Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
January 22
/ 24, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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Weekend Edition
January 22 / 24, 2005
Pot Shots
Is
GW Getting the Runaround?
By
FRED GARDNER
GW Pharmaceuticals reported a favorable
result last week in a phase 3 trial of Sativex involving 177
patients with severe cancer pain who were not getting adequate
relief from opiates. Sativex is a cannabis-plant extract containing
approximately equal concentrations of THC and CBD (cannabidiol).
Patients in the study continued taking morphine and added either
Sativex, a placebo, or another plant extract high in THC (all
sprayed into the mouth). Some 40% of the patients taking Sativex
reported pain reduction of 30% or more -significantly more relief
than the placebo or the high-THC extract provided. The oft-repeated
myth that Marinol (synthetic THC) contains the active ingredient
of marijuana is dispelled by this and other studies showing that
CBD plays a beneficial role. GW's application to market Sativex
has been denied, to date, by the Medicines and Healthcare products
Regulatory Agency (MHRA, the British equivalent of the FDA).
GW submitted data from clinical trials showing that Sativex reduced
spasticity, but in December '04 the Committee on Safety of Medicines
(CSM), an advisory body to the MHRA, questioned the "clinical
relevance" of the reduced spasticity (its meaning to the
patients, a fuzzy concept) and required a confirmatory study.
GW is carrying out the extra
study and also appealing the denial to the Medicines Commission,
the senior advisory body to the MHRA. Several of the doctors
who conducted the trials have expressed dismay towards the CSM.
Professor Derick Wade, Professor in Neurological Rehabilitation,
University of Oxford, and clinical expert on MS for the National
Institute of Clinical Excellence National Clinical Guideline
on management of MS, said, "I have treated more than 60
patients in clinical trials with Sativex. We have seen improvements
in spasticity, and in other symptoms, usually sustained for many
months. For patients, relief of spasticity is, like relief of
pain, a substantial benefit in its own right. Many of those involved
in the studies had already tried all other available treatments
and so I believe Sativex is a valuable treatment option for people
with MS whose spasticity is not yet adequately controlled."
Is GW Pharmaceutical getting
the kind of runaround from British regulatory authorities that
Americans interested in cannabis-based medicine get from NIDA,
the DEA and HHS? Geoffrey Guy remarked our astonishment back
in '98 when he said he'd been granted a license by the Home Office
to grow cannabis, develop extracts with different cannabinoid
ratios, and test them in clinical trials. The British government
would treat him fairly, he reassured us. He had no doubt about
it. There were hoops that had to be jumped through -purity, consistency,
etc.- but he was a successful pharmaceutical entrepreneur and
it was all do-able.
With every passing day that
GW fails to get approval to market Sativex, our old cynicism
towards the British government is restored. Recently it was revealed
that an influential psychiatrist named Stuart Montgomery, a member
of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, had advised Pfizer how
to rewrite their application for Zoloft and held off becoming
a paid consultant until after the approval had gone through (so
he wouldn't be disqualified). The more power Pfizer et al have
over the regulators, the longer the runaround for GW.
She Was Hip
All Along
The actress who played the
pot-dealing seductress in Reefer Madness, Thelma White died last
week in Los Angeles at the age of 94. She recognized the falseness
of the film in front and didn't want to appear in it, but the
studio owned her. Her AP obit was poignant and informative.
"Ms. White played a hard-boiled
blonde named Mae who peddles 'demon weed' to unsuspecting young
people in 'Reefer Madness,' a low-budget cautionary tale written
by a religious group. In the film, she lures high school students
to her apartment for sex and drugs, turning them into addicts
who shoot their girlfriends, run over pedestrians and go insane.
"A musical and comedy
actress who made more than 40 movies, Ms. White was horrified
when RKO Studios picked her for the antidrug film. But because
of her contract, she had little choice but to accept the role.
" 'I'm ashamed to say
that it's the only one of my films that's become a classic,'
she told The Los Angeles Times in an interview in 1987. 'I hide
my head when I think about it.'
"Born Thelma Wolpa in
Lincoln, Neb., in 1910, Ms. White was a carnival performer as
a toddler before moving on to vaudeville, radio and movies.
" 'Reefer Madness'"
was destined for obscurity, but in 1972, Keith Stroup, founder
of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, discovered
it in the Library of Congress archives, bought a print and screened
it at a New York benefit.
"Robert Shaye, founder
of New Line Cinema, saw the film and recognized its appeal as
an unintentional parody. He re-released it through his then-fledgling
company, holding midnight showings.
"Ms. White twice saw an
off-Broadway musical that spoofed the movie. The musical 'was
campy and over the top, and she loved it,'" according to
her godson, her sole survivor.
I didn't know that Keith Stroup
rediscovered Reefer Madness, and that it helped transform
New Line Cinema (from a small company that booked speakers for
college events) into a major movie distributor. Nor did I know
that a religious group wrote the inane flick; the credits name
two Hollywood professionals who mostly turned out B- westerns.
According to Kevin Murphy and
Dan Studney, authors of the latter-day musical that Ms White
enjoyed, "Reefer Madness began its cinematic life as a 1936
cautionary film entitled 'Tell Your Children.' It was financed
by a small church group, and was intended to scare the living
bejeezus out of every parent who viewed it. Soon after the film
was shot, however, it was purchased by the notorious exploitation
film maestro Dwain Esper (Narcotic, Marihuana, Maniac), who took
the liberty of cutting in salacious insert shots and slapping
on the sexier title of Reefer Madness, before distributing it
on the exploitation circuit. Esper was an absolutely notorious
figure who would do things like stealing unattended prints of
studio films out of projection booths and film exchanges, and
then physically drive them from small town exhibitor to small
town exhibitor until the authorities caught up with him. A delightful,
poignant and detailed portrayal of this lunatic opportunist is
featured in exploiteer Dave Friedman's autobiography, A Youth
in Babylon, which is a book every cult movie or pop culture
enthusiast ought to read.
"After a brief run, the
film lay forgotten for several decades. There was no concept
of after market in those days, especially for films that existed
outside the confines of the studio system. For this reason, neither
Esper nor the original filmmakers bothered to copyright the movie,
and it eventually fell into the public domain."
Murphy and Studney got their
info mainly from White herself and documentary maker Ray Greene,
whose films include "Schlock!"
We have yet to identify the
"small church group" that financed "Tell Your
Children." Pothead lore has it that Reefer Madness was made
in concert with a campaign to impose federal marijuana prohibition
led by Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics,
who manipulated the media and understood the influence of Hollywood.
The "Reefer Madness" line jibes perfectly with Anslinger's.
"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users
insanity, criminality, and death," he told Congress in '37.
They believed him and we are still feeling the consequences.
There is a movie to be made
about the making of Reefer Madness--a musical. Woody Harrelson,
maybe, could play Anslinger (then about 40). But who could play
alienated, musical Thelma White?
Fred Gardner can be reached at journal@ccrmg.orgFred
Gardner can be reached at journal@ccrmg.org
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