Friday, October 12, 2007

Open Thread For those interested, the production of "The Who's Tommy" that I'm musical directing and performing in is going extraordinarily well, with crowds on their feet cheering at each performance. Here's a portion of a review: "Visually stunning and swiftly paced... beautifully costumed, expertly choreographed and technically superior, this production is a theatrical "trip" well worth taking... The live band led by music director Pete Guither rocks the house!" - Pantagraph, October 9. Joshua Levy at techPresident has an interesting post on the rise of video lobbying, as demonstrated by the YouTube video collection of Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana. Certainly, that Romney video had to have hurt him. Howard Woolridge has a new blog entry up about his efforts on the Hill. Always enjoyable. He's also added his post from September 28, which includes this pointed reference to the Congressional Black Caucus: Shake my head: On Friday I attended the annual seminars put on by the Congressional Black Caucus. The issue was gangs, violence and drugs. I listened for hours as 10 experts bemoaned the growth in gangs, their violence and the link to illegal drugs. No one had the courage to say the obvious, so I did: The Drug War is the most immoral, dysfunctional policy since slavery. The black community was first butchered by slavery. Then, they were terrorized by Jim Crow. In the [OE]60s about the time Jim Crow ended, the country began the war on drugs, which took the place of Jim Crow. The growth of gangs and their violence is a direct result of drug prohibition. The policy gives a job option for 15 year olds to sell drugs on the sidewalk, which gets them killed. I hope one day soon the Congressional Black Caucus will pass a resolution calling for the end of the war on drugs. The policy should be: if you have a drug problem, see a doctor, not a prison. The 80 people in the room gave me a nice applause. The experts and members of Congress did not applaud. Later an African-American came up and said mine were the most salient comments made during the entire seminar. At the wine and cheese reception thingy afterwards, another 6 or so said my ideas were spot on. As I rode the Metro back to my pickup truck, I kept racking my brain about how to get my message out so that the leaders and gatekeepers would actually take action. Any ideas? Drug Sense Weekly 2:48:29 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []