Anslinger Being Tough?
Harry Anslinger was a United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was a supporter of prohibition and the criminalization of drugs, and played a pivotal role in cannabis prohibition. [1]
Excerpt from the book:
Many people assume what we call the War on Drugs began in 1971 during the Nixon Administration. Some believe “the War” began during Prohibition due to the relentless efforts of a racist and moralist federal agent named Harry Anslinger. [2]
Continuing later in the book:
Anslinger was a bureaucratic empire-builder and he saw marijuana as the leverage needed to expand the size and power of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He railed against the use of reefer, weed, or pot by blacks, particularly black entertainers. Anslinger hated jazz with its free-wheeling lack of rigid structure and he equated it with what he viewed as black depravity. Black bandleader Cab Calloway had a 1933 hit song called Reefer Man featured in the movie International House. Anslinger must have been furious. [2]
References:
- Wikipedia, Harry Jacob Anslinger
- Prisoner of War: The Story of White Boy Rick and The War on Drugs by Vince Wade – Page 20, 39
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- Kindness is Extremely Important When it Comes to Making Friends – by Dr. Ross Reck
Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistance or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward in return. When you are kind, you attract other people to you like a magnet because everybody wants to be friends with kind people. My mother-in-law was a very kind person with a good word for everyone she ran into and was always willing to listen. As a result, she had lots of friends. When it was announced on Facebook that she had passed away, the tributes and condolences started pouring in immediately. The one thing all the tributes had in common was they talked about what a kind person she was and how much she would be missed as a friend. The lesson here is that if you are kind, you will automatically make lots of friends.
References:
- Kindness is Extremely Important When it Comes to Making Friends – by Dr. Ross Reck
Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistance or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward in return. When you are kind, you attract other people to you like a magnet because everybody wants to be friends with kind people. My mother-in-law was a very kind person with a good word for everyone she ran into and was always willing to listen. As a result, she had lots of friends. When it was announced on Facebook that she had passed away, the tributes and condolences started pouring in immediately. The one thing all the tributes had in common was they talked about what a kind person she was and how much she would be missed as a friend. The lesson here is that if you are kind, you will automatically make lots of friends.
References:
- Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) Turns His Back to the People of Ukraine
Ukraine Funding has become a Political Football
“Lawmakers rejected 104-330 an amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) to strip $300 million from the bill for the Pentagon to train Ukrainian soldiers and purchase weapons for Kyiv. A second amendment from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that would have barred security assistance to Ukraine failed in an even wider 93-339 vote.” 1
“Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said he would not support a new Ukraine package and doubted any Ukraine funding would be moving to the floor anytime soon.” 2
- Politico.com, Connor O’Brien, September 27, 2023 – House thwarts hard-right push to gut Ukraine funding
- The Hill, Brad Dress, September 15, 2023 – House GOP grows skeptical on Ukraine: ‘It’s not just the Freedom Caucus’
- How to Avoid Torturing Yourself Later in Life – by Dr. Ross Rreck
It’s not uncommon to hear people making excuses about why they didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that life sent their way. You’ll hear them say things like, “I could have done this or that….” Then come the excuses: “…but at the time my kids were little,” or “but we had just bought a new house,” or “but it seemed like too big of a risk” Unfortunately, many of these people continue this pattern of making excuses right into their old age. Then all they have to reflect on during their “golden years” are regrets about all those opportunities they let pass by and now it is too late to take advantage of them. As John Greenleaf Whittier put it, “Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, what might have been?” On the other hand, those who took advantage of the opportunities that life threw at them have many fond and exciting memories to look back on. So, if you don’t want to torture yourself later in life with, “What might have been,” go for it while you still have the chance!
References:
- Getting Involved
And then there are the rest of us who have to be cornered, trapped into chores…. Art Fettig’s Monday Morning Memo
Originally published on October 3, 2011
In This Issue
o Getting Involved
o Say Something Good
o Points To Ponder
o A Little Humor
o Quote of the WeekGetting Involved
Did you ever notice how some people seem to be involved in just about anything that needs doing? Whether it is at work or church or the schools their children attend, they just have a habit of saying “yes”.
And then there are the rest of us who have to be cornered, trapped in chores and we somehow fail to have the right spirit for such things. Here is a poem that I found in my file. I had this habit of writing special poems for the people in an audience. I was speaking for a group of doers, and I tried to capture their spirit. You know something I learned watching them? Doers, givers, those who busy up their lives making this a better world seem to be the healthiest, happiest people in the world. Avoiding all that brings unhappiness and makes a person plum unhealthy. Thing about it…And GET ER DONE!
Involvement
© Art FettigThe problems of the world are resolved
By people who bother getting involved.
If you want to be happy then take off your coat.
Pitch in! Get busy! Start rocking the boat!
Get involved! Dive in, the water’s just fine.
Total involvements more heady than wine.
Sound off! Go on! Say what you’re thinking!
Write it down! Shout it! Start those eyes a blinking!
Wake up! Do something! Greet life with a smile!
This getting involved is what makes life worthwhile.Say Something Good
Sunday we attended the 253rd Old Bluff Church Reunion on Cape Fear River in Cumberland County, NC and we had dinner on the grounds. The service was inspiring and the bagpiper, Rev. Arnold Pope served up a sermon that was worthy of a massive cathedral anywhere in the world. I learned what “dinner on the grounds” means in old Cumberland County. It means long covered tables just loaded with the best Southern cookin’ you ever reloaded your plate with. Bar B Q, of course and southern fried chicken but oh, what fixins. Corn and field peas, okra, butter beans and a small army of casseroles, plus roast beef, ham and corned beef, slaws and potato salads and oh yes, chicken pastry, three renderings. There was a variety of corn breads and country biscuits and something called liver mush which many of us avoided. They had red hot dogs too and I watched a teen age boy walk all around those tables and place just one red hot dog on his plate and then later when he rounded those tables again he placed two red hot dogs on his plate. You figure that one out.
And oh those deserts. There was a heavenly chocolate cake and this nice lady stood by and watched me take a big slice and she explained that she makes it every year for the homecoming. I sampled two chocolate pies, a tiny slice of apple pie, pecan pie and passed up pumpkin pie, the banana pudding and other cakes but finished up with a delicious berry pie containing both black and blue berries. It was scrumptious. There were so many other tasty items I overlooked that a person could go back for thirds and fourths if he had a mind to. Inside the church they had these two big potbellied stoves for winter and those little hand fans in the pews donated by the local undertaker and there was a slave gallery in the church, built so the slaves could attend services.
Gimme that old time religion with dinner on the grounds. May God bless America and bring our troops home safely.
Points to Ponder
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive! Howard Thurman
A Little Humor
A juggler, driving to his next performance, is stopped by the police. “What are these matches and lighter fluid doing in your car?” asks the cop. “I’m a juggler and I juggle flaming torches in my act.” “Oh yeah?” says the doubtful cop. “Let’s see you do it.” The juggler gets out and starts juggling the blazing torches masterfully. A couple driving by slows down to watch. “Wow,” says the driver to his wife. “I’m glad I quit drinking. Look at the test they’re giving now!”
Quote of the Week
Minds are like parachutes; they only function when opened. Lord Thomas Robert Dewar
- Your Mighty Pen (or e-mail)
We hope you’ve been in regular communication with your congressional representatives to let them know your view that the national budget, like your own, reflects moral values. Just a reminder, in case you’ve let your ink run dry:
The Super Committee charged with finding $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in additional budget savings over the next ten years has Arizona’s Senator Kyl as one of its members. Rev. David Beckman, president of Bread for the World, recently noted that “Everything we have achieved for poor and hungry people in the last 35 years is under severe threat of budget cuts”, programs such as SNAP (food stamps), nutrition assistance (such as Women, Infants and Children), and international development. Several of the budget proposals aim two-thirds of the cuts at programs benefitting hungry and poor people, resulting in the efforts of more than sixty denominations and church organizations to sign on to form a “Circle of Protection” around funding for time-tested, cost-effective programs that address the causes of hunger. They urge our elected officials to develop a responsible deficit-reduction plan which would address the true drivers of debt without cutting needed services or threatening the fragile economic recovery.
Senator Kyl and others who have taken a “cuts only” approach need to be reminded that, as Christians, we believe the moral measure of the budget is how the poorest and most vulnerable people fare. In Arizona, for example, the state lost 69,200 construction jobs and 21,600 manufacturing jobs since August 2008, while one in every four children under the age of five is living in poverty. Yet individuals earning $200,000 or more (2.2% of our residents) claimed 85% of the capital gains tax breaks, reducing their tax liability by $2.8 billion. And special tax breaks on dividend earnings decreased the taxes paid by the wealthiest state residents by more than $900 million.
As Christians, we look at every budget proposal from the bottom up–how it treats those Jesus called, “the least of these.” When you contact Senator Kyl, you might want to let him know that you want him to represent us and stop refusing to include tax breaks for the wealthiest and most profitable corporations.
For more specifics and sample letters, click on the www.bread.org.
- Make Someone Happy
…unhappiness in our lives. The famous psychologist, Karl Menninger, might have given us a magic key to handling stress and unhappiness in our lives. “What would you advise a person to do” one man asked, “if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?” Menninger’s answer: “Lock up your house, go across the railway tracks, find someone in need, and do something to help that person.” In other words, when you have problems of your own, put some of your efforts into helping someone else solve his problems.
Whenever I get to feeling blue or stressed or just plain in the mood for a pity party, I take that message out and read it and then I examine what I have done for someone else recently. Always I find that I have been thinking mostly about me and very little about the other guy. Most times, as a great song lyric says, “I pick myself up, brush myself off and I start all over again. Try it and let me know if it works for you and if somebody volunteers to help you with a problem, let them. They might have come from a way across the tracks just to make the offer.
- I Just Want To Celebrate Another Decade Of Living
…a story about this old coot who thinks he has everything… Art Fettig’s Monday Morning Memo
Originally published on June 29, 2009
In This Issue
o I Just Want To Celebrate
o Say Something Good
o Points To Ponder
o A Little Humor
o Quote of the WeekI Just Want To Celebrate Another Decade Of Living
On July 5th I will be celebrating my 80th birthday with my family in Battle Creek, Michigan. The big Eight Oh! I gave myself an early present, which is the publication of my new 324-page novel titled The Old Man and the CD. It is a story about this old coot who thinks he has everything but discovers that there is one thing that he wants that he does not have and that is a Hit Song. He joins the blind friend and together they put together The Double A Band and set out in search of a hit song. Like the character in Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, he encounters many sharks and other challenges. This entertaining book comes with a CD of many of the songs that my friend and I created. Some of these are weird love songs such as, If I loved you anymore, you’d be my dog. You’re the most pathetic person that I have ever met. I never slept alone ’til I got married. There are blues numbers, warm love songs, a song celebrating America and much more. We will make it available on my return from Michigan.
Say Something Good
July 4th. I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, Yankee Doodle Do Or Die. A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the fourth of July. That is a lyric from a great song by George H. Cohen, the famous Broadway star of a century ago. It might be stretching it but I feel like a Yankee Doodle Dandy too and I was born on the fifth of July 1929. I have seen a lot of America since then, all of our fifty states, many a number of times, and I never cease to stand in awe at the beauty of America. I pray that there will be peace again in this world. May God continue to bless America and keep our troops from harm.
Points To Ponder
When I was young, I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work. George Bernard Shaw
A Little Humor
Some folks just don’t believe in safety rules, but then they don’t stick around too long.
Quote of the Week
Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made nothing happens. Wilfred A. Peterson
- How to Become the Life of the Party – by Dr. Ross Reck
I attended a party where one of the guests was intent on bragging about his latest accomplishments. I watched as he moved from group to group trying to get people to listen to his story. As soon as he started talking about himself, one by one, people in the group would excuse themselves and move on. He would then move on to another group only to have the same thing happen. By the end of the evening, he was standing by himself. The lesson here is a difficult one. While all of us want to tell our story, the painful truth is no one wants to hear it. At the same time, those same people are dying to tell their story to someone who cares. So, if you want to become the life of the party, give up on the idea of trying to tell your story and give other people the opportunity to tell theirs. If you can discipline yourself to do this, you’ll quickly start to attract a crowd.
References:
- Camping Along the Niagara Escarpment
One of the most exciting hikes in North America
Terry Pochert with Jim Dunlap Every once in a while, a challenge opens. This one we grabbed. The trail runs through some very rugged country in Ontario, Canada. Much of it is not for the faint of heart, but worth every second of the hours (and days) you spend on the trail.
I hiked with my friends Chris and Jim Dunlap. A few days of rain, rocks and pebbles made hiking a challenge, but the views were breathtaking.
References:
