The CDC and every other health agency agree there's NO safe amount of alcohol during any point of pregnancy, though women often take issue with this due to myths about wine being healthy (or their own selfish unwillingness to quit drinking for 9 months).  Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a spectrum disorder that wreaks havoc on sufferers, causing lifelong developmental, mental, emotional & physical problems.  Oh, and drinking while pregnant also puts the fetus at risk for stillbirth, premature delivery, low birthweight & spontaneous abortion.  Opioids can be prescribed for short periods during pregnancy & are routinely used in delivery rooms in the form of epidurals that contain fentanyl, sufentanil or other powerful drugs.

The two main risks of opioids are overdose and addiction.  Side effects include constipation, itching & reduced sex drive for some users.  Babies can be born addicted which is a tragedy, but they won't be born deformed.  Organ damage, sepsis & other secondary complications are a result of injecting with dirty needles which is totally avoidable if our government would legalize/regulate the drug supply & educate the drug-using public on safer drug use practices.  Overdose is mainly a result of two phenomena:  adulteration of the drug supply and drug combinations like opioids + depressants that cause respiratory depression when taken together.  That's a statistical fact.  

Again, these are entirely preventable with basic harm reduction measures and aren't the fault of opioids themselves in a majority of cases.  While it's possible to overdose on a high dose of opioids alone, addicts who know their tolerance level & are sure of the purity of their drug are unlikely to OD when they have access to the information to prevent overdose.  

Putting It All Together

Now read this article again and substitute amphetamines, ketamine, LSD, mescaline, khat, methylone, MDMA or nearly any drug in Schedule I, II or III for "alcohol" (or "tobacco" for that matter) and this article reads the same way.  

So where are all the media scare stories about these deadly legal drugs and all the cancer, dementia, addiction, seizures & cirrhosis deaths they're causing everyday all over the world?  Comedian Bill Hicks, whom I mentioned in the first sentence of this piece, died of pancreatic cancer at the shockingly young age of 32 likely due to his excessive smoking habit (which was probably helped along by a history of heavy drinking).  Pancreatic cancer at this age is rare so it's widely accepted that his lifestyle contributed to his development of the disease.

There's no question the opioid crisis is real & devastating.  But if you're going to report on opioid deaths, at least do it accurately.  People are dying from an adulterated drug supply, abstinence-only drug education & the resulting ignorance, not opioids themselves.  If a heroin user buys a bag of dope expecting heroin and gets fentanyl, that's a drug prohibition death and it was preventable.  Fentanyl itself is not evil--it too has medical uses.  It's illicit fentanyl taken unwittingly that's the problem, and that's a result of the drug war.  The End.  The reason we don't see outbreaks of death & blindness from poisoned moonshine today is because alcohol in all its many forms is legal, regulated for purity & sold only to adults with ID.  That wasn't the case during alcohol prohibition.  

In conclusion, our drug scheduling system is totally political and not science-based.  It's ass-backwards & helps no one except those who profit financially from keeping SOME drugs illegal.  Hopefully you can figure out who that is.  Bottom line:  it ain't us.    

* While tobacco & alcohol cause chronic organ damage with long-term use, opioids don't damage any particular organ even with lifelong use as long as the person avoids overdose & unsanitary practices like intravenous injection with dirty needles.  

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Celebrating Female Comedians From the Golden Era

The present has become too depressing of late.  With inflation, the baby formula shortage, U.S. COVID deaths surpassing 1 million, abortion rights facing the most serious threat since the passing of Roe v. Wade and other 3rd world problems, it's just easier to go back to a time when this country was actually thriving.  A time when art, music, movies, sketch comedy, television & other forms of media were edgy & exciting, groundbreaking and unafraid of offending.  A time of unbridled laughter.

Back then I was just certain my favorite comediennes would go on to do great things after leaving shows like MADtv & Saturday Night Live.  How could they not?  They were so talented & carried every skit, leaving my friends and I doubled over with tears streaming down our faces.  But that's not what happened.  The men from these casts--Will Ferrell, Aries Spears, Tracey Morgan, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Key & Peele and Artie Lange went on to have careers ranging from lukewarm to piping hot, but their female counterparts fizzled out for the most part, some languishing in total obscurity.  And that's a crime.  You can't ignore the role sexism played in their lack of success because there's really no other explanation for it.  

But this is a HAPPY post, dammit, so here are some of my absolute favorite characters & skits from those shows below.  I hope they bring you as much laughter as they've brought me over the years.  

Debra Wilson:  Bunifah Latifah Halifah Sharifa Jackson.  During its heyday in the late '90s, MADtv was hailed as "definitely funnier than SNL" and one of its standouts was Debra Wilson.  Nobody could do a Whitney Houston or Oprah imitation like her, and her original characters were to die for.  Here's one of my faves:  the spicy Bunifah Latifah Halifah Sharifa (no 'H') Jackson.  Do yourself a favor & check out her Cloret character too.  She's like Bunifah on horse tranquilizers.

Alex Borstein:  Ms. Swan.  While Alex Borstein did go on to attain a decent amount of success after MADtv--she voiced Lois Griffin on Family Guy & won 3 Emmy Awards including 2 for her work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel--she still hasn't reached the heights of some of her (in my opinion) less talented male peers.  Here she is as her most beloved MADtv character Ms. Swan.

Mo Collins:  Lorraine Swanson.  Oh, Mo.  Nobody could play a screechy, frumpy Midwestern mom or grandma character like her.  Most know her as Stuart's Mom from the hilariously disturbing skits with Michael McDonald, but her Lorraine Swanson was a favorite in my household because it reminded us of my late grandma.  Here she is at a salad bar in Vegas dirtying up the sneeze guard.

Cheri Oteri:  Nadeen.  I had a hard time choosing a skit from this funny lady's catalogue because all are equally brilliant.  She should've had a career equal to or bigger than Will Ferrell's and I'm sure he'd agree.  She stole the show at the 2020 New Year's Eve bash with Anderson Cooper & Andy Cohen with her Barbara Walters impression, reminding everyone why she's the best thing to ever happen to SNL.  Yeah, I said it.  Here she is as Nadeen, aka the "Simmadownow" lady.  But also check out her pill head Collette Reardon, Althea on the Plane & Morning Latte characters.  

Ana Gasteyer & Molly Shannon:  The Delicious Dish.  These two killer talents walked so the likes of Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig & Kate McKinnon could run.  Ana was a reliably professional straight woman in skits where everyone else broke character & could do a mean Martha Stewart while Molly's best known for her Mary Katherine Gallagher character that got its own movie.  Here they are with guest John Goodman on their side-splitting NPR send-up The Delicious Dish.

Nicole Sullivan:  Britney Spears.  Nicole Sullivan was my first love of sketch comedy.  Her best-known character was The Vancome Lady but she killed it for years in countless other roles including the eerily foreboding one shown here.  This was made in 1999--years before Britney's breakdown. 

Bonus:  Maya Rudolph sings the National Anthem

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Holding Democrats Accountable for the Abortion Nightmare

Well, here we are.  The leaked SCOTUS document confirmed that Roe v. Wade is about to be overturned. Even if it doesn't happen right away, the fact that we're still stressing about this bullshit in 2022 is beyond unacceptable.  Democrats have dangled "the abortion issue" (i.e. a woman's right to not be forced to carry an unwanted child, risking her health & life in the process) for the last 50+ years.  They use it as a political bargaining chip in every election cycle & mid-term, bludgeoning voters with it & promising us they're gonna "codify Roe into law" when it should've been codified with the stroke of a pen decades ago.  The Democrat congress could do it right now, no questions asked.  Biden himself made this promise during his 2020 campaign & since that time has refused to speak the word abortion in public.  No huge surprise to those who have followed his other broken promises (student debt forgiveness, getting COVID under control, banning new fracking on federal lands, offering a public option like Medicare, fuck it just see for yourself).  

Another of Biden's lies, courtesy of Holding Biden Accountable Twitter page

We all saw the writing on the wall when Saint RBG croaked in the SCOTUS while Trump was in office--another totally predictable scenario as she was on her 3rd bout of cancer (she had colon, lung and pancreatic--one of the most deadly types) & umpteenth recurrence of cancer as well as having had a heart stent placed, a gallbladder condition & fractured ribs.  All of that notwithstanding, she was in her late 80s.  The average life expectancy for American women is 78.79 years, so she'd already passed her expiration date by about 9 years at the time of her death.  With everything that was at stake should she die, how could she let this happen?  

Gee, what a mystery.   /s

I'll tell you how.  Like every other big-name politician, CEO or warlord, Ginsburg was an unrepentant power-hungry narcissist who did it because she could.  They rule over us plebs with a thirst for power unmatched.  Even the "sweet old grannies" like RBG would rather go to their graves with that gavel in their hands than do the right thing & relinquish their power in time to prevent millions of women from losing abortion access (or whatever the issue may be).  In no sane society should one person wield this much power, nor should politicians be allowed to hold office longer than most of us have been alive & well past the point when they're capable of thinking clearly due to the degradation & tangling of neurons that happens to EVERY elderly person.  Yet so many of our politicians are in their 70s or 80s.  And exactly zero of them are required to undergo drug testing or psychological fitness testing which is another issue entirely.  

The Wolf & The Fox

Before you rage at Republicans about this issue, stop and think about who you're really mad at.  Republicans told you their position from Day 1.  They are anti-choice zealots and they're loud about it.  Democrats are the ones who have claimed to be pro-choice champions willing to do whatever it takes to protect Roe v. Wade & the right of women to determine their own reproductive future.  Instead, they chose to do nothing or worse, welcome "pro-life democrats" into the party (because money).  It brings to mind the wonderfully accurate quote by Malcolm X about the wolf & the fox, the wolf representing conservatives & the fox liberals.  I've included it below.  

Abortion is a wedge issue that's incredibly useful in debates during election season.  Like gay marriage, the 2nd Amendment & anything concerning race, this incredibly important & consequential social issue is important to politicians for a very different and selfish reason--winning elections.  It's just that when they win, they don't do a goddamn thing they said they'd do about it.  Democrats, anyway.  Because if they did, they wouldn't be able to recycle the issue again next election season.  

And like clockwork, people still vote for them every 4 years anyway.

In the end that's all that matters.  Your votes & donations speak louder than any angry social media post or gripe at home around the television set.  They're hoping you'll go on Twitter or Facebook to scream into the void, get your frustrations out, get scared of "the other party" during election season & vote for them again.  They've got you by the balls in this 2-party system.  Except they don't.  You have other options.  Voting 3rd party in the presidential election speaks volumes.  If you want to support Democrats at the local level where your vote actually counts, that's fine.  But ffs, do not throw away another vote in a national election for these crooked bastards who won't even do the bare minimum to protect 50% of the population's reproductive rights.  

And really, this doesn't just affect women.  Not by a long shot.  Unwanted children are a burden on men as well:  child support payments start at 25% of a man's income & will be garnished from his wages in the event he refuses to pay willingly.  For 18 years.  Having a child ties you to the other parent in ways you couldn't imagine & often won't like very much.  So buckle up, guys.  If you're not willing to wear that condom or get that vasectomy, don't cry when the worst happens because we're now living in a dystopia of our own making.  We get the government we deserve.  We currently have a moderate right wing party (Democrats) and an extreme right wing/fascist party (Republicans).  If you're okay with that, keep voting Republican or Democrat.  If you're not, vote for an actually Leftist candidate.  It's not rocket science.  

But at this point we'll need more than electoral politics to salvage even a sliver of this once-great nation.  No great advances in history were made through voting.  Women's suffrage, gay rights, the labor union movement, the Civil Rights movement's monumental gains--all that was won the hard way:  by locking arms in the streets & gumming up the machinery of this giant combine.  Looks like we're gonna have to go back to grassroots civil disobedience if we plan to get anything done.  The other alternative is too dark.

Democrats are the "foxes" Malcolm spoke of.

In the meantime, check out my other relevant articles on this issue:

Reducing Abortions with Harm Reduction

Responsible Reproduction = Eco-Fascism?  

The Ethics of Having Kids in the 6th Mass Extinction

The Short & Inspirational Life of Wesley Willis

Most people have never heard of Wesley Willis.  That's understandable:  he wasn't exactly "mainstream".  Those who have heard of him know him from the uproarious headscratcher "Rock & Roll McDonald's".  He's more of a wink-wink, nudge nudge phenomenon in the punk rock scene than a serious fixture, and for good reason.  His songs consist of off-key and hilarious rants about beating up superheroes, bestiality with wildlife & true tales of public schizophrenia freakouts accompanied by programmed 'demo' keyboard music.  He ends all his songs with a corporate slogan such as "Mitsubishi.  The Word is Getting Around." The tunes are more funny than "good".  You can find his music on Spotify and Youtube.  I suggest giving it a listen as it's guaranteed to brighten your mood.

People often scoffed at Willis, putting him in the category of special needs person to be laughed at or pitied.  However, Wesley took his music very seriously and made a career of it.  He took the bus to Kinko's and typed (slowly, with one finger) his lyrics around strangers which often triggered his paranoia & ended in acute psychotic episodes, or what Wesley called "hellrides".  He weighed upwards of 300 lbs and walked everywhere, making friends and disturbing people with his foul-mouthed outbursts along the way.  It would've been perfectly acceptable for him to go on disability and draw welfare but he refused, insisting on supporting himself with his art.

With the help of some amazing friends, Wesley was able to do just that.  In addition to his music, Wesley was famous in the Chicago art community for his intricate drawings of the city--all of which were done from memory.  He commissioned these for people until his death in 2003.  That's more than many self-described "artists" are able to do in this day and age.  And he did it all with paranoid schizophrenia and what would today certainly be diagnosed as autism and PTSD from a horrific childhood.  That this giant, disheveled Black man with visible disabilities was embraced by the art & music communities and given a place to live when his own family was MIA speaks volumes for both Wesley's character and that of his friends.  One of said friends--a single white woman with only a few dogs for roommates--took Wesley in to live with her and ended up housing him for FIVE years.  They got along swimmingly.

"The Lakefront" (1993) -  Wesley Willis

But what bothers me about the Wesley Willis commentary online is that he's pigeonholed as "a schizophrenic" when that's only one facet of his personality, and a small one at that.  The man was clearly an autistic savant as evidenced by his ability to tell you how many days he'd been alive & draw intricate cityscapes from memory, down to the license plate numbers on vehicles.  Everything about him, from his monotone pattern of speech to his obsession with corporate slogans screams autism, yet for some reason I've seen not one mention of it anywhere in any documentary or comment section.  And some of his abilities fall squarely into the genius/savant category a la Rain Man.  Is it because he's Black?  Meanwhile the schizophrenia can be traced back to the severe, superhuman stress he was exposed to as a child when his stepfather held a gun to his head and robbed him after years of forcing him to watch his mother perform sex acts on him.  Wesley was frequently beaten and molested as a boy and had 10 siblings, most of whom were shipped off by CPS to live with other relatives.  

The ugly truth is that those traumatic events would drive anyone to the breaking point.  People act like he was born crazy but Wesley himself traces the onset of the voices to the incident when the gunpoint robbery occurred.  He was actually quite lucid even with schizophrenia, if severely socially awkward.  (The fact that he's even able to stand up & carry on a conversation with all those heavy psych meds in his system is a miracle in itself).  Mental illness is a combination of genetic and environmental factors, but anyone can be pushed to the breaking point if exposed to enough stressors early in life.  People are not born schizophrenic.  I think this is something most of us would rather not think about because it's too frightening but Wesley is quite clear on the matter:  his schizophrenia had a clear beginning point & a known trigger.

No mention is made in these documentaries of what happened to the man who terrorized Wesley & caused the onset of his illness, yet Wesley is repeatedly saddled with the label of "a schizophrenic" in a way that's incredibly unfair & stigmatizing.  Also, no one addresses that the reason he writes vulgar songs is to fight his "demons" which is incredibly brave & innovative.  In therapy we'd call that a coping tool but Wesley didn't have the benefit of therapists.  He was drugged to the gills with potent first generation anti-psychotics like Prolixin and then taken off them and given placebos without his knowledge according to the documentary below.  This is incredibly dangerous & unethical, and the fact that it happened as late as the 1990s makes my stomach turn.  

Wesley Willis:  The Daddy of Rock 'n' Roll (2003)

Despite everything he endured, Wesley Willis managed to keep his positive attitude & strong work ethic to the very end.  He made friends (and money) wherever he went, pumping out hundreds of songs in the studio every year.  He made sure each one was under 3:00 because that was "the perfect length for radio" & refused to collaborate with Hip-Hop artists to keep his work pure.  Why?  "Because I'm not a fool. My life is a rock-n-roll joyride".  The dark spot in the middle of his forehead was from his habit of greeting people by gently bumping foreheads with them.  It kind of resembled a third eye.  In late 2002 he was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, which he fought valiantly.  His prognosis was good as of 2003 according to this article: "Wesley Willis is Whooping Leukemia's Ass With a Belt". There was even a live concert tour planned.  But alas, it didn't turn out that way.  He died on August 21, 2003.  

Today someone like Wesley would be forced to live on the streets & not likely embraced by the snobbish hipster art communities in most cities.  The cost of living is so high and gentrification so bad that there's just no place for people like Wesley & his friends anymore.  While his work was labeled "Outsider" during his life, it wouldn't surprise me if I saw his drawings turn up on a billboard for Chevrolet or Dawn dish soap in the near future.  Everything beautiful gets appropriated by vultures eventually.  The strange thing is, I'm not sure Wesley would mind all that much due to his fascination with corporate slogans.

Rock over Earth, Wesley Willis.  🤘🌏