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Other Lands Have
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by KATHY KELLY
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Today's
Stories
April 2 / 3,
2005
Alexander Cockburn
Death,
Depression and Prozac
April 1, 2005
Tom Barry
Michael
Chertoff: Legal Storm Trooper
Rahul Mahajan
WMD
Commission: Yet Another Intelligence Failure
Charlie Cray
/ Jim Vallette
Dancing
with Wolfowitz
Dave Lindorff
News Media Anguish Over Schiavo's Death
Zeynep Toufe
The Terri Schiavo Success Story
Suzan Mazur
Pension Funds and the Price of Oil
Michael Dickinson
Shut Your Mouth or Go to Prison!
Stan Cox
Iraq Reconstruction Funds Invested on Wall Street
Ra Ravishankar
Et Tu, George?
Daniel Wolff
Patti
Scialfa's Conversation with America
March 31, 2005
Sharon Smith
Leftwing
Apologists for the Occupation
Ron Jacobs
Rounding Out Iraq's History
Tariq Ali
British
Elections: Punish the Warmongers
Michael Dickinson
Cartoon Capers: Turkey's War on Political Cartoonists
Kanak Mani
Dixit
The Struggle for Nepal's Future
Mitchell Zimmerman
The Bizarre Legal Philosophy of Justice Janice Rogers Brown
Xuan-Trang
Ho
Guatemala and CAFTA: Return to the Bad Old Days?
Dave Zirin
Pay the Damn Players!
Joe Bageant
In
Praise of Holy Madness
Jeff Halper
The
End of a Viable Palestinian State
Website of
the Day
Free Nepal
March 30, 2005
Gary Leupp
Curing
Those People of Their Hatred: Condi's Pitch for a "Different
Kind" of Middle East
Ralph Nader
/ Kevin Zeese
Report
on Iraq Intelligence Failure: No One to Blame
Chase Madar
Wolfowitz's Career Move: From Failed Warrior to Humanitarian
Banker
Toni Solo
Bush in Latin America
Jackie Corr
Blessed are the Rich: George Bush's Montana Visit
Ahmad Faruqui
Much Ado About F-16s
Mike Roselle
Refuting Dave Foreman: Days of Whine and Posers
Jude Wanniski
America's Gunboat Diplomacy
Francis A.
Boyle
Why You Should Boo Illinois
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Downwinders
be Damned
Website of
the Day
Help! Nicaraguan Workers Are Being Poisoned
March 29, 2005
Ralph Nader
Is
the End of the Iraq War / Occupation Near?
Gary Leupp
Terri
Schiavo's Death and the Birth of an "Elected" Iraqi
Government
Sonia Cardenas
A
Pandora's Box of Abuses: the Geneva Trap
Stew Albert
Take Back the Life Force!
Mark Weisbrot
Owning Up to the "Ownership Society"
Dave Lindorff
China's Report on Human Rights in US is No Cariacture
Carl G. Estabrook
The
Subversive Commandments
March 28, 2005
Jeremy Scahill
Sgrena
Sets the Record Straight: "There was No Checkpoint; No Self-Defense"
Sonali Kolhatkar
Forgetting
Afghanistan...Again
Sasha Kramer
The
UN's Betrayal of Haiti
Kevin Zeese
Don't Just Blame the Democrats
Tom Stephens
Sacred
Law; Traditional Wisdom: Environmental Justice and Indigenous
Peoples
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
We're Walking Into a Trap
Newton Garver
Reflections on Bolivia
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Bail Out Draft for a Cakewalk War?
Website of the Day
Stumped? Ask a Librarian, 24/7
March 26 /
27, 2005
Gary Leupp
God's
Imperialists
Peter Linebaugh
To Render, to Impeach, to Habeas Corpus
Marc Robert
A European Student's Experience at Columbia University
Laura Carlsen
The Threesome in Crawford: Summit as Traveling Stage Show
Saul Landau
/ Puja Patel
The Price of Privatized "Development"
Dave Foreman
Nature's Crisis
Fred Gardner
Will San Francisco Pander to the Prohibitionists?
Jennifer Matsui
Terri Schiavo: America's Most Desperate Housewife?
Dave Lindorff
Provoking Iran
Dharma Adhikari
The Reversal of Democracy in Nepal
Joshua Frank
The Howard Dean Doctrine
Patrick Barr
Have Box Cutter, Will Travel: a True Story
Christopher
Brauchli
F-16s to Pakistan
Ramzy Baroud
Israel's Record is "Not Reassuring"
Jackie Corr
When the Gov. of Montana Declared Martial Law in Butte
Ben Tripp
Off with Your Appurtenances!
Dr. Susan Block
Break a Taboo for Easter: Springtime for Sex and God
Mickey Z.
How Three Unrelated Books Relate
Justin Taylor
Beware of "Beware of God"
Richard Joseph
Cochabamba!: the Water War in Bolivia
Poets' Basement
Martin, Smith, Ford, Bortz and Albert
March 25, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Horror
and Hope at Red Lake Nation
Yoshie Furuhashi
No Troops; No Wars
Pat Williams
How a Town Got Poisoned: Libby, MT and the Labor Movement
Mark Engler
Remembering
Archbishop Romero: 25 Years After His Assassination
Rahul Mahajan
Culture of Life or Culture of Living Death?
Lance Selfa
Can the Democrats be Moved to the Left?
Ralph Nader
Corporate Cyborg: Cal Nurses Take on Schwarzenegger
John R. Llewellyn
Why Utah's Prosecutors are Soft on Polygamy: a Former Sheriff
Speaks Out
Jo Guldi
Beyond
Belief: Holy Week in France
March 24, 2005
Joshua Frank
The
Selling (Out) of the Antiwar Movement
Talli Nauman
Vicente and George: Security by Any Other Name Would Smell Sweeter
Martin Espada
Why I Refused Coke's Money: a Poet Speaks Out About Colombia
Dave Lindorff
Another Social Security Snow Job
Elaine Cassel
When
Fools Rush In: the Legal Implications of the Schiavo Case
Jack McCarthy
Jeb Bush's Mob: Snatch, Grab, Insert Tube
Jack Random
Juxtaposition: Terri Schiavo and the Red Lake Massacre
Barbara Ferguson
Wolfowitz Dating Muslim Woman and World Bank Employee
Suzan Mazur
Peak Oil: Debate or Vendetta?
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Suffering Red Lake Nation Endures the Worst of Days
Andrew Wimmer
and Mark Chmiel
Torture:
Old Hat or Open Wound?
March 23, 2005
Patrick Bond
A
New War? On Wolfowitz's World Bank
Mike Whitney
Railroading
Moussaoui
Becky White
Why
I Hung from a Bridge to Defend the Wild Forests of the Siskiyou
Mountains
Michael Donnelly
Dissecting the Changeling: How the AuCoin Express Was Really
Derailed
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Remembering
Ram Manohar Lohia: the Che of Non-Violence
Ashley Smith
Bush is What Hypocrisy Looks Like
David Swanson
The More Bush Talks, the Less Popular Privatization Becomes
Derrick O'Keefe
Enter Bono, Stage Right
Paul A. Moore
The Fire This Time: the Bush Bros. Racist Crackdown in Florida
Dalton Walker
My Reservation Will Never Be the Same
Patrick Cockburn
The
US Frees Iraqi Kidnappers to Become Spies
March 22, 2005
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Democracy--or is it the US Military--on the March
Jim Vallette
Cheney's Oil Change at the World Bank
Greg Moses
A Palm Sunday Chat with Sis Levin
John Farley
Bush's Culture of Life: Let the
Insurance Companies Pull the Plug When the Sick Cost Too Much
Ron Jacobs
Halt
the Anniversary Rallies and Stop the Damn War
M. Junaid Alam
How the Democratic Party Fosters Conservatism
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
An
Immoral and Illegal War: Destroying Iraq Isn't Enough for Them
Dave Lindorff
"Saving" Schiavo; Killing the News
James Petras
Fateful
Quadrangle: Cuba and Venezuela Face Off Against the US and Colombia
March 21, 2005
John Walsh
In
the Bars on the Road to Fayettevile: War Support Paper Thin
Werther
The
Legacy of George Kennan, Chief Architect of the Cold War
Mike Stark
Where is the "Culture of Life" in Maryland? Time is
Running Out for Vernon Evans
David Swanson
Feeding
Tubes for the Third World: Put the Hungry into Comas, Then Feed
Them!
James T. Phillips
Happy Meals: Behind the Grill at a Baltimore Diner
Mike Ferner
Serving,
Refusing, Impeaching
Robert Jensen
The World Waits for an Answer
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Threat Greater Than Terrorism
Stew Albert
Vegetable Nation
Website of
the Day
American Press Blotter: Jacko, Terry and Steroids vs. the World
March 19, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Three-Card
Monte and the One-Party State
Tom Reeves
Exposing the Coming Draft: a Draft by Any Other Name is Still
Wrong
Saul Landau
The Grandchildren of Roy Cohn: the Politics of the Repressed
Alan Maass
Making Bankruptcy a Life Sentence
Ron Jacobs
Submit or Else: the Nuclear Demon that Won't Go Awayy
David Green
The Holocaust Industry Comes to the University of Illinois
John Blair
Hey, Dick! I'm Still Free: a Blow for Freedom of Speech in Indiana
Steve Greenfield
The Decline of the Green Party: the Numbers are In
Ben Tripp
Nature isn't Real
Mike Roselle
A History of White People in the Conservation Movement
Joshua Frank
Hope in Red State America: Lessons from the Big Sky Country
Mark Weisbrot
The World Bank: a Bigger Problem Than Wolfowitz
Dave Lindorff
Congress on Steroids
Sarah Schaffer
Lula's Nukes: Bush Bullies Iran, Ignores Brazil's Nuclear Ambitions
Warren Hastings
Why the Queen Should Chop Off Tony Blair's Head for Treason
Poets' Basement
Lodge, Albert. Landau, Engel, Davies, Capaccio
March 18, 2005
Dave Zirin
The
Congressional Urine Testers: Baseball's Theater of the Absurd
Richard Thieme
The
Church Committee Candidate: I was a Victim of the KGB
John Walsh
Misdirecting the Anti-War Movement
David Swanson
Hunger
Striking for a Living Wage at Georgetown
Ben Terrall
In
the Spirit of Rachel Corrie: Confronting Caterpillar in San Leandro
David Boyle
Just Say "No" to Harvard
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Coping with Teen Suicide on the Standing Rock Reservation
Mokhiber /
Weissman
Global Bully Goes to Guatemala
Greg Moses
They
Don't Shoot Donkeys...Do They?
Website of
the Day
800
Protests: Find One Near You
March 17, 2005
Christopher
Brauchli
Rendered
Unto Caesar: the Etymology of Torture
Bill Quigley
The St. Patrick's Four and the Resistance to the War in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Herds: Willing to Kick Anyone in the Face
Gary Bass / Adam Hughes
Inside the Bush Budget: Rhetoric vs. Reality
Dave Lindorff
The Incredible Shrinking Coalition
Jude Wanniski
Wolfowitz at the World Bank: a Perfect Fit
Alexander Billet
Irish Republicanism at the Crossroads
John Ross
Wal-Mart
Invades Mexico
Website of the Day
Campus Resistance
March 16, 2005
Ralph Nader
Filling
the Congressional Cop-Out Gap: an Idea for Local Peace Activists
William Cook
Resurrecting the Neo-Con Failures
Kevin Zeese
Two
Years of Occupation: Both US and Iraq are Worse Off
Jackie Corr
Why is Dick Cheney Laughing? The New Tax Cut Patriotism
Alan Maass
Bush's Class War Budget
David R. Kolker
Jailed Without Charges in Haiti
Cindy Ellen
Hill
Speculative Policing in Northern Ireland
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Has-Been Economy
March 15, 2005
Gary Leupp
The
Plan is Still on Track
Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh!
Greg Moses
The Fix-It Guys and Their Electoral Filters
Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw
Military
Recruiters Target Campus Activists
Alison Weir
Uprising
on the Anniversary of Rachel Corrie's Death
Matt Koehler
A
Line in the Ancient Forest: 50 Arrested in Blockade to Save the
Siskiyous
Evelyn Pringle
Labeling Kids Mentally Ill for Profit
Harry Browne
War
and Peace in Ireland
March 14, 2005
Ralph Nader
Restarting
the Anti-War Movement
David Miller
Ministry
of Defence in the Control Booth: Did the BBC Broadcast Fake News
Reports?
Stan Cox
Look
Deeper, Mr. Moyers
Mike Roselle
Why Women Should Take Over the Environmental Movement
David Swanson
Nursing Against the Odds: the Workers' View
Simona Sharoni
To End the War, Listen to Soldiers
Dave Lindorff
Corporate Surveillance
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Incidents at Standing Rock: Suicide on the Reservation
Tom Barry
John
Bolton's Baggage
Website of the Day
Spinwatch
March 12 /
13, 2005
David H. Price
The
CIA's Campus Spies
Noam Chomsky
The Toothpaste Election
Laura Carlsen
Women's Rights Eroding in Latin America
Stan Goff
On Revolutionary Optimism: the View from Cumberland Co, NC
Valentina Nicoli
The Game of Role-Playing and the Ambush of Giuliana Sgrena
Michael Leonardi
Head Shot: Lifting the Veil on the Sgrena / Calipari Incident
Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson
Blood Money and the Riggs Bank: Pinochet's Bank Finally Pays
Up
Joe Bageant
It Ain't Easy Being White
Manuel García,
Jr.
The Question of American Guilt
Greg Moses
Electoral Lessons from Cuyahoga and Harris Counties
James J. Brittain
Run, Fight or Die in Colombia
Ben Tripp
Communist Watch
Joshua Frank
A Red State Paradox: Montana on the Cusp
Fred Gardner
Pesticides Made Her Sick; Pot Got Her Well
Walter Brasch
Bush's Horse Killers
Ramzy Baroud
Reining in Syria on Behalf of Israel
Christopher
Brauchli
Going All the Way for Usurers
Michael Donnelly
The Humiliation of Les "Timber Toad" AuCoin
Ron Jacobs
ZAP Comics: Still Kicking US Culture in the Ass
Richard Oxman
The Eternal Reciprocity of Tears
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Ford, Louise and Albert
March 11, 2005
Jerry Fresia
Targeting
Giuliana
Ron Jacobs
Making Lebensraum in the Middle East for Tel Aviv's Fears &
Washington's Dollars
Dave Lindorff
America's Magical Kingdom
William James
Martin
Ben Gurion and the Origin of the "Pushing into the Sea"
Myth
Muqtedar Khan
Modi's Operandi: American Business and Genocide Linked Again
Kathryn Ledebur
Bolivia
on the Brink
Mike Whitney
Saddam's Capture: Just Another Bush Lie?
Dave Zirin
Neo-McCarthyism
Slugs Baseball
Website of the Day
William Rivers Pitt, Another Hack for the Occupation
March 10, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
So
Much for the New Bush Economy
John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith
Vermont Vs. the War
Larry Birns
The Pathological John Bolton
Michael Donnelly
The Re-Reinvention of an Oregon Timber Beast
Luis Gomez
In Bolivia, Reality Changes Once Again
Jackie Corr
Whatever Happened to the Social Security Trust Fund?
Uri Avnery
Bush's Guru: Natan Sharansky
Website of the Day
Red Alert in the Siskiyous!
March 9, 2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Dirty
Harry's Fear of Flying: Making Love, War and Profits at Boeing
Ward Churchill
Who's the Terrorist?
Robert Fisk
Another Species of Cedar: a Half Million Lebanese March for Syria
Bernice Powell Jackson
No Justice for America's Nuclear Guinea Pigs in the Marshall
Islands
Mickey Z.
The Revolutionary of Potential Art
Dave Zirin
NHL Says: "Bring On the Scabs!"
Michael Donnelly
Standing Up to Ecocide in Oregon
James Reiss
Stopping by Words in Favor of Privatizing Social Security
Vijay Prashad
Get
Modi: a State Terrorist Visits Florida
March 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Syrian Delusion
Robert Fisk
Lebanon's Nightmare
Kurt Nimmo
War is Peace: John Bolton to the UN
Suzan Mazur
Time for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Polygamy?
Evelyn Pringle
Neil Bush and Crest: Another Profiteering Scheme
Giuliana Sgrena
My
Truth: "The Americans Don't Want You to Return"
Elaine Cassel
The Appalling Case of Abu Ali
March 7, 2005
Dave Zirin
Bloodlust
in Annapolis: Gov. Ehrlich Wants to Kill Vernon Lee Evans
Brian Cloughley
More War Crimes
John Chuckman
The
Creature Walks Among Us
Mike Whitney
Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments
Mark Weisbrot
Haiti's Torment: Why Are US Human Rights Groups Silent?
Fred Gardner
The Cannabinoid Messenger
Richard Neville
The Italian Job
Uri Avnery
The
Next Crusades
March 5 / 6,
2005
Alexander Cockburn
Arnold
vs. the Nurses
Gary Leupp
What's Happening in Lebanon: an Interview with Fadi Agha, Advisor
to President Lahoud
Ron Jacobs
Lies Military Recruiters Tell
Tom Reeves
Haiti: One Year After the Coup
Jenna Orkin
Memories of Kawaggi, Saudi Arabia
Tom Barry
Negroponte: Intel Czar or Policy Hack?
Joshua Frank
The Trials of Max Baucus
Moshe Adler
When Pfizer Came to New London: Corporate Giveways vs. Eminent
Domain
Jane Stillwater
My Jury Questionnaire: "Do You Agree that a Corporation
is a Person?"
Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir
Double Standards on S. Africa and Israel: an Open Letter to UNESCO
Christopher
Brauchli
Target: Al Jazeera
John Pilger
The Fall of Saigon: 30 Years Later
Raúl
Zibechi
Colombia: Militarism and Social Movements
David Krieger
Saving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement
Three Takes
on Nepal
Surendra R. Devkota
Another Blow to the King of Nepal
Bhishma Karki
Nepal in Twilight
Joseph Pietri
Murder at the Palace
Ben Tripp
The Good Old Days
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Chief Running Late, Wuest, Albert and Collins
Website of
the Weekend
O'Shaughnessy's: All About Medical Pot
March 4, 2005
Frederick Hudson
Caught
in a Cage
March 3, 2005
Pat Williams
"Social Security Protects the Young as Much as the Old"
Brian Cloughley
Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions
Dave Lindorff
Why Do the Democrats Pamper Greenspan?
Amira Hass
Oslo All Over Again
Greg Moses
In Oscar Texas: One Down, One to Go?
Lynne Landes
Exit Poll Madness
Nelson P. Valdés
Rapture Takes Leftists
John Ross
Mexico's
Fox Schemes to Jail Front-Running Leftist
March 2, 2005
Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen
The
"Noble Liars" Attack Syria
Mike Roselle
The State of Oregon vs. Mike Roselle: Criminalizing Environmental
Dissent
M. Junaid Alam
Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism
Suzan Mazur
Inside the Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah
Jackson Thoreau
Texas Congressman Calls for "Nuking Syria"
Michael Donnelly
No Love for Teresa Heinz; John Edwards Gets a Pass
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
Website of the Day
The Ghosts of Karl Marx & Ed Abbey
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
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.
|
Weekend Edition
April 2 / 3, 2005
Pot Shots
Cannabis:
the Obvious Green Issue
By
FRED GARDNER
Oakland,
California
The Green Party has a chance to claim
the medical-marijuana issue for itself. With polls showing three
quarters of the American people favoring legalization for medical
use, a cannabis-friendly image would propel the Greens to new
heights of popularity.
San Francisco Supervisor Ross
Mirkarimi, a Green, has been at the center of the action as San
Francisco figures out how to regulate cannabis distribution.
Some 40 clubs are now operating in the city. More than a month
ago, Mirkarimi scheduled a hearing for April 25 to discuss "sensible
regulations. Then, on March 22, Mayor Gavin Newsom asked one
of his favored supervisors, Michela Alioto-Pier, to move for
a 45-day moratorium on new clubs. The Chronicle portrayed Newsom
as being aghast that a cannabis dispensary was planning to open
at a city-funded hotel serving the destitute -and the would-be
proprietor immediately withdrew his application. By nightfall
Newsom's slight hint of retreat had been magnified 100X by Bill
O'Reilly (see next item).
Mirkarimi kept the post position
by calling for the moratorium himself. Alioto-Pier co-sponsored
his motion, which passed unanimously. "It's a little bit
awkward for someone who believes fervently in the decriminalization
of medical marijuana to be calling for a moratorium on dispensaries"
Mirkarimi acknowledged, "but if we don't get want to see
federal intervention, San Francisco has to get its act together."
He was alluding to the fact that whatever the city allows or
creates with respect to medical marijuana, the DEA will be free
to destroy if the Supreme Court rules against patient Diane Monson
(who was growing her own) and Angel Raich and the caregivers
who grew for her. The Raich case ruling could come any day now.
At the public comment session
preceding the vote on the moratorium, proprietors of existing
clubs and their advocates lined up to say they welcomed regulation.
Points made by ordinary citizens: "There wouldn't be all
these clubs if there wasn't a need." And "Bear in mind
that when you tax the clubs it gets passed down to the patients."
About a dozen clubs were racing
to open as the moratorium was imposed, and it's unclear whether
they'll be deterred by the moratorium. A Planning Department
official told Suzanne Herel of the Chronicle, "If they didn't
need to move a wall or something, then technically you wouldn't
need a building permit, and there's no way they're really on
our radar screen at that point."
What happens next in San Francisco
was a major topic of speculation when 450 NORML members convened
in San Francisco Thursday 3/31. Mirkarimi gave a welcoming talk
and was thanked for his support. Optimists are fantasizing about
consumer protection, price controls, organic standards, record
keeping that facilitates medical research, etc. etc. Ethan Nadelmann
of the Drug Policy Alliance said "the whole world will be
watching how San Francisco handles this issue." Kevin Zeese,
a Green who stuck with Ralph Nader in '04 (as his press secretary),
worries that onerous restrictions might be imposed. "This
is a city with 2,000 bars and they're acting as if 37 cannabis
clubs have created a crisis."
Dr. Frank
Treats
Mr. Bill Frank Lucido, MD,
of Berkeley was invited on Friday 3/25 to discuss medical marijuana
on Bill O'Reilly's TV show Monday 3/28. He accepted, and spent
the next few days thinking about the questions he might be asked,
planning his responses, and looking forward to the opportunity
to educate millions of Fox News viewers. Unfortunately, during
the course of the interview, O'Reilly's OCSR (Obsessive-Compulsive
Self-Righteousness) reached clinical proportions, and Lucido
had to calm him down and restore a semblance of normalcy to the
conversation.
O'Reilly is a self-proclaimed
"family-values guy," married with two young children.
Last Fall a female producer named Macris, grossed out by his
come-ons, taped one of his amorous phone calls. She filed only
one court document before Fox News paid her $6 million to not
pursue a civil suit. Their ace demagogue had been caught on tape
proposing to come up behind Miss Macris in the shower and do
something to her with a loofah (a vegetable-fiber sponge). At
some point in the conversation O'Reilly called the loofah a "falafel."
Keith Olbermann on CNBC and Alex Cockburn on CounterPunch.org
made rich sport of the Macris affair, but the rest of the media
cut O'Reilly slack.
While the episode was unfolding
and for about three weeks thereafter, Big Bill's OCSR symptoms,
the uncontrollable sneering and bullying, were muted. But now
it's as if his hypocrisy never had been exposed; he gets worked
up and the OCSR kicks in and the "guest" is lucky to
get a word in edgewise. Here's is an extended excerpt from the
3/28 show:
O'Reilly: ...California's marijuana
law allows people with legitimate pain to purchase pot, but I
think the whole thing is a DODGE, and I've said that. Anyone
can buy marijuana legally in California. So we sent Fox news
producer Chris Spinder to check...
Spinder: We went into three
different cannabis clubs and I attempted to be able to buy the
cannabis without the doctors' recommendation. And all three of
these clubs turned me away without this recommendation. I couldn't
buy the cannabis. However, two of the clubs gave me the business
card of a doctor who they said would be able to give this recommendation.
And I went to make an appointment. It turned out to be a kind
of walk-in clinic. I waited in line for about an hour and a half.
At which point [I got] 15 minutes with the doctor in his office.
Asked me a few general questions. Name and address. And then
he printed out a form letter. And on that form letter it said
that I was now under his care and that he recommends that I...
O'Reilly: What illness...were
you sick, were you like in pain, was, what was going on?
Spinder: We just had a general
discussion about my medical condition.
O'Reilly: Did you have cancer
or glaucoma or any of that? Do you have any of that?
Spinder: I do not.
O'Reilly: WOW! (shaking his
head, smirking with disapproval) So, basically, he didn't even
give you an exam.
Spinder: He did not examine
me at all. No, as a matter of fact...
O'Reilly: No blood test or
anything like that.
Spinder: He sat on the other
side of his desk, behind his laptop computer I sat on the other
side...
O'Reilly: All right, so he
just looks at you and he gave you the uh recommendation as they
call it. How much did that cost?
Spinder: Two hundred and fifty
dollars in cash.
O'Reilly: Wow! Two hundred
and fifty bucks! You walk out, you walk back to the little pot
clinics with this and then they sell you up to eight pounds you
can buy in there, right?
Spinder: Actually, up to eight
ounces according to California law. And most people usually buy
between an eighth and a quarter of an ounce.
O'Reilly: Now what did that
cost?
Spinder: Sixty-five dollars
for an eighth of an ounce.
O'Reilly: So you're in now
for 315 bucks for an eighth of an ounce. That's a lot of money.
But, you did it legally, and you can do it as many times as you
want, they didn't take the recommendation away from you, right?
Spinder: No, there's no expiration
date on this particular recommendation
O'Reilly: So you can buy up
to eight ounces of pot as many times as you want for ad infinitum.
Correct? Spinder: Correct. O'Reilly: All right, thank you,
Chris. (raising his voice) Doctor, come on. DOCTORRRR! COME ONNNNN.
This is legalized DRUG DEALING. Go.
Lucido (after a beat, realizing
that "Go" was his instruction to talk): I don't like
to see poor quality medicine. What this sounds to me is like
the worst stories I've heard about HMOs. You wouldn't believe
how many patients come to me when I require documentation. I
say, "You need to talk to your doctor about your pain,"
they say, "why should I... They're just going to give me
pills... as many Vicodin as I want." I'm not saying this
is good. I'm saying-
O'Reilly: But I'm saying that
this is what it is. It's a ROOOZE. It's a DODGE. Even Gavin Newsom,
the mayor of San Francisco, says IT IS A FRAAWWWWD. It's legalized
marijuana in California. I mean doctor, if you write somebody
one, you examine them, right?
Lucido: I do. I spend 45 minutes
with patients, I require documentation of diagnosis, I require
they have a primary care doctor that they're discussing their
serious illness with every year. My standards are actually onerous
to people who don't have enough money to have a primary care
doctor, or if they don't have faith in the medical system.
O'Reilly: Two-hundred and fifty
BUCKS for this recommendation, that's outrageous.
Lucido: (soothingly) That sounds
excessive.
O'Reilly: You know the guy
didn't do an exam it's two hundred and fifty bucks, he types
your name in, he gives you the thing. This is a SCAM. It's a
CON. Every doctor in California should be outraged. Are you?
Lucido: I don't like this.
It's really bad business practice as well as bad medicine. O'Reilly:
What are you going to do about it, doc? Lucido: I'm going to
talk to the Medical Board, as I always have. And I'm going to
challenge the Medical Board to start looking at the HMOs with
the scrutiny that they're looking at the medical cannabis doctors.
They've investigated 12 of the 20 most outspoken doctors -I was
one of those doctors- and the doctors I know have high standards.
What you're telling me doesn't sound very good, but this is a
minority.
O'Reilly: (bottom line) This
is huge scam. I've got to run doc, but we're going to follow
up on this. It's off the charts a scam.
Funny whose transgressions
get forgiven and forgotten in America. AARP, The Magazine, recently
spiked a story about medical marijuana after it was revealed
that the editor who assigned the story had worked for High
Times in the 1970s! But Bill O'Reilly, who rode to fame flogging
Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, is exposed as a sexual
harasser and manages to ride on... Closer to home, several top
UCSF administrators who helped plan and direct the disastrous,
short-lived merger with Stanford have been named to run California's
multibillion dollar stem-cell research program. Leadership roles
in a multimillion dollar boondoggle were not held against them
one little bit!
PS from
Dr. Anonymous:
While my name wasn't mentioned
on the O'Reilly show last night, I was the doctor in LA who gave
the letter to Fox's "patient." While the Fox producer
didn't mention it on air, our 15-minute consultation talking
"in general about his medical history" was in fact
a discussion of his 12-year history of migraine, worse in the
past three years. We discussed alternative treatment options.
In the end, he said, "God bless it (marijuana)" because
it helps him so much.
If O'Reilly was being honest,
and if the reporter/patient was being honest, they would have
mentioned that the stated complaint was migraine, a serious illness
for which cannabis is obviously indicated.
A Second
Opinion from Tom O'Connell, MD
If Dr. Anonymous were being
completely honest (and ethical), he wouldn't be charging $250.00
for a limited fifteen minute 'conversation' about migraine in
which he obviously accepted the "patient's" claim to
have that condition as a reasonable basis for using pot. At best,
he's running a lucrative business on false pretenses because
he can't have also taken much of a look at the patient's general
health-- let alone his use of a controversial 'illegal' drug.
Quite apart from discussing
the patient's complaint and inquiring routinely about key emotional
symptoms, I also establish when they first tried pot and how
they have used it in the interim because I know that every valid
candidate has a history of (at least) remote prior initiation
and/or recent patterned use.
It's my protection against
'plants' like the one used. If they are able to lie convincingly
about being current pot users, they are also guilty of fraud
and I have little to fear from their "expose."
Fred Gardner can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com
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