Drugs are Kewl!

Last month disappeared into the Hellishness of the Great White North that is Indiana- the high one day in AUGUST was only 60-something. But, more on that will have to wait. Especially since I'm not done up here, yet.

However, drugs have been much on my mind lately. And today, Warren Ellis has pointed me at an article about the way the Ancient Greeks and Romans looked at/used psychoactive drugs.

Sure, it makes sense that the Greeks and Romans used psychoactives. Fits right into the conceptions I was taught of self-indulgent orgies, vomitariums, et cetera. No problems with all that; but the person writing the article makes a lot of common, and stupid, assertions about drug use in general.

"[...]cannabis can alter your perception of reality, not just your mood.

Reports of psychoactive drug experiences tend to support the idea that the user can become aware of multiple levels of reality all present simultaneously that are far more complex and yet more harmonious and unified than normal experience permits her to perceive. All sorts of understandings are possible, based on the particular mind and the particular drug[...]"

Bullshit.

Those "higher levels" only existed from the time the drug's chemicals invade the brain meats to the time they are flushed out of those same brain meats. Subjective PSYCHOlogical ACTIVity in the head of a person on psychoactive drugs is not what I'd call supporting tendency in "reports". Without the drugs no one ever experiences those higher levels (excluding such abnormal phenomenon as Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, and similar events). If no one had ever taken the drugs we wouldn't talk about these "altered states". The drugs create the effects, they don't grant access to otherwise unattainable levels of existence. Anyone who would contend otherwise should feel free to take some objective, rigorous, experimental sensor readings to indicate the existence of these other "planes". fMRI wouldn't qualify- blood flow to certain areas of the brain would, indeed, (seem to) indicate higher levels of activity in those areas, which would be exactly what we expect due to the cognitive skewing of the psychoactive drug(s).

Guess what: Reality is Real. Bullshit some assholes believe because it seemed real when they were trippin' off acid (when they knew they shouldn't have kicked it with them spider monkeys) is bullshit. Drugs aren't bad, per se; and that's an argument for a different time. My point is that drugs aren't some aid to the mystical. The mystical is bullshit, emergent effects from the psychoactive response in the brain- not real. Anyone who goes all misty/starry eyed when talking about the vast levels of consciousness accessible through the gateway of little chemical packages is fooling themselves. Which is probably pretty easy since their little drug-friends have probably rotted holes in the bits they're trying to think with.

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Warren Ellis

Seriously one of the best authors of entertaining, often thought provoking, word pictures today. Warren Ellis' third column for Wired UK is online, and it's a great read:

"UK booksellers are not yet reduced to the condition of their American cousins, who have gone beyond firing staff and are now using their bodies for food and heat. They fear the Kindle like it was the breath of the devil’s cock on their shoulder – despite the fact that Mr Bezos’s clever little board has probably not sold a million units yet. Because, as any American bookseller will shriek at you while gouging their own forearms open with Stanley knives, only 34 Americans actually buy and read books. As far as they’re concerned, the Kindle emerged directly from Satan’s mangina and will doom them all.

We have no such fear here in Britain. Here, the threat to reading comes only from our education system – and the fact that most children are born to 15-year-old foetal-alcohol-syndrome cases."

(first seen at WarrenEllis.com)


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Things

1) First, I see on WarrenEllis.com that Diamond has changed some metrics and a good number of comic books and their creators aren't gonna qualify to get DISTRIBUTED. This is not good news. Imagine if they'd done this when no one really knew Brian Wood, or any number of others. We could be without DMZ, Watchmen, and Transmetropolitan. If that's not scary, your head isn't on straight. The reverse may be true, though; this might be a victory for Print On Demand (POD). We can only hope. What it definitely does, and I hope I'm proven wrong on this, is make it that much more difficult to get new works out to enough people for newer works to be made and experience to be gained.

2) Went to the Sports Page, off South Parkway, and saw The Ugli Stick on Saturday (click the link, and listen to some of their stuff, it's all great). You really want to go see them, because in a few years it's gonna cost you your left testicle- a price you'll gladly pay by then. Better even than their skills as artists of the musical sort, they're all great guys. It's hard to describe their style. Suffice it to say, they take bits and pieces from every genre, combine 'em, force willing supplicants to snort 'em, and gently ape-fuck awesomeness out for your amusement. While Quintin shoots bass groves at you all night long, and your girlfriend fantasizes about Eric. Then Dale Jr opens up his pipes or bounces his fingers along the neck and you start wondering why people with so much talent aren't all fronting their own bands. Tim... he drums. I suspect the earphones he's wearing are repeating "Don't smile, they'll know!" When you catch your toes tappin' and your head noddin', don't look Tim in the eyes, lest he steal and consume your sweet sweet thinky-bits. (Thanks Yvonne, it really was a great show.) They'll be back in H-vegas on June 12, at the Sports Page.

3) Also, yesterday I hit a link to 13 mysteries in science. It was from New Scientist, I think, and written in 2005. It's a damn shame they lied about half of them- if not more- making unrepeatable results in one lab into a scientific mystery isn't exactly being factual. If you happen upon the link, do yourself a favor and ignore it. The three or five interesting mysteries aren't worth the bullshit.
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