donderdag, oktober 02, 2003

The Marajuana Tax Act, signed August 2, 1937 in the United States, notes that there are 100,000 total marajuana smokers in the US and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their "Satanic" music, jazz and swing, result from marajuana usage.

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For those of you who demanded it incessantly: Asterix, Découvrez leurs différentes pages consacrées à l'univers d'Astérix.

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On the other hand:

"American 'energy'... is the energy of violence, of free-floating resentment and anxiety unleashed by chronic cultural dislocations which must be, for the most part, ferociously sublimated. This energy has mainly been sublimated into crude materialism and acquisitiveness. Into hectic philanthropy. Into benighted moral crusades, the most spectacular of which was Prohibition. Into an awesome talent for uglifying countryside and cities. Into the loquacity and torment of a minority of gadflies: artists, prophets, muckrakers, cranks, and nuts. And into self-punishing neuroses. But the naked violence keeps breaking through, throwing everything into question.

from Susan Sontag, Styles of Radical Will

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Poem of the Day:

Form Rejection Letter

We are sorry we cannot use the enclosed.
We are returning it to you.
We do not mean to imply anything by this.
We would prefer not to be pinned down about this matter.
But we are not keeping--cannot, will not keep--
what you sent us.
We did receive it, though, and our returning it to you
is a sign of that.
It was not that we minded your sending it to us
unasked.
That is happening all the time, they
come when we least expect them,
when we forget we have needed or might yet need them,
and we send them back.
We send this back.
It is not that we minded.
At another time, there is no telling...
But this time, it does not suit our present needs.

We wish to make it clear it was not easy receiving it.
It came so encumbered.
And we are busy here.
We did not feel
we could take it on.
We know it would not have ended there.
It would have led to this, and that.
We know about these things.
It is why we are here.
We wait for it. We recognize it when it comes.
Regretfully, this form letter does not allow us to elaborate
why we send it back.
It is not that we minded.

We hope this does not discourage you. But we would not
want to encourage you falsely.
It requires delicate handling, at this end.
If we had offered it to you,
perhaps you would understand.
But, of course, we did not.
You cannot know what your offering it
meant to us,
And we cannot tell you:
There is a form we must adhere to.
It is better for everyone that we use this form.

As to what you do in future,
we hope we have given you signs,
that you have read them,
that you have not mis-read them.
We wish we could be more helpful.
But we are busy.
We are busy returning so much.
We cannot keep it.
It all comes so encumbered.
And there is no one here to help.
Our enterprise is a small one.
We are thinking of expanding.
We hope you will send something.

--Philip Dacey. *How I Escaped from the Labyrinth*. Carnegie-Mellon UP,
1977.

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