Monday, April 26, 2010
junky's christmas (or, more scary heroin art I cannot believe I only just discovered)
yup, a claymation film about heroin. A William Burroughs story in claymation, narrated by William Burroughs and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. (IMDB)
How had I not seen this?
How had I not seen this?
Friday, April 23, 2010
where has this been my whole life? (or google image-search life, anyway.)
The Drug-Takers
"Karen, a drug addict w. nylon stocking around her arm to make vein pop out as she uses hypodermic needle on an eyedropper which addicts call a "spike" to shoot up w. heroin."
Location: New York, NY, US
Date taken: February 1965
Photographer: Bill Eppridge
Thursday, April 8, 2010
dork-a-palooza: art and software
Nathan Sawaya, Lego Sculptor
software
Even as lifehacker struggles for relevance, (can someone explain advantage of calibre over stanza?) they offer the occasional gem.
So far, cloudapp seems quite handy, especially for quickly sharing screenshots and the like.
via 
Last but not least, even though Chrome for mac still needs much improvement, its full screen mode looks great and proves very useful for viewing maps and book previews.
software
Even as lifehacker struggles for relevance, (can someone explain advantage of calibre over stanza?) they offer the occasional gem.
So far, cloudapp seems quite handy, especially for quickly sharing screenshots and the like.
via Last but not least, even though Chrome for mac still needs much improvement, its full screen mode looks great and proves very useful for viewing maps and book previews.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
an uplifting article and an encouraging article
the times runs an almost identical article every few months, but I love it nonetheless:
For the Battle-Scarred, Comfort at Leash’s End
By Janie Lorber
WASHINGTON — Just weeks after Chris Goehner, 25, an Iraq war veteran, got a dog, he was able to cut in half the dose of anxiety and sleep medications he took for post-traumatic stress disorder. The night terrors and suicidal thoughts that kept him awake for days on end ceased.
Aaron Ellis, 29, another Iraq veteran with the stress disorder, scrapped his medications entirely soon after getting a dog — and set foot in a grocery store for the first time in three years.
The dogs to whom they credit their improved health are not just pets. Rather, they are psychiatric service dogs specially trained to help traumatized veterans leave the battlefield behind as they reintegrate into society....
....Under a bill written by Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, veterans with P.T.S.D. will get service dogs as part of a pilot program run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Training a psychiatric service dog and pairing it with a client costs more than $20,000. The government already helps provide dogs to soldiers who lost their sight or were severely wounded in combat, but had never considered placing dogs for emotional damage....
....But when Gloria Gilbert Stoga, who runs Puppies Behind Bars, received an application from Maj. James Becker, she decided, with support from his doctors, to take a chance on a veteran who had just left inpatient care.
Major Becker, 45, suffered two severe brain injuries in separate explosions, earning two Purple Hearts in his three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he came home last winter, his 24-year-old daughter, also an Iraq veteran, was being treated for leukemia.
In Major Becker’s mind, home started to resemble Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. His P.T.S.D. symptoms worsened, and a suicide attempt in July landed him in San Diego Naval Medical Center for seven months. A few weeks after leaving the San Diego hospital, Major Becker flew to New York to collect his dog, Annie, and participate in a two-week training session with Puppies Behind Bars. Still, he said he spent a lot of time alone in his room “because it’s easier to deal with four walls than it is to come out and deal with crowds.”
But within days, Annie was beginning to pull him out of his shell. “She helps me meet people,” he said, describing how people are attracted to the dog.
He added, “I like to think it’s going to get better.
[I had to make sure to include the Al Franken and Puppies behind Bars details, in case your heart requires more than vets' therapy dogs to melt completely.]
(my) City Endorses New Policy for Treatment of H.I.V.
By Sabin Russell
In a major shift of H.I.V. treatment policy, San Francisco public health doctors have begun to advise patients to start taking antiviral medicines as soon as they are found to be infected, rather than waiting — sometimes years — for signs that their immune systems have started to fail.
The new, controversial city guidelines, to be announced next week by the Department of Public Health, may be the most forceful anywhere in their endorsement of early treatment against H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. ....
Dr. Katz said that despite cuts in health budgets, a policy to add to the number of H.I.V. patients taking expensive drugs made economic sense. “H.I.V. medications have been continually proven to be cost effective,” he said, “and in this case, it is also the right thing to do.”....
For the Battle-Scarred, Comfort at Leash’s End
By Janie Lorber
WASHINGTON — Just weeks after Chris Goehner, 25, an Iraq war veteran, got a dog, he was able to cut in half the dose of anxiety and sleep medications he took for post-traumatic stress disorder. The night terrors and suicidal thoughts that kept him awake for days on end ceased.
Aaron Ellis, 29, another Iraq veteran with the stress disorder, scrapped his medications entirely soon after getting a dog — and set foot in a grocery store for the first time in three years.
The dogs to whom they credit their improved health are not just pets. Rather, they are psychiatric service dogs specially trained to help traumatized veterans leave the battlefield behind as they reintegrate into society....
....Under a bill written by Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, veterans with P.T.S.D. will get service dogs as part of a pilot program run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Training a psychiatric service dog and pairing it with a client costs more than $20,000. The government already helps provide dogs to soldiers who lost their sight or were severely wounded in combat, but had never considered placing dogs for emotional damage....
....But when Gloria Gilbert Stoga, who runs Puppies Behind Bars, received an application from Maj. James Becker, she decided, with support from his doctors, to take a chance on a veteran who had just left inpatient care.
Major Becker, 45, suffered two severe brain injuries in separate explosions, earning two Purple Hearts in his three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he came home last winter, his 24-year-old daughter, also an Iraq veteran, was being treated for leukemia.
In Major Becker’s mind, home started to resemble Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. His P.T.S.D. symptoms worsened, and a suicide attempt in July landed him in San Diego Naval Medical Center for seven months. A few weeks after leaving the San Diego hospital, Major Becker flew to New York to collect his dog, Annie, and participate in a two-week training session with Puppies Behind Bars. Still, he said he spent a lot of time alone in his room “because it’s easier to deal with four walls than it is to come out and deal with crowds.”
But within days, Annie was beginning to pull him out of his shell. “She helps me meet people,” he said, describing how people are attracted to the dog.
He added, “I like to think it’s going to get better.
[I had to make sure to include the Al Franken and Puppies behind Bars details, in case your heart requires more than vets' therapy dogs to melt completely.]
(my) City Endorses New Policy for Treatment of H.I.V.
By Sabin Russell
In a major shift of H.I.V. treatment policy, San Francisco public health doctors have begun to advise patients to start taking antiviral medicines as soon as they are found to be infected, rather than waiting — sometimes years — for signs that their immune systems have started to fail.
The new, controversial city guidelines, to be announced next week by the Department of Public Health, may be the most forceful anywhere in their endorsement of early treatment against H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. ....
Dr. Katz said that despite cuts in health budgets, a policy to add to the number of H.I.V. patients taking expensive drugs made economic sense. “H.I.V. medications have been continually proven to be cost effective,” he said, “and in this case, it is also the right thing to do.”....
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
another possibility in my quest for convenient ways to send text messages from my computer
I think I am pretty hooked on google voice for computer texting. I am nonetheless pleased to see that other options have improved. Google talk in gmail has had sms capability for a while, but since it incorporates all of the messiness of google contacts, I never liked it very much. The newer version works more simply; you have the option of entering the number you want to text without having dig through hundreds of gmail contacts.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
charging the drug buddy: this increasingly popular approach cannot possibly help
if you use drugs with someone who overdoses, you get charged with homicide or manslaughter. The 112 government bodies who failed to keep drugs out of the country, to make drug treatment a viable option, or make naloxone readily available?
Rock County teen sentenced in overdose death
A 14-year-old Edgerton girl accused in the drug overdose death of a 13-year-old boy has been sentenced to state custody for the next five years. ....
Man goes to prison in girlfriend's fatal overdose
By Christy Gutowski
....Brett M. Johnson was sentenced to four years in prison for supplying his girlfriend, Jill Przespolewski, with heroin last year in his grandmother's home on the 900 block of Columbia Court in Carol Stream.
Johnson called 911 at 7 a.m. March 25, 2009, after he awoke and found the 33-year-old Clarendon Hills woman unresponsive. Police said Johnson admitted repeatedly driving into Chicago to buy heroin and crack cocaine for them during a two- to three-day binge. He said his girlfriend only snorted heroin when with him. ....
Rock County teen sentenced in overdose death
A 14-year-old Edgerton girl accused in the drug overdose death of a 13-year-old boy has been sentenced to state custody for the next five years. ....
Man goes to prison in girlfriend's fatal overdose
By Christy Gutowski
....Brett M. Johnson was sentenced to four years in prison for supplying his girlfriend, Jill Przespolewski, with heroin last year in his grandmother's home on the 900 block of Columbia Court in Carol Stream.
Johnson called 911 at 7 a.m. March 25, 2009, after he awoke and found the 33-year-old Clarendon Hills woman unresponsive. Police said Johnson admitted repeatedly driving into Chicago to buy heroin and crack cocaine for them during a two- to three-day binge. He said his girlfriend only snorted heroin when with him. ....
Sunday, March 21, 2010
foolish fourteen year olds...
may be the ones to convince mainstream America that laws require nuance.
Your half-naked teenager may help illuminate the drastically disparate realities underneath superficially similar acts.
Rethinking Sex Offender Laws for Youth Texting
By Tamar Lewin
....In most states, teenagers who send or receive sexually explicit photographs by cellphone or computer — known as “sexting” — have risked felony child pornography charges and being listed on a sex offender registry for decades to come.
But there is growing consensus among lawyers and legislators that the child pornography laws are too blunt an instrument to deal with an adolescent cyberculture in which all kinds of sexual pictures circulate on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, Nebraska, Utah and Vermont changed their laws to reduce penalties for teenagers who engage in such activities, and this year, according to the National Council on State Legislatures, 14 more states are considering legislation that would treat young people who engage in sexting differently from adult pornographers and sexual predators.....
Your half-naked teenager may help illuminate the drastically disparate realities underneath superficially similar acts.
Rethinking Sex Offender Laws for Youth Texting
By Tamar Lewin
....In most states, teenagers who send or receive sexually explicit photographs by cellphone or computer — known as “sexting” — have risked felony child pornography charges and being listed on a sex offender registry for decades to come.
But there is growing consensus among lawyers and legislators that the child pornography laws are too blunt an instrument to deal with an adolescent cyberculture in which all kinds of sexual pictures circulate on sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, Nebraska, Utah and Vermont changed their laws to reduce penalties for teenagers who engage in such activities, and this year, according to the National Council on State Legislatures, 14 more states are considering legislation that would treat young people who engage in sexting differently from adult pornographers and sexual predators.....
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