Like fawns and shapeshifters

Inside a boy
I found the universe
And in his eyes are a thousand stars
On a dark sky
Ooooh
Ooooh

We are clouds, we are whispers
Like fawns and shapeshifters
Our ages can never be found out
Our edges keep moving farther on

We are stars colliding,
though we crash like lightning
into love. Love.
In his arms, I'm alive.
From his kiss, I'm falling into love.

We are stars colliding,
though we crash like lightning
into love. Love

Ray-fishing at Lagoon West

The beach fatigue from which I suffered numbed the senses insidiously, blunting despair and hope alike.

J G Ballard. Studio 5, The Stars (1961)

Vermilion Sands

Most of us were suffering from various degrees of beach fatigue, that chronic malaise which exiles the victim to a limbo of endless sunbathing, dark glasses and afternoon terraces.

JG Ballard - Studio 5, The Stars (1961)

Wild and Inspirational

Popularism

The Buddha said his path to awakening was one of rebellion – a subversive path that is against greed, against hatred, and against delusion. It is a path of radical, engaged transformation, a path of finding freedom and spending the rest of our lives giving it away. It is a path that goes Against the Stream.

We need to have courage to go 'against the stream'. Courage to sit, to look deeply and understand how Universe works, our place within Universe. Buddha teaches...

Who will comprehend this earth,
the world of Yama, and the gods?
Who will discern the well-taught Dhamma
as one who’s skilled selects a flower.

One Trained will comprehend this earth,
the world of Yama, and the gods,
One Trained discern the well-taught Dhamma
as one who’s skilled selects a flower.

There is often lively debate (and little agreement) amongst Buddhists with regards to drugs. I would prefer that prohibition was removed. That being unlikely, I at least hope that our legislators would engage in a mature debate based upon evidence rather than dogma.

This is unfortunately not the case.

Cannabis evidence 'was devalued'

The row over the reclassification of cannabis has been reignited after the government's chief drug adviser accused ministers of "devaluing" the evidence.

Professor David Nutt, who heads the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, says it does not cause major health problems.

He accused ex-home secretary Jacqui Smith, who reclassified the drug, of "devaluing" scientific research.

The Home Office said these opinions "do not reflect the views of government".

A spokesman said: "Prof Nutt's views are his own."

He added: "The government is clear: we are determined to crack down on all illegal substances and minimise their harm to health and society as a whole."

It comes after Prof Nutt used a lecture at King's College in London and briefing paper to attack what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from other, illegal, drugs.

Precautionary measure

The professor said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness, and claimed those who advocated moving ecstasy into Class B from Class A had "won the intellectual argument".

Public concern over the links between high-strength cannabis, known as skunk, and mental illness led the government to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C last year.

The decision was taken despite official advisers recommending against the change.

Ministers said they wanted to make the move as a precautionary measure.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) review of cannabis classification, which was ordered in 2007, was the result of a "skunk scare", according to the professor.

In his lecture and briefing paper, entitled Estimating Drug Harms: A Risky Business?, he repeated his claim that the risks of taking ecstasy are no worse than riding a horse.

Prof Nutt also warned that the reclassification decision may lead to more people taking the drug.

"It may be that if you move a drug up a class it has a greater cachet", he said, adding the government's approach "starts to distort the value of evidence".

“ If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you are probably wrong ”
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

He cited research which "estimates that, to prevent one episode of schizophrenia, we would need to stop about 5,000 men aged 20 to 25 years from ever using the drug".

He said skunk has been in wide usage for about 10 years but, he claims, there has been no upswing in schizophrenia.

The professor accepts cannabis can sometimes cause mental illness, but argues it is safer than tobacco and alcohol and, overall, does not lead to major health problems.

Prof Nutt said: "We have to accept young people like to experiment - with drugs and other potentially harmful activities - and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives.

"We therefore have to provide more accurate and credible information. If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you are probably wrong."

Following these comments, a spokesman for the ACMD said: "The lecture Prof Nutt gave at King's College was in his academic capacity and was not in his role as chair of the ACMD.

"We acknowledge that the lecture has prompted further debate on the harms of drugs."

Fear is the mind killer

Scary, Big Brotheresque video from the US. But it couldn't happen in Britain...wrong!

Doth I protest too much?

When police admit you could be put on a secret database for being at a demo, it's time to worry

• 
• • Mark Thomas
  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 October 2009 20.30 GMT

I was sent the now notorious "police spotter card" through the post. It's an official laminated card for "police eyes only" and labelled as coming from "CO11 Public Order Intelligence Unit". The card contained the photographs of 24 anti-arms trade protesters, unnamed but lettered A to X. My picture appeared as photo H. You can imagine my reaction at finding I was the subject of a secret police surveillance process … I was delighted. I phoned my agent and told him I was suspect H. He replied: "Next year we'll get you top billing … suspect A."

The Metropolitan police circulated the card specifically for the Docklands biannual arms fair in London to help its officers identify "people at specific events who may instigate offences or disorder". Which is such a flattering quote I am thinking of having it on my next tour poster. While being wanted outside the arms fair, I was legitimately inside researching a book on the subject, and uncovered four companies illegally promoting "banned" torture equipment. Questions were later asked in the Commons as to why HM Revenue & Customs and the police didn't spot it. Though, in fairness, none of the torture traders featured on the spotter card.

What exactly was I doing that was so awfully wrong as to merit this attention? Today's Guardian revelations of three secret police units goes some way to explain the targeting of protesters and raises worrying questions. The job of these units is to spy on protesters, and collate and circulate information about them. Protesters – or, as the police call them, "domestic extremists" – are the new "reds under the bed".

Many of those targeted by the police have committed no crime and are guilty only of non-violent direct action. So it is worth reminding ourselves that protest is legal. Sorry if this sounds obvious, but you might have gained the impression that if three police units are spying on and targeting thousands, then those people must be up to something illegal.

The very phrase "domestic extremist" defines protesters in the eyes of the police as the problem, the enemy. Spying on entire groups and organisations, and targeting the innocent, undermines not only our rights but the law – frightfully silly of me to drag this into an argument about policing, I know.

Protest is part of the democratic process. It wasn't the goodwill of politicians that led them to cancel developing countries' debt, but the protests and campaigning of millions of ordinary people around the world. The political leaders were merely the rubber stamp in the democratic process. Thus any targeting and treatment of demonstrators (at the G20 for example) that creates a "chilling effect" – deterring those who may wish to exercise their right to protest – is profoundly undemocratic.

No police, secret or otherwise, should operate without proper accountability. So how are these three units accountable? Who has access to the databases? How long does information remain in the system? What effect could it have on travel and future employment of those targeted? How closely do these units work with corporate private investigators, and does the flow of information go both ways? Do the police target strikers?

A police spokesman has said that anyone who finds themselves on a database "should not worry at all". When a spokesman for the three secret units will not disclose a breakdown of their budgets, and two of the three will not even name who heads their operations (even MI6 gave us an initial, for God's sake), then the words "should not worry at all" are meaningless. Indeed, when the police admit that someone could end up on a secret police database merely for attending a demonstration, it is exactly the time to worry.

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” - Thomas Jefferson

Io Cthulhu!