inkbluesky

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

from EAST COKER (No. 2 of ‘Four Quartets’) by T.S. Eliot

blue smoke wall 

Forgotten man - Steve Tucker served a 10-year prison sentence for selling light bulbs. Is America’s drug war worth it? 

A year has passed since Steve Tucker made his unheralded return to Atlanta.

His one-bedroom flat, tucked into a sprawling Sandy Springs apartment complex, is furnished sparsely: a recliner, TV, computer and a small, picnic-style table that serves as both dining hutch and desk. The stark white static of the walls is interrupted only by three small, web-like dream catchers tacked to the Sheetrock.

It’s the sort of Spartan minimalism one might expect of someone who, until recently, had to content himself with staring at bare cinderblock.

“Watch out, you’re talking to a notorious ex-con.” Wrapped in a sharp Middle Georgia twang, Tucker’s voice betrays a suppressed smile. The slight, balding, 50-year-old Atlantan is hardly an intimidating figure.

But he’s only half-kidding. Nearly a decade ago, he was sent to prison as a result of a once-infamous federal drug case that sparked national outrage for its rough interpretation of justice.

In the spring of 1994, the Tucker family received lengthy prison sentences — 10 years for Steve, 16 years for his older brother Gary, and 10 years for his brother’s wife, Joanne — without possibility of parole, for the curiously worded federal crime of “conspiracy to manufacture marijuana.”

Yet federal prosecutors never charged them with buying, selling, growing, transporting, smoking or even possessing marijuana. An 18-month DEA investigation had failed to turn up direct evidence connecting the Tuckers to even a single joint.

Instead, they were locked away for selling the lamps, fertilizer and gardening hardware from the small hydroponic supply shop Gary operated on Buford Highway that enabled their customers to grow pot.

In the mid-’90s, the Tucker case became a cause celebre among libertarian activists and other advocates of marijuana legalization. It served as an oft-cited, cautionary example of the runaway powers of the federal government and the worst excesses of the War on Drugs.

There have been several large marijuana busts in the last two days from Florida to Colorado. All reported breathlessly by the librul media. As though society had been saved from the most dreadful threat. Each year these people spend in prison ( large sellers do generally go to prison) will cost taxpayers about 20 thousand dollars a year. Tucker’s story is especially tragic. Life is incredibly short, way too short to spend any of it in prison for selling supplies that god forbid anyone might use to grow cannabis or begonias.

The costs of things, Economist Stiglitz Says Iraq War Costs May Reach $5 Trillion while New Yorkers Get Priced out of Grocery Stores

Over the last six years, researchers report, the number of supermarkets in New York has shrunk by a third. Three of the city’s top food chains — D’Agostino, Gristedes, and Key Food — “have each closed about a dozen stores since 2000.”

Why are New York’s supermarkets shutting down? No one needs to call in the FBI to investigate. Analysts already know the answer. New York is simply becoming too unequal — too economically top-heavy — to sustain the basics of modern American middle class life.

The enormous wealth now concentrated in New York has sent property prices so high that supermarkets can no longer afford to rent their urban spaces.

Original estimates by the Bush administration put the costs of invading Iraq at 60 billion, a 100 billion at most. The population of Iraq in 2003 was about 25 million people. We could have offered the Iraqi people two million dollars each if they would overthrow Saddam and create an even marginally democratic government. In the mean time we could have put every New Yorker in the bottom fifth of the economic ladder through technical school or college. Something of a widespread myth that Conservative know anything about managing money or the value of same.

spring stream 

How to survive a gunshot wound 

While bleeding can be visually distressing it is one of the easist problems to manage since treatment is straight forward. That said, gunshot wounds may not bleed profusely — most of the damage is internal and inherently more serious than typical wounds …(emphasis mine)