Jeralynn Merritt at TalkLeft nails what I was getting at last night regarding that idiot MoDo:
What she should have written: “I went to Colorado and decided to get high. I was stupid and did no research or fact-checking. I asked no questions. I just started eating, and then ate some more. I got really sick. My bad. I’ll be smarter next time.”
Imagine the Times sends Maureen Dowd to Colombia. Would she decide to try out the coca leaves, not ask how many to chew and eat a bushel? If the Times sent her to Yemen, would she decide to chew some Khat leaves, and not feeling the desired effect, keep chewing for hours? Tens of millions of people in South America and Africa chew coca and khat leaves without overdosing or dying, just like tens of millions of people around the world use marijuana and marijuana-infused products and don’t hallucinate to the point they think they are dying. When you ingest a new substance, you are experimenting. Do a little homework and you’ll be fine. If you’re dumb enough to dive in blind, you have only yourself to blame.
This.
*** Update ***
Pierce is a national treasure and I think I have found one of the five people (actually, Charlie Pierce, Paula Poundstone, and Alonzo Bodden from Wait Wait would be a solid starting three) I want to have dinner and drinks with:
Perhaps it would have been smart to contact the “medical consultant” prior to downing the candy bar. Perhaps it would have been smart to talk to some of the regular customers of the edibles plant. Perhaps it would have been smart — not to mention professionally obligatory — to do some, y’know, real fking research before plunging right into your own hippocampus. There are some interesting questions still to be explored in Colorado’s brave new world of legalized dope. First, what happens when legalized pot runs headlong into the highly effective — and highly beneficial — national campaign to turn public opinion against smoking anything. And second, if the anti-smoking campaign makes people more likely to treat their pot as a comestible, how extensively should the state label The Product, if only as a consumer-protection measure. (I’m in favor of as much precise detail as possible. For example, “If you happen to be a visiting dilettante from The New York Times, please don’t eat this and sit alone in your hotel room.”) But I guess it’s just easier to indulge your own fanciful trauma and then spend the rest of the column rewriting the famous Baby-In-The-Bathtub scene from Dragnet. I’m not entirely sure exactly how high Maureen got out there in Colorado but, reading this column, I am fairly sure she’s cleared The Shark by about 12 nautical miles.
Exactly.
Cervantes
Someone warn Colombia.
Olivia
It was just her own feeble attempt to create a modern “Reefer Madness” and show everyone how horrible it all is. Now she can brag that she knows all about it because she tried it. Stupid woman.
AnonPhenom
I’m sending MoDo a fifth of scotch for her birthday. Bottoms up Maureen!
scav
Somebody send her to a retro 1930s speakeasy with bathtub gin and she’ll assume that’s the standard period dose of same.
Roger Moore
@AnonPhenom:
You should make it absinthe instead.
Ripley
I mourn.
Not for the twit herself, but for the good shit that she wasted.
Linda Featheringill
Trying a new drug in isolation? Sigh. More than dumb. Downright stupid. Bad trip is possible and a REALLY BAD trip is not impossible. What if she had an allergic reaction?
Maybe she should go off by herself and mainline mayonnaise or something.
khead
@AnonPhenom:
Moonshine in a mason jar*. In honor of Balloon Juice.
* – Dad kept it under the sink. My wife didn’t believe me until my brother offered her a shot one year @ Xmas.
Walker
OT:
Lara Logan returning to work at 60 Minutes in time for the Benghazi investigations.
SiubhanDuinne
@Linda Featheringill:
That made me laugh.
Okay, first it made me throw up in my mouth a little.
But then it made me laugh.
SiubhanDuinne
@Walker:
PLEASE tell me the Hollywood Reporter is just a cute name for The Onion.
Sheesh, could this day possibly have got any more depressing?
Biscuits
This is why we can’t have over the counter Tylenol with codeine but the canadiens can. Silly Modo.
Warren Terra
My version of this involved a mirror-image version of MoDo going to New York to try those “Cronuts” we heard so much about last year; one paragraph:
James E. Powell
You all, or at least most of you all, are accepting as truth: a) that Dowd had no prior experience with marijuana, b) that she actually did get really high in Colorado, and c) that the experience was much as she described in her column. I say it’s all bullshit. A story made up to amuse herself and her audience, and to please her editors by drawing attention. She definitely succeeded with pleasing her editors.
See, I don’t believe she grew up when she did and never so much as tried getting high. Or, if she didn’t, she had plenty of experience with people who did get high. So her attempt at a “David Brooks eats in a restaurant with people who went to public school” type anthropology story is just not believable.
And if she was so jumpy about marijuana that she not only never got high, but never spent time with anyone who was getting high, then there is no way she flies out to Colorado and munches on pot of unknown dosage and potency. No way.
My guess is that if one had the ability to search long and hard enough, the “got too high” part of her story has predecessors, if you know what I mean and I think that you do. She had a point she wanted to argue. The rest is stuff she made up or heard or read somewhere and included it in lieu of actual evidence.
jl
The possible variations on the MoDo stupidity are endless.
” Someone let me drive a big car. I didn’t know anything about it. So I got in by myself and started to drive. Didn’t seem to go real fast so I floored it. The car almost crashed and I might have died. I am really concerned about these car things being available to kids and dimwits like me. “
Punchy
Really? People still read TalkLeft?
tybee
@Roger Moore:
antifreeze would be best.
Warren Terra
@AnonPhenom:
No, you should send her A Scotch – i.e. five fifths – and see if she drinks it all at one go.
Warren Terra
Oh, and obviously the authoritative comment on this comes from Mr. Charlie Pierce:
That’s the punchline, but the rest is quite thoughtful.
Mnemosyne
@James E. Powell:
I was an extremely straight-arrow nerd in the 1980s and I never tried pot. Of course, my brothers would smoke it with me in the room, so I never had to actually smoke it myself — the contact high was enough for me.
burnspbesq
@Punchy:
Jeralyn was always pretty good on criminal justice issues, if a bit predictable in her pro-defense bias (entirely to be expected of a defense lawyer). It was Armando who was the real problem.
SiubhanDuinne
@James E. Powell:
I never thought she had “no prior experience with marijuana.” The tell was this line from her column:
My emphasis. She may not light up every night, or every Saturday, but there is nothing in her piece to suggest that she is a total stranger to the Mary Jane.
Suffern ACE
Honestly, I don’t think she accidentally did any of this. She got stoned so she could complain about it. She did not fly to Colorado to write a “my first time” story.
burnspbesq
Also, just because I can.
LET’S GO RANGERS!
Roger Moore
@tybee:
It would probably taste better than absinthe, for one thing.
Hunter Gathers
That column was so insanely stupid that I contemplated never touching the stuff again out of fear that her douchebaggery would infect me by association.
askew
Oh, hell no. TalkLeft was one of the most the most racist and PUMAy sites on the web in 2008. I have no interest in what anyone from that site says just like I’ve no longer interested in anything Jane “black face” Hamsher has to say. They have both shown their true colors.
askew
@Walker:
Wow, I can’t believe they let her back at CBS. Her co-workers were appalled at her “journalism” and thought she was destroying 60 Minutes. But, the boss loves her.
askew
@burnspbesq:
Jeralyn was the one who encouraged the racism at TalkLeft and drove off anyone who wasn’t all in on worshiping Hillary and her whiteness in 2008. Armando had the decency to try to stop the site’s lurch into KKK land. It didn’t work but he tried. I can’t stand the guy but at least he was appalled by the racism.
Ash Can
@James E. Powell: I’m not sure what would make her look worse — if the story were fabricated, or if it were true.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
How does one OD on dope? I mean if it was possible the kids I went to high school with would have done it deliberately.
beltane
Four more NYT columnists get high with Malcolm Gladwell theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/new-york-times-columnists-harsh-our-mellow
Baud
I now hope no state ever legalizes prostitution.
MikeBoyScout
Cole, you got there first, but Pierce’s take is fk-n hilarious!
That’s Why They Call It Dope
SiubhanDuinne
@Hunter Gathers:
Oh, ick. A MoDo contact high.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I could see someone dying if they drank a tincture of the concentrated stuff (like the oil that people boil down and then put into brownies by the tablespoon) — heck, even plain ol’ water will poison you if you drink too much of it too fast.
But I’m pretty sure the only way you could seriously harm yourself smoking it would be to be in an unventilated room where you manage to suffocate yourself.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Hahaha. I think that’s what they call a WIN.
JPL
@askew: This….
I do appreciate comments that aren’t about MSM’s latest Obama is bad cuz.
muddy
The dispensary here has goldfish, either indica or sativa. They tell you to try about 3 at a time to start with. I got them and then wrote a note to myself right on the bag saying, NOT A SNACK, because you know how you forget shit.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: My life as a prostitute by Maureen Dowd. That would be a column that I’d read.
jl
@beltane: that was good. The Kthug and Friedman were spot on. And I hope Galdwell does start using ketamine (safely, under responsible medical supervision, as long as he sleeps a lot from now on)
muddy
@JPL: She’d spend the whole thing whining that Bill Clinton didn’t go for it even when she gave him a coupon, clearly he hates women.
muddy
@Biscuits: I like the aspirin with codeine better. I didn’t even know they had such a thing until I saw it with the tylenol3. I call it aspirin3, I don’t know the real name because it’s in French.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T: you know I have a lot of Canadian friends. One of them has just been on FB rigid with fear because there is a gunman on the loose in Moncton, New Brunswick and her mother lives in Moncton. Guy shot two cops so far and has at least two rifles. It is so unCanadian — that is what she is saying, as worried as she is for her mom and people she knows.
jl
@Baud:
” I now hope no state ever legalizes prostitution.”
Now that MoDo has bravely shown the way how to do the research, I will bravely volunteer!
And entire bordello will cost more than one stinking candy bar. Maybe the NYT will pay for it?
And BTW, what really disappointed me about the story, as I said yesterday, was that at first thought MoDo was talking about complimentary hotel pillow candy that you get in CO now. But it wasn’t. That is a bummer.
KG
Point of order re: Pierce… What is the current definition of dope? My understanding is that pot has not been dope for about 30 years, and the current definition is meth.
Can we have a ruling?
raven
Rachel reporting that Senators were shown the tape that led to the effort to release Bergdahl and some of the punk ass motherfuckers are changing their minds. . . again. Assholes.
KG
@raven: which way are they going now? To favoring it or opposing it?
Schlemizel
I put MoDo’s story in the same box as Asshats turning down a chunky Reese Witherspoon. No way she would be so careless with he safety. Its a bullshit story they made up to prove the point they wanted to prove. The Mustache has his cab drivers these two have their make believe sources. Its a sign of their intellectual dishonesty
trollhattan
@Baud:
Will Nevada do?
Not much of a state, but they’ve got Bundy and all.
raven
@KG: Favor, apparently they were shown video from earlier this year and it prompted “some” to rethink. That includes Clapper.
eta, I may have misheard her.
“WASHINGTON — A closed-door briefing by top Pentagon officials failed to win consensus among senators about the wisdom of Saturday’s controversial prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Robert Work, the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, and Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed the trade during the briefing, which included videos of Bergdahl in captivity.”
Rarely Posts
In very limited defense of Dowd (I can’t believe I wrote that clause), I am completely addicted to chocolate and I’ve never tried pot (and don’t really want to). I could totally see gobbling down too much and being miserable. Personally, I’d hope the dispensaries would provide “beginners brownie bags” where one would have to eat about a full pan of deep, fudgy brownies to get one serving’s worth of marijuana.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Where the weed at?
Howard Beale IV
MoDo should know that if the place where she consumed her stuff didn’t permit it that she was breaking the law.
Was the place that she stayed at part of the ‘Bud and Breakfast’ contingent? If not, then’s she a fucking criminal.
raven
Whatchoo gots dat good fo de head?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Too late. Prostitution is not against state law in Nevada, where it’s legal county by county. Heidi Fleiss was even trying to set up a place with all male prostitutes called “The Stud Farm”. There’s a MoDo column that would make you slit your wrists…
kc
I lost all respect for Merritt over the way she managed her site during the Zimmerman trial, but I really expected better from you and Pierce.
Again: I’m no MoDo fan. But y’all are really missing the point.
jl
@raven: They’ve gone nuts. Totally nuts. Do none of them remember what they said last month Or maybe it is total BS and they had their people write their their inspirational and touching posts and statements on POW Bergdahl? I mean are the troops and vets really important enough to really spend their own time on it?
If I live to be old enough, some one might write a book on why the GOP became such vicious and stupid jackasses, and how the orders to go on scorched earth political search and destroy mission worked.
Clearly they all got some signal from to go batshit insane within a day on it. Was mass insane messages from outside teabagger crazies? Or some GOP boiler room ops who did not write the orders with the surpassing clarity and finesse of a US Grant?
Nobama borg mind control got nothing on what goes on in our modern GOP.
Edit: I don’t want to venture too far into ‘tactical talk’ since I have made of gun nuts, teabaggers and civvies using it. But they seem to have no situational awareness at all.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I was about to write “She’s already a whore, what would be different?” But then I realized how harsh that sounded. Watching this ugly mob attack someone who has been in fear for his life every day for 5 years must be getting to me.
Edit: where the hell is the sheriff who protects the prisoner? I think it’s time for President Obama to put on his “dad” hat and call out the ugly mob for what it is.
Roger Moore
@muddy:
Especially when you have the munchies.
raven
@jl: They are talking to themselves.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Obama is out of the country. He might do something like that when he gets back.
jl
@raven: OK, thanks for clarification. But I stand by my venting.
jl
@raven:
” They are talking to themselves.”
Do they know that other people can hear them?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Like the late great and much lamented Miss Molly I, Pierce is a reporter in his bones before turning snark-meister. What a difference from all the Dylan Byers, Chris Cilliza types of the Village Nursery. And don’t fucking get me started on Luke Russert
WaterGirl
@Baud: Forgot about that. Rule #36: Don’t scold your countrymen when you are abroad.
Oh, and I wanted to thank you for your good wishes last night. I smiled when I saw your comment. I had always thought of my huge tree as Treebeard, or as close as I would ever see. My tree was probably 6 feet in diameter and the trunk had just the texture I would have expected from the book.
hells littlest angel
Actually you do have to chew khat leaves for hours. And you need a bundle of them almost the size of a football. A fun high if you’ve got the leisure time.
Schlemizel
Strychnine is a hallucinogen. If taken in the correct dosage it causes a very interesting trip from what I have been told. Of course if you screw up the dosage the trip is one way.
Someone should tell MoDo about the high, with any luck she would run off and take some without any planning or investigation.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Hope you had a peaceful night.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I slept pretty well, and no nightmares!! So if you want to send good thoughts for tonight, as well, I’ll take ’em! It would be nice if it was just a 3-day thing; I like sleeping like a baby!
The first time I heard thunder after the tree crashed, it was less than two weeks later, and I was out of town at my sister’s, watching the Blackhawks in a stanley cup game that lasted until after midnight. I heard the first thunder, my entire body started to shake, and tears ran down my cheeks for 20 minutes. Then it was over, just like that. Never happened again.
I do get
a littlenervous now when there are high winds, I have to confess, but nothing like that night.Edited for honesty.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Sending you good thoughts through the tubes.
Schlemizel
@WaterGirl:
Sorry, I must have missed part of your story, what happened to make you so nervous?
gogol's wife
@beltane:
Good parody.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
UPDATE: Three Mounties “mortally wounded,” two others shot with non-life-threatening injuries. Story would hardly be a blip in the U.S., sad to say.
Comrade Mary
@SiubhanDuinne: Three police officers dead now, two more (at least) wounded, shooter still on the loose. Dear God.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: RedKitteh is worried as well I noticed.
SiubhanDuinne
@Comrade Mary:
@Yutsano:
Terrible.
Tractarian
When it comes down to it, it seems like Dowd’s dumb column can really do nothing but help sway people more toward supporting legalization.
I mean, she had about the worst experience any human in history has ever had with this substance. And the worst she has to show for it is … this sh*tstain of a column.
If she did this with alcohol or any other drug, she’d easily be dead.
jnfr
You guys might find this interesting. It’s in the Cannabist, which is the Denver Post’s marijuana section, and it’s talking with the tour operator whose business gave MoDo her ‘trip’ back in January, which apparently is when she had her bad experience.
Inside look at what NYT’s Dowd was told about edibles
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jnfr: Oh, thank you for that. She’s a liar as well as a jackass. ‘had to rush out for the screening of a Mitt Romney documentary’, topical! I was gonna suggest you email that link to Pierce, but I’m sure it will be all over the internets by morning.
liberal
@Punchy: want she the one who went to great lengths to say Zimmerman was innocent? IIRC it wasn’t just “well, yes, but only because of SYG.”
liberal
@kc: agree on Merritt.
WaterGirl
@Schlemizel: A year ago this week my huge silver maple tree crashed on my house and the anniversary of the date seemed to stir up a bit of the trauma. What I described upthread was my first response to thunder after the experience.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
You realize the basic problem with the 5 people list is that none of us would be on their list.
I suppose the defense of the credibility of MoDo’s story is that many of us think she is that dumb.
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne: Anytime 3 policemen are murdered, it’s a big story. Here or in Canada.