WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2011
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New dietary guidelines
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The War on Drugs Turns 40
In 1971 Richard Nixon declared abuse of narcotics public enemy number 1. Trillions later his views are alive and well.
Police officers, judges, and prison guards opposed to drug prohibition gathered in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to mark an eye-opening milestone: the 40th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. "America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse," Nixon declared in a June 17, 1971 press conference. "In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive." Just two years later he escalated his rhetoric yet again, asserting that "this Administration has declared all-out, global war on the drug menace," and creating the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ever since we've been doubling down on the strategy. It has never succeeded, even when we've gone much farther down the "get tough" road than Nixon ever did.
Though the size and cost of the DEA is but a fraction of total spending in the War on Drugs, you'd think its utter failure to stop drug use or the global drug trade would've prevented this from happening:
Almost every year the DEA budget and staff are expanded, never mind if the organization is succeeding or failing at its mission. This isn't the DEA's fault. The illicit trade in narcotics is a black market that cannot be eliminated in a free society. But why do legislators continue to increase its size?
It's especially frustrating when one recalls that presidential candidates have campaigned on the folly of the status quo, been elected to office, and failed to make any significant changes. That first happened when Jimmy Carter was seeking the Oval Office. Here's a quote of his you've likely forgotten or never heard before: "I do favor the decriminalization of marijuana." Under his never enacted plan, an American could've possessed up to an ounce without running afoul of federal law.
As early as 2004, Barack Obama declared the War on Drugs an "utter failure" and promised the federal government would back off if states wanted to permit their residents to use medical marijuana. "What President Obama said during the campaign is now American policy," Attorney General Eric Holder declared shortly after Obama's 2009 inauguration. Alas, it hasn't worked out that way -- and that's a shame since federalism is one way that national politicians can dodge the drug question and give states room to show that pot for cancer patients or decriminalization of soft drugs can be implemented without doing net damage to society.
Norm Stamper, a former Seattle police chief and spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, put it this way: "It wasn't hard to put together a report showing how the Obama administration continues to wage the failed 'war on drugs' even while pretending to end it. Although President Obama has talked about respecting states' rights to enact medical marijuana laws, his DEA has raided state-legal medical marijuana providers at a higher rate than under the Bush administration. Similarly, this president has continued a Bush-era budget ratio that heavily favors spending on punishment over providing resources for treatment, even though he has said drug addiction should be handled as a health issue."
It's time for the president to live up to his promises.
Image credit: Reuters
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Coquette: “Sit down and strap in, because it’s brutal truth time.”
Dear Coquette,
My boyfriend of four years has decided he wants to move to Texas to become a police officer. We currently live in California. I have just bought my own house, and I have a full ride scholarship to a university in California. He has applied to be a police officer in California, but they aren’t moving fast enough for him. I offered to give up the home I just purchased and my education to follow him. He said he’d break up with me if I did, that he would feel bad if I did, and wouldn’t allow me to do it. If he goes, I’ll stupidly try to work through it, no matter how miserable and resentful I am that all of it was his choice.
I’m not asking him to sacrifice anything — he can be a police officer here just as much as Texas. He told me he is doing what he has to do for him and his future, that we aren’t married, but getting married has always been the plan, so why should that matter? (Because we aren’t married gives him a free card to do anything he wants and not consider me?)
If he loved me and wanted to marry me, he would stay, there would be nothing more important to him than to be with me. I am lost, and the more I try and convince him to stay, the farther away I push him. We are in serious trouble in our relationship. How do I convince him that he’s making a terrible decision for both of us? Am I being stupid? I’m terribly lost and hurt and I don’t know what to do. All I know is that I love him, and the four years we’ve been together should mean something. Please help.
OK, I’ll help, but you’re not gonna like it. Sit down and strap in, because it’s brutal truth time.
Your relationship is over.
Let that sink in for a second. I know the thought just terrifies you, but someone needed to tell you in plain and simple language what your boyfriend is too much of a spineless douchebag to admit.
You made it four years. Well done. That’s longer than most. Unfortunately, now it’s time for you to be heartbroken for a while. It’s gonna suck. There will be a lot of tears, a good bit of wallowing, and a sizable amount of resentment and anger, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s stay focused on the present moment and see if we can’t at least get you past this initial denial phase.
Your boyfriend does not want to be with you anymore. In fact, he probably checked out of the relationship well over a year ago. He’s just been going through the motions, encouraging you to plant roots in California so he could make the jump to Texas without you following him. It’s the only way he knew how to end things after almost half a decade.
It’s a harsh reality to face, but the good news is that you’re getting rid of an emotionally stunted coward who’s just gonna end up being another jerk cop in Texas. The bad news is it’s too soon for you to see it that way.
It’s perfectly natural for you to be a hot mess right now, but I highly recommend you steel yourself up and take control of the situation. If you have it in you, summon the dignity and break up with him yourself. Make it hard, fast and clean.
If you can’t bring yourself to end it, at least prepare for the inevitable. This is not the man you’re gonna marry. He’s just the man you spent the first chunk of your 20s loving, and there’s no shame in that.
Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. In fact, you’re in a good place. You’ve got a home, a scholarship, and a couple of years to focus on your education. You’ll get through this, and eventually, you’ll find someone else.
For now, though, just take a deep breath and realize that you are not lost. He is.
Let him go.
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Newt Gingrich: In It to Win It -- Or To Get Paid?
Jessica McGowan/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) -- In presidential politics, winning is no longer everything. Especially for Newt Gingrich, who has used his run for president as a kind of savvy marketing campaign built around his political persona.
In the last five years, critics say the former Speaker of the House has lived a life of luxury built around his empire, including millions in private jet travel, paid for with donations to a political group he founded. Gingrich's lifestyle also includes a million dollar home in suburban Washington and jewelry from Tiffany's.
"You can do very well by running for president," said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. "You don't always have to win."
Sarah Palin, a little-known governor before John McCain picked her as his running mate in 2008, has turned her political celebrity into a multi-million dollar business, with books, paid speeches, and a reality TV show.
"There's a heck of a business out there for ex-politicians that have run," said Reed, who managed Sen. Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. Reed said Palin actually has a "real choice" to make about running in 2012, "because she has a very lucrative career going right now."
But Reed says that for some Republicans this election cycle, running for president seems mostly about marketing -- about creating or enhancing a valuable brand name.
"I mean to me it's kind of a game," said Reed. "It makes their brand have some value."
And no one seems to have realized that more than Gingrich, who has not held elective office since 1999. When he was pressed on the half-million-dollar account that he and his wife Callista had with Tiffany's on Face the Nation, Gingrich called it a "standard, no-interest account" and said he and his wife live on a budget.
"Go talk to Tiffany's," Gingrich told host Bob Schieffer. "All I'm telling you is, we are very frugal. We in fact live within our budget."
Earlier this month, Gingrich and Callista took a cruise in the Greek isles, which led virtually his whole staff to resign, questioning whether he was more interested in selling books and DVDs than running for president.
Part of Gingrich's empire, a kind of Gingrich, Inc., includes several for-profit businesses. Gingrich Communications oversees his paid speaking engagements and Fox News contract. Gingrich Group provides consulting services. Gingrich Productions makes feel-good documentaries with themes grounded in religion and American tradition.
This week Gingrich also released his 24th book, with many of his upcoming campaign stops doubling as marketing events for his book and movies, raising more questions about the true intentions of the campaign.
"If he's being driven by book sales, and movie openings and things like that, that doesn't fit into a traditional campaign," said Reed.
Also raising questions from independent watchdog groups is the operation of a charity Gingrich founded, called Renewing American Leadership. Its website contained ads for Gingrich's books -- taken down after ABC News asked about them -- and posted his positions on political hot-button issues.
"It's not clear that it is a charity," said Ellen Miller, executive director of the non-partisan group The Sunlight Foundation. "We have an organization that looks like he's mixing public purpose and his own private political purpose."
The charity's fundraising letters, on Gingrich's letterhead, attack President Obama and also promote Gingrich's book. In fact, records show the charity bought Gingrich's books to give to those who send in donations. There was no discount in the price, according to the charity's new director, Pastor Jim Garlow.
"My concern was, 'Is there any way we can get these a lot cheaper?' and we couldn't and we didn't," said Garlow.
A recent audit discovered that the charity paid one of Gingrich's for-profit companies more than $200,000, which the charity says was used to pay his then-press secretary Rick Tyler, who was also the director of the charity -- until March -- and made the decision to buy the Gingrich books with charity funds.
Garlow said he didn't think Gingrich's charity and political career had become too intertwined, and accused ABC News of misreading Gingrich's intent.
Said Garlow, "What's so intriguing about you, in the media, you can't believe people have pure motives. That's so hard for you. So difficult for you. You assume everyone's got evil motives."
Gingrich refused repeated requests to be interviewed about his empire, and had little to say when ABC News caught up with him Tuesday morning on his way to a speech.
"I'm not concerned about that," said Gingrich. "The American people are not concerned about that. Cover the speech."
Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio
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Finally, Montel gets REAL.
…REAL high.
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John Edwards mug shot released
Handout booking image of former Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards (Credit: U.S. Marshals Service)
Former senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards' mug shot was released on Wednesday, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Edwards pleaded not guilty earlier this month to federal charges that he solicited and used campaign contributions to hide his mistress and their baby.
Among the charges for which he has been indicted include four counts of illegal campaign contributions, conspiracy and making false statements in connection with a cover-up of his extramarital affair.
Speaking outside the federal courthouse after his June 3 arraignment, the former North Carolina senator admitted to wrongdoing - but maintained that his actions, however unethical, were not illegal.
"There's no question that I've done wrong, and I take full responsibility for having done wrong," he said. "And I will regret for the rest of my life the pain and the harm that I've caused to others."
"But I did not break the law, and I never, ever thought I was breaking the law," Edwards said.
Edwards was offered a misdemeanor plea deal before the indictment, but the deal reportedly fell through because Edwards and his team wanted a chance to make his case for an alternative to prison time, such as home arrest.
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TALKIN’ BASEBALL
Teams work to teach prospects English before they reach the majors
BY JOHN WALTERS
With 11 players who were born abroad, the New York Yankees actually have fewer Yankees on their 25-man roster than any team in Major League Baseball.
The Los Angeles Dodgers clubhouse can be a baseball Babel with natives of Canada, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Venezuela and, yes, the United States all speaking in their respective tongues.
Switch-hitting may be simpler than switch-speaking, and yet Major League hopefuls have been doing it for decades. More than 27 percent of the players on Opening Day rosters this season were born outside the United States, and for them learning a new language is as important as studying the opposition.
Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, a native of Panama, recalls playing A-ball in North Carolina and teaching himself English.
“I’d butcher the language and they’d laugh at me,” says Rivera, who now speaks fluent English. “I’d say, ‘You can laugh all you want, but will you please teach me the right way to say it?’ ”
The Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy is scheduled to open its doors in Puerto Rico this August to 180 high school-aged students. Even though he’s an outfielder, Beltran, himself a Puerto Rican native, is throwing the pupils a curve: all classes will be conducted in English.
“I want them to be prepared,” Beltran told Newsday. “I wasn’t prepared. I couldn’t communicate. I couldn’t express myself. There were times I wanted to say something and I didn’t say it because I was afraid people would laugh at me.”
For every fan or even player who has done an impersonation of primeval “Saturday Night Live” character Chico Escuela (“Beisbol has been bery, bery good to me”), there is probably a monolingual English-speaking person whose command of Espanol does not extend much further beyond “nachos.”
That is beginning to change.
“I coach winter ball in the Caribbean,” says Yankee first-base coach Tony Pena. “The Americans who play there, they return with a new appreciation of what their Latin teammates endure.”
Even Latin players who remain monolingual may find themselves getting lost in translation.
“I’ll never forget being in the Mariner clubhouse when (Cuban native) Yuni Betancourt would be talking to Adrian Beltre (Dominican Republic), Felix Hernandez and Carlos Silva (both Venezuelan),” says Jerry Brewer, a columnist for the Seattle Times. “It was all Spanish, but because of the different accents they would always be saying to one another, “Que? Que?”
In baseball, there are K zones and then there are que zones.
The oldest-living ex-major leaguer, Conrado Marrero, did not speak English. Marrero, a Cuban-born pitcher for the Washington Senators who just celebrated his 100th birthday, still speaks only Spanish. That may be why, despite Marrero’s impressive longevity and the fact that he was an All-Star after the age of 40, you’ve probably never heard of him.
Contrast Marrero with Seattle rookie Michael Pineda. The native of the Dominican Republic, only 22 years old, has a 6-2 record and a 2.30 ERA after two months in the big leagues. Pineda spent three seasons in the Mariners’ minor-league organization and came away with a working command of his fastball, changeup and the English language.
The Mariners are one of a growing number of organizations that conduct courses in both English and American cultural assimilation. Players such as Pineda who attend and pass their courses even take part in a graduation ceremony.
Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, in explaining to writers recently the difficulty veteran Jorge Posada was having in switching from catcher to designated hitter in the Yankee lineup, used this example.
“It’s like if at your age I told you, ‘Hey, you need to learn Spanish tomorrow’,” said Ortiz, who is bilingual. “You know there’s going to be a lot of struggles.”
ICHIRO LETS BAT DO THE TALKING
Since 2001, when Ichiro Suzuki made his Major League debut, the 200-hit barrier has been reached 53 times. Ten of those 53 200-hit seasons belong to Ichiro, the Seattle Mariners’ inimitable import from Japan. Only Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hit leader, had as many 200-hit seasons as Ichiro — but, unlike the Mariners’ 10-time All-Star, not consecutively.
Yet somewhere between the Orix Blue Wave and Cooperstown, Ichiro has failed to become a frequent front-page presence in American sports. Is there a correlation between that and Ichiro’s refusal to converse in English with the media?
“His attitude is ‘I’m paid to play baseball and I don’t need to do interviews to do my job,’” says Jerry Brewer of the Seattle Times.
Ichiro is, in fact, quite fluent in English. Last summer Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports revealed that before each All-Star Game Ichiro gives his American League teammates a spirited pep talk in English, launching into, as Passan wrote “an H-bomb of F-bombs.”
With the media, Ichiro restricts himself to his native tongue. While he thankfully does not speak in the third person, he does speak through a third person.
The Mariners have a sophisticated minor-league language program, handing out Rosetta Stone DVDs to players and conducting courses in cultural assimilation. The program is voluntary, though, and began after Ichiro joined the organization.
—John Walters
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Next Wave with Gary Vaynerchuk: Virtual World of Money
Would you pay money for something that doesn't really exist? Gary V. explains why the $2 billion online world of virtual currency is about to get even bigger. Video by Alvin Patrick and Cat LoBuono
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360 Degree Photo in Action: U.S. Open
A 360 degree view of the Congressional golf course in Bethesda, MD, between the 18th and 10th holes.
Credit: The Daily (www.thedaily.com)
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