Does She or Doesn't She?

Living is easy with eyes closed,
misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
--Strawberry Fields Forever, The Beatles

Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower
Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
--I am the Walrus, The Beatles

There is none so blind
As he who will not see
We must not close our minds
We must let our thoughts be free
--Everything is Beautiful,
Ray Stevens

The man who comes back
through the Door in the Wall
will never be quite the same
as the man who went out
--The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley
________________

This article on the agrarian origins of all things repressive and succor in alcohol led me to the following riffs on a recent post on the two old druggies glad-handing in the White House, command central for the war on drugs (Just say NO!)

Mr. Obama mightn't have fit in with the boys and become the cool cuke we call President had he not found himself while chilling out under the influence. Sir Paul couldn't have done Lucy in the Sky and Sgt. Peppers without benefit of his drug-enhanced breaking through to the other side (though we might've benefited by missing out on Yellow Submarine.) Most pop musicians have probably been one toke over the line at one point or another.

This is not to advocate for drug use. Life is surreal enough sober, and transcendental understandings can come as easily to a sober mind as one under the influence. But one in five of us smoke tobacco cigarettes (American Heart Association), and the Centers for Disease Control say 443,000 people in the U.S. die prematurely from the effects of smoking or secondhand smoke. Add to that the 15,000+/- deaths per year caused by drunk driving, and the reasons for prohibiting "drugs" seem rather feeble.

In a world without drugs, would all music be of the Amy Grant-Urban Christian variety, and all writing be like Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" or Anne Bradstreet's ode to her husband? Or worse, just vapid, like "Eat, Love, Pray"?

Of course, drugs are responsible for a lot of dross in the creative fields, too. Maybe we neither need drugs, nor need to banish them. People want what they want, and they will find a way to obtain that thing, legally or no. They don't always do right, and it is not government's role to shepherd them into the right corral.

It is government's job to stay solvent to provide for necessary services; to provide for the general welfare. To this end, they are not doing well. Perhaps this is one spot where they could staunch the bleeding and turn an "enemy" into a profit-maker.

Just a thought.

Long and Winding Road

--Drugs win war on drugs (The Onion, 1.10.98)

The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands.
And the rest of you, just rattle your jewelry
--John Lennon, Royal Variety Performance

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
--The Long and Winding Road, The Beatles

She goes running for the shelter
of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way,
gets her through her busy day
--Mother's Little Helper, Rolling Stones
__________________

Just a little rumination: Sir Paul McCartney was recently feted at the White House by the President, in this veritable season of fetes, and Mr. Obama presented Sir Paul with the Library of Congress's Gershwin Award.

What occurred to us is the eternal nature of some missions. The U.S. is currently in the midst of The Long War (whatever) in Afghanistan, but still trudges hopefully/hopelessly on in another, even more ephemeral war: The War on Drugs. Began when Mr. McCartney was a wee lad beginning his forays into the world of psychedelics in earnest, then-president Nixon declared it a war in 1971 and thus it has ever been (forever and ever, amen.)

Yet here they were on stage -- in the White House! -- two former users and abusers of the devil's weed and then some (blow, LSD, etc.) We as a nation should not demonize drug dealers and then schmooze with their customers. Like in Afghanistan, where poppies are bad (except when they are good.) Maybe it is just those users South of the border who are problematic.

In a consistent and just universe, users like McCartney and Obama would have ended up in jail. Just as surely as say a Liverpudlian kid or one from Southside Chicago.

But let no one say decorum is entirely dead -- at least they didn't invite Phil Spector.

La Gioconda

If you got bad news,
you wanna kick them blues; cocaine.
When your day is done
and you wanna run; cocaine
--Cocaine, J.J. Cale
_____________

The War on Drugs comes to mind during this campaign, especially considering our last two presidents and our possible next C-in-C (Commander in Coke.)

America has been fighting phony wars as a matter of policy. Any war will do in a pinch. Our prisons are filled with drug offenders, many of them for minor offenses. And we don't like to admit it but since 1992, so has our White House. If Obama is elected, we will be batting a triple-header.

Clinton, of course, didn't swallow. Sorry, I meant inhale. I confused him with Monica for a fleeting moment. George W. Bush by most reckonings was a cocaine user (witness his perpetual smile) and Obama admits to using "blow."

So what have we got, taxpayers and citizens? A multi-billion dollar war on drugs because they are bad-bad-bad. Then we proceed to elect drug users.

Here is Ranger's reckoning: If one is white or 1/2 white, he may use drugs and become President. If one is black and uses drugs, one can become a convict and be denied the right to vote.

This black-and-white view even considers the gray.