ZK2A:

You mean , blak people were slave owners, too?

And white people were slaves as well?
Noooo!

They are trying to ban ciggies, but open slather for hard drugs.

It is anti working class & anti underclass. Look at how much ciggies are taxed.

Don’t forget vaping is treated as equally worse as ciggies, despite being many times more safe.

It’s a strange time to be alive. Remember what Bill Hicks said about drugs? The legal ones (caffeine and nicotine) help you be productive Mon to Fri and alcohol makes you dumb in your free time on the weekends. The ones that change your perspective or get you zonked without the lethargy of alcohol are illegal.

Dot
Aug 28, 2023 10:08 PM
They are trying to ban ciggies, but open slather for hard drugs.

It is anti working class & anti underclass. Look at how much ciggies are taxed.

Don’t forget vaping is treated as equally worse as ciggies, despite being many times more safe.

It’s a strange time to be alive. Remember what Bill Hicks said about drugs? The legal ones (caffeine and nicotine) help you be productive Mon to Fri and alcohol makes you dumb in your free time on the weekends. The ones that change your perspective or get you zonked without the lethargy of alcohol are illegal.

He must have read the same study I did. In the 60’s a sociological study of cannabis users found that while they aren’t personally alienated they are alienated from the prevailing morals of the day. His comments also accord with the huge government response against Timothy Leary. Admittedly Leary, while very intelligent, was being very stupid about LlSD. A friend of mine who was a neuropsych in NY at the time said the professional community was furious with him because at the time psychedelics were being explored as mental health treatments. It is now recognized that psychedelics can, with a single dose, provide huge benefits, a vast improvement over the need to continually take drugs. The latest antidepressant drug, ketamine, is one example of that but I warned people of its potential long term dangers and now it is being recognised that chronic ketamine use impairs memory. Well, der, what did they expect from an NMDA antagonist? Conversely, LSD and psilocybin have very high affinity for a critical brain growth factor so their potential goes way beyond depression. The recent analysis, focusing on the binding power of that receptor, points to a new therapeutic strategy that avoids the hallucination problem. However, coming back to your point that drugs can changes people’s perspective, both of those drugs have demonstrated, just like near death experiments, to profoundly alter a person’s philosophy.

It seems Grant’s meltdown and walk-out from the ABC (three days later) may have been a PR smoke bomb.

Farter time.

I’ll be laughing all night.

Naughty Stanley:

ABC management investigated a public bullying incident involving Indigenous presenter Stan Grant and a senior ABC colleague, which occurred in the foyer of the broadcaster’s Ultimo headquarters in full view of witnesses.

At the time, Grant was hosting two ABC TV programs, China Tonight and Q+A. The incident took place in late January, the same day political discussion show Q+A was due to return for 2023.

Oz

Hmm, as they say something’s gone wrong’

Try again

We are finishing a pleasant stay on Hydra tomorrow morning. Recommended if you’re looking for something different in Greece.

The island is peaceful – unbelievably quiet. Roosters crow in the morning, donkeys/mules pad by, voices of neighbours, bells tolling, virtually no dogs barking, AND no traffic noise. No cars or bikes on the island at all – has a few small garbage trucks. Water taxis operate and there are some push carts.

Very steep, stone steps everywhere, no grass, one park. Temperatures above 35. The town is set around the bay and on the slopes. 1 ¾ hrs from Athens by fast catamaran, it used to be a fishing port. There are thousands of cats lying around; most look in reasonable condition. Beautiful clear cool Mediterranean sea-waters which we swam in. Very busy with many tourists. Lots of flower or herb pots, but few gardens as soil poor.

Our accommodation is under a house in a small unit with stone walls and wooden ceilings. We dined out at a 200yr old restaurant which Leonard Cohen use to frequent – he had a house here, and when he died a few years ago a memorial bench was installed on a clifftop by his fans. Lots of other “superstars” have frequented here. Boy on a Dolphin (Sophia Loren) was filmed here. Old windmills and very busy port. Greek Orthodox faith important – their churches are chock full of icons, chandeliers, gold, candles, wall hangings, statues etc. Today must have been commercial delivery day, there were pallets everywhere. Builders use a mechanised cart system on rails to shift building materials up the slopes. The symbol of the Hydra is brought to life along the bay in a huge rotating animated statue.

A ship of the Hellenic (Greek) Navy was in town to help celebrates the Greek Orthodox Church Feast Day of Agios Fanourios, commemorating the martyr and miracle worker who is asked to intercede when things are lost. A bit of a parade and band in the main area of the waterfront.

The ship was the Ypoploiarchos Tournas. Formerly the Leopard of the German Navy, she was commissioned in August 1973 – so now very old for a warship – and transferred to the Greek forces in 2000. Said to be decommissioned in 2011, she looks to have had a new lease of life, and was carrying two quad missile packs, as well as modern automatic guns.

The harbour was once defended by both a floating gate and a net, looking by the remains of chains and so on still attached to rocks.

Back to Athens tomorrow by fast ferry.

You can trust Pravda.

LOL

Today a mother, her husband and her two teenage sons are coming to ours for lunch.

I used to look after her very regularly when she was a child in primary school and down from Queensland on access visits to her dad (an ex-Cambridge mate of Hairy’s who had some lunatic moments lasting weeks where he couldn’t cope with a child). She’s now nearly fifty! She married a well-off man from Portland, which is woke central, in the USA. I haven’t seen her now for nearly thirty years though she’s kept contact with my kids on Facebook, and we exchange Christmas cards, where she does that American thing of having family photos on the front. I think old ‘familial’ ties may have to supersede political correction during this brief visit. Given our past closeness, there will be much about life in general to discuss, however Hairy and I won’t hesitate to say we very much like the Trump mugshot and hope he gets in and leave it at that.

Lizzie – your boring reminscences do not increase with interest by volume.

I waded through the last lot, and thought ‘so what’?

It is like going to a slide night in the 1950s. Lots of images of the proponents, interspersed with landmarks. Status symbols 101.

If this site is going to have to endure your equivalent of slide nights and holiday snaps (with moi as the centrepiece) until you drop off the twig, what we need is a scrolling app.