I've read in many places that the best way to combat writer's block is to keep writing, wherever that may be. So that's what I'm doing, while I should be writing the paper I need to write. (I'm not procrastinating again. The new layout has nothing to do with that. I swear.)
It has been brought to my attention through the wonders of Google that someone has been running about on the internets using my name. It's highly unlikely that they'll ever stumble on my little corner here, but I'd still like to take this time to tell them to sod off, it's mine, dammit. You may have seen it on Kabbalarians or some other name site and thought it was "cool," but I put it there in the first place in a youthfully misguided attempt to get a "name reading." I know there's nothing wrong really with stealing it, but it's still irritating. I highly doubt that that is your actual name, and I enjoy being unique. Thank you.
On another note, all Wednesday night I had a succession of several very vivid and bizarre dreams involving zombies, blizzards, lesbians, advanced muscular dystrophy, and being shot in the neck, among other things. I've decided that they were likely due to the death of someone a floor below me, and the subsequent crime scene investigation that was taking place while I slept. I'd seen him around before, but didn't realize who he was exactly until I looked him up on Facebook (there's that technology again). It turns out he died accidentally hanging himself trying to get an oxygen-loss rush via choking. I guess this is some sort of bizarro trend. They call it "pass-out", or "the choking game", or some equally silly fabricated title.
You see folks, this is what happens when we stigmatize rather than educate about drugs, or about anything. I'm watching this new generation of students soming in, and the majority of them are "good kids." Probably a little too good. Most of them are sheep to the worst degree, symptomatic of the propaganda of all sorts that has been spoon-fed to them from the first moment mom and dad plopped them in front of the TV set. Most of them wouldn't dream of doing drugs, or of being openly promiscuous, or even of smoking. Why? We have things like the D.A.R.E. program and bizarre "Anti-drug" commercials and the Truth campaign and abstinence education. All of these things seemed well-meant at the time. But no one really took into consideration what the long-term effects might be of anything. People are going to have sex. And people are going to search for ways to alter their perceptions of reality when they get tired of the mundane one they're living in.
So what do we have now? Increased teen pregnancy in a lot of areas, for one. And if SD gets its way, no safe way to keep kids from ruining their lives either. Kids are taught to abstain, which doesn't work as there'll always be one more sexually experienced "cool" kid that all the other kids want to be like. So they go about fucking, oblivious to how reproduction and disease actually works. They shouldn't have to shock you about STDs and pregnancy in college. People should already know.
We also have bizarro anti-smoking regulations popping up everywhere based on lies. We all know that cigarette smoke contains carcinogens, and smoking is bad. But secondhand smoke? Most of the research that says that secondhand smoke causes cancer is based on an EPA study that was thrown out in court for making a priori judgements, among other things. Yes, some people are allergic to it. The rest of you, fuck off. The air you breathe outside is worse. This is a personal issue of mine.
And as for the drugs? It's so ingrained that "doing drugs will ruin your life," and that even relatively harmless and inexpensive drugs like marijuana are "gateways," that people stay away from them out of terror. Which is a good thing, right? Yet when kids hear about something new that's legal, doesn't require chemicals and is undetectable, and will give you a "high," they automatically want to try it out to see what all the fuss is about. To try to see the world a little differently.
So now we've got problems like huffing (which is also very dumb, but is also becoming stigmatized as a gateway) and choking. It seems inevitable that people will want to seek out new experiences. Now, though, they're going to only try the ones that they haven't been terrified away from. Those are proving to be more idiotic than the ones that have been made illegal. What'll we have next, anti-choking commercials and kids killing themselves trying to get high with water?
It really wasn't that kid's fault that he choked himself to death. He was just looking for something different, and was likely scared away from anything else at an early age. I feel sorry for his friends and family. This is your brain on propaganda and terrorism. This is your brain on a new and growing fear culture.
That said, please don't go choke yourselves. I'm short and probably won't be able to reach you to cut you down.
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