July 24th marks the anniversary of Anthony Johnson acquiring 250 acres of land in Northampton County, Virginia during the summer of 1651. Anthony Johnson was a free black man, brought to the colony aboard the…
Posts tagged as “nation”
Harry Anslinger, the longtime Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, is widely considered the prime mover behind marijuana prohibition. But during the Congressional debate on prohibition in the spring of 1937, Anslinger was just…
In the past few days, in the largest prison protest in California’s history, nearly 30,000 inmates have gone on hunger strike in the country’s largest prison system. Such near-insurrections are not unusual in America’s prison-industrial complex.
As has become even clearer this Fourth of July with the ongoing saga of fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden playing out on the world stage, what was celebrated on Independence Day in America is not independence…
Anyone using colchicine, one of the best treatments for gout, is in for a nasty surprise, compliments of the FDA and the rapacious actions of URL Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Until recently, I used the…
On June 18th, in an opinion piece in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Congressman Jared Huffman heroically announced that “this week,” along with other House Democrats, he’d be taking the “SNAP challenge.” The congressman from…
No work of music has a greater lock on a single ritual than Edward Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 does on American graduations. Cock an ear in the direction of high school and…
Continued from last week’s AVA, the 1937 Congressional hearing at which marijuana prohibition was discussed prior to enactment. The witness is William WOODWARD, MD, representing the American Medical Association. The AMA, most of whose members…
Like an obnoxiously drunk, loudmouthed, long-winded, overly-pleased-with-himself, vacuously ostentatious guest who refuses to leave the party even though it’s long been over, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby lingers at the local multiplex, Scotch in one…