But some in the field point out that many if not most addicts successfully recover without professional help. A survey by Gene Heyman, a research psychologist at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, found that between 60 to 80 percent of people who were addicted in their teens and 20s were substance-free by their 30s, and they avoided addiction in subsequent decades. Other studies on Vietnam War veterans suggest that the majority of soldiers who became addicted to narcotics overseas later stopped using them without therapy.

Further detail at "Ask The Experts" in Scientific American

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addiction - Scientific American

Rosemary Clooney didn't look like the babe in "White Christmas" any more, and I'm not sure how many people would have recognized her, or her name, when she did the ads for "Quilted Northern" toilet paper in the 1980s. They didn't put her name on the screen. If they hired her as a celebrity endorser, the folks at Northern certainly wasted their money.

On the other hand, if they hired her because she did the ads well, they did well. She spoke about how expensive toilet paper was, and how it seemed to get used up in no time at all. Meanwhile, the the background, there was a steady stream of neighborhood kids going past, apparently on the way to use her bathroom. Finally, there was a dog in line, and she yelled something at the dog, something like, "Hey, you!", because she didn't want to be buying toilet paper for the dogs in the neighborhood as well.

An Animated Discussion

That ad came along shortly after I had an animated discussion with my wife, Em, about household economics. I would turn off the lights in rooms with nobody in them. She wanted the lights on in the dining room, because she was bringing stuff from the kitchen, typically with both hands, through the swinging door. She didn't have a hand free to turn the lights back on - although at 5 PM, you didn't really need the lights on in the dining room to see what you were doing.

It'd have been been merely an animated discussion had her mother, Mephistopheles, butted out. She heard me snap the light switch off in the dining room and leaned into the swinging door with one shoulder and slugged me with her fist. I told her to get her Christian ass out of the house before I count "10" or I would call 911 and complain of battery. And if that didn't set off the fireworks, I can't imagine what would have.

Originally published in the March 1949 issue of Spotlight, the member magazine of Paulding-Putnam Electric Cooperative.

The land of the old Black Swamp is as flat as a checkerboard, so despite a large number of big ditches - typically 6 feet wide and 6 feet deep - there are vast sheets of standing water after even the slightest rain. It turns the clayey soil into an adhesive muck.

With all the returning soldiers buying farms, farm prices had risen - an 80 acre farm went for $5000 - and yet their industry led to surpluses, and low commodity prices, leading many veterans to lose their farms.

Harriet Housewife Writes:

Did that high water get pretty bad around your place? It wasn't as bad for us as long as we stayed home and didn't try to go to town or anywhere. Naturally, we picked the time to run out of flour, coffee, butter and sugar.

It was worse on the kids, though. The school basement was flooded, and they felt so bad because there was no school. Probably they'd have felt worse if I had caught them when they tried to float their wagon in the big ditch. They waited two days to tell me about that.

It was too wet to run around so we spent our time driving around looking at some of the farms advertised for sale. The present owners showed us every thing on the place but the gold mine. One muddy day, we looked at a farm, and as we got into the car, we decided that we were carrying away $27.00 worth of mud on our feet. If a fellow owned a place like that, he'd want to erect a high-board fence around the farm to keep the wind or thieves from carrying it away. I guess we'll have to wit over that depression and then buy the place from the guy who bought it this year and can't keep up with the payments.

Then again, we might take the offer in the Toledo paper. There is a farm advertised for $425 an acre. We could afford a square foot of that one.

I hope there aren't any sales on the day of the Paulding-Putnam Annual Meeting. I want to go to the meeting to hear about the excuse they have to offer about the mistake on the new building.

Have you driven past it recently? If you haven't seen it, you better make a point of driving past it before you go to the meeting. Then we can all join together and demand a correction. In case you don't see the mistake at once, I will tell you it is on the north side of the building.

The man who built that big door on the north side of the building must have been inside and not realized how far he was from the ground. You know what that will mean. One of these days, someone will drive out that door and get hurt. My husband tried to excuse it by saying it was a loading platform or something, but I know they don't load electricity into trucks and haul it.

You be sure to notice that. At the meeting, we'll make them promise to board up the door, and build one on the ground. Probably the reason they were so slow getting started was that they were sitting around trying to think of some such silly thing to do. We don't want our trucks banged up and the workers in the hospital, do we?

Harriet Housewife

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Black Swamp - farm prices - loading dock - Ohio - Paulding-Putnam Electric - rain - rural life

Failure is not an option is a stupid idea.

Normally, that is. I'll make an exception for Gene Krantz during Apollo 13.

The only way to avoid failing is to not play the game.

In the case of Apollo 13, failure meant death of one or more people. The only option worse than that was to lose four or more people on the ground. Either they saved the guys' lives, or they didn't.

When Your Boss Says It

When your boss says that you need to meet a sales quota, though, and specifies that failure is not an option, what does he mean? Maybe you're going to lose your job. There are worse things. Maybe the company is going to fail. There are worse options. You don't want to commit a felony if that's what it takes to meet the sales quota. Screw your boss.

If you're trying to achieve something outstanding, instead of being mediocre, your challenge needs to be dare to be great, even at the risk of failure.

I've been fired before. Pissed me off at the time, but what it did was remove me from a job I really wasn't well-suited for, and I ended up in a job I was a lot happier at. Talking with other people who've been fired, I find that's the usual circumstance. Dare to be great. Failure should almost always be an option.

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Apollo 13 - failure - fired - Gene Kranz - greatness - NASA - options - risk

In 1998, right after being graduated from high school, Jason Pepper lost his brother in a car accident. He attempted suicide. In 2002, his mother died of colon cancer, and Jason was virtually homeless. His relationship with his father was strained, and he was receiving no treatment for his depression or for his addictions. In 2003, he was arrested for distributing methamphetamine.

He cooperated with law enforcement, and was very helpful to them. Jason was a good student in high school - his grade average was 3.4 - and had never been in trouble before so what would otherwise have been a 10 year sentence was eligible for a substantial reduction. The federal sentencing guidelines was 97 to 121 months. Judge Mark Bennett would ordinarily have sent Pepper to boot camp at Lewisburg, PA, but Pepper wanted in a drug program, so Bennett sent him to Yankton SD, which mandated at least a 24 month sentence.

An Unappealing Appeal

The prosecution appealed, arguing that the sentence violated the guidelines. By the time the resentencing occurred, Pepper had already been released for months. The judge took a look at the same factors, plus the fact that he was now in college, earning all As, that he had reconciled with his father, and had a letter from the Dean commending him. Judge Bennett proclaimed Pepper "exceptional", and gave him the same 24 month sentence he had originally been sentenced to.

Again, the prosecution appealed the sentence, and this time, the appeals court demanded that a different judge do the resentencing. Judge Linda Reade ignored the fact that, by this time, Pepper had finished college, was a night supervisor at Sam's Club, had married and gained a 7-year-old who considered him her father, and in fact, ignored all the circumstances of his life following his initial arrest, and decided that his sentence should be 65 months, not 24 months.

The Supremes Ruled

The Supreme Court today ruled on Jason Pepper, and made him a free man
.

Justice should be blind. It shouldn't be deaf and dumb. As much as I disagree with the Supreme Court, I think they got this one right.

It wasn't even close. Kagan abstained from ruling, and Thomas was the only one to dissent.

Most of what you hear about the Supreme Court today will be about the other case they decided, Snyder v. Phelps, et. al.

Bigotry Is A Protected Right

That one was fairly obvious as well. Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. Westboro Baptist has a right to look like a bunch of bigoted asshats. They were involved with hating fags long before they knew Matthew Snyder even existed, and they were picketing quietly far enough away that those in attendance at the funeral could only see the very top of the signs they carried.

The gummint has the right to make free speech, regardless of content, subject to subject to reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions, but there weren't any laws regarding funerals in place at the time of Matthew Snyder's funeral, so the court didn't address those.

The court observed that "Westboro addressed matters of public import on public property, in a peaceful manner, in full compliance with the guidance of local officials." I'm betting that in the future, Westboro Baptist demonstrations may be met by members of a softball team, their bats in their hands, bearing a gentle suggestion that the demonstration be moved at least five miles away any funeral-related activity.

Those playing softball can be very persuasive, you know.

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civil rights - Fred Phelps - gay soldiers - illegal drugs - Matthew Snyder - probation - sentencing guidelines - Supreme Court - Westboro Baptist