Little Blue Pieces of Getting Things Done

A NYT article detailing the use of stimulants in high school to enhance academic performance.  The problem of course is that they actually work.  What are the long term consequences?  Where’s the line between use and abuse?  And who really thinks it stops after the SAT and AP tests?  I wonder whether takes more than coffee to pull 80-100 hour weeks trying to make partner in the corporate litigation firms of lower Manhattan.

Obama DOJ Leaves Medical Marijuana Patients Sick and Suffering

Obama DOJ Leaves Medical Marijuana Patients Sick and Suffering.  So apparently the Obama DOJ is now going to pursue marijuana producers, even if they are in compliance with state regulations.  This is a reversal of the administration’s previous position, and it’s absurd.  People are going to use weed.  Nobody takes the “reefer madness” BS seriously, and it’s been illegal for close to 100 years, and usage has only increased.  You can either have it produced by tax paying, locally owned small businesses, or you can funnel a lot of that cash to drug cartels in Mexico and the domestic tax-exempt boutique black marketeers.

Links for the week of June 11th, 2010

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Links for the week of June 4th, 2010

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Links for the week of May 29th, 2010

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Continue reading Links for the week of May 29th, 2010

We need more bicycles, less Zoloftâ„¢

I’m an emphatically utilitarian cyclist.  My bike is my only ride.  It is my way of going.  It is point A to point B with a pile of stuff.  But that’s not all it is, and sometimes I forget.

I started biking 20 years ago when I was 14 and living in Japan as an exchange student.  It was how everyone got to school.  Every morning was a flood of blue wool uniforms on classic bikes going clickety-click and ding-ding.  Baskets, fenders, and not much in the way of gears.  So it was utilitarian there too, but I also used my bike as an anti-depressant.  I didn’t speak Japanese when I got there.  My family didn’t speak English.  All the other students were always busy with homework.  I was lonely to the point of tears.  Sometimes I’d ride around after school until dark.  Sometimes beyond dark, in the rain and the wind.  I discovered fireflies in a peace park one night.  I let a typhoon blow me across the plain.  I climbed hills and had crashes.  It was a kind of love affair, it was something I could feel unabashedly good about, even if my host family thought I was crazy for staying out and getting drenched.  It was deep rhythmic breathing and endorphins.  It was still lonely, but at least I was focused.  I felt free.  When I came back to the US, I traded the circuitous hour and a half long school bus ride for an additional seventy nine minutes of sleep and an eleven minute bike ride each morning.

Continue reading We need more bicycles, less Zoloftâ„¢