Good journalism:
SEVEN DAYS OF HEROIN- THIS IS WHAT AN EPIDEMIC LOOKS LIKE
The Enquirer sent more than 60 reporters, photographers and videographers into their communities to chronicle an ordinary week in this extraordinary time.
Read and watch the whole thing- it’s heartbreaking (PS, Ohioans- Trump lied to you and isn’t going to do shit about the epidemic), but amazing work.
The Bad:
It wasn't the email story. It was how she handled the email story.https://t.co/iKzFPTvP09
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) September 11, 2017
Fuck Chris Cillizza.
TenguPhule
With a rusty chainsaw!
Baud
It was actually how the media handled the email story. Which is why the media is trying to shift blame.
Wapiti
I cannot imagine how she was supposed to handle the email story in a way that would ever satisfy Cillizza’s “concerns”.
Corner Stone
I think all the major media bad players do this on purpose. They all really know what they did. This now is just a way to drive clicks/traffic/twits of poutrage. Every time they try it they get 9 to 1 sandblasting their ass.
Patricia Kayden
Some brilliant BJ commenter called him Chinchilla which I thought was beyond brilliant. He’s useless. Like Trump, he keeps falling upward. At least he’s no longer with Washington Post.
Baud
@Wapiti: Whatever she did was wrong. Whatever she didn’t do is what she should have done.
Baud
@Corner Stone: Yep. Win-win for them.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: They’re still going after Secretary Clinton. It’s like some sort of sick addiction.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
And even that was wrong.
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden:
What do you mean like?
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Baud: This can’t be restated enough. And it isn’t merely how they covered the optics of the story, which was so off-balance that it can’t be explained by simple ignorance but requires actual malice to explain; they were also flagrantly wrong on the most basic facts in a manner that indicates a staggering ignorance of technology (a recurring problem with journalists; see also: Lawrence, Patrick).
Patricia Kayden
@Wapiti: She can never win with the MSM.
Corner Stone
@Wapiti: Been meaning to catch you on a thread. Is your handle from WY area? I was recently through there and I actually thought about your handle for about 100 miles or so while I was driving through and everything seemed to be named after it.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: They’re not so different than Trump.
Patricia Kayden
@TenguPhule: Even now when they know dang well that she’s out of politics, they cannot stop themselves from going after her. It’s not as if there isn’t a dangerous bigot in the White House or something.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Baud: They’re both flagrant misogynists, for one.
Baud
@(((CassandraLeo))):
I plan to bring it up often.
trollhattan
Because it’s just written as Enquirer I automatically thought National and was wondering what alternate reality I’d stumbled into. Cillizza quote brought be back to earth.
debit
Chris Cillizza gets my vote for the first against the wall.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Give or take 150 pounds or so.
TenguPhule
@debit:
David Brooks. Ed Stone.
And there is plenty of room on that wall.
Corner Stone
@Patricia Kayden: Every time I see a think-click piece about how HRC blames everyone but herself or she should disappear or etc I have to talk myself down from finding the author and choking them to fucking death.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Baud: This, right here, is no doubt why BJ is the home of Baud! 2020.
@debit: Do you happen to have a copy of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future that confirms he was the first against the wall when the revolution came?
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
Still covering up their crimes.
Baud
@Corner Stone: That’s a lot of killing. There are a lot of those.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: I’ve been calling him that for a while since I hate him too much to learn how to spell his name.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Good call. His name is hard to spell.
MazeDancer
Read that remarkable article right after it was first tweeted by the paper. Stunning, eye-opening work. 60 journalists reporting. All of them doing an outstanding job.
Learned so much. Felt like the most sheltered, privileged person in US as had no idea what heroin addiction was like.
Everyone in the country really needs to read as much of that piece as they can.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Joy Reid had a couple of tweets and retweets comparing people’s reaction to Wilmer’s book about the campaign to Hillary’s. He also criticizes people and calls a few out. Schockingly enough, we didn’t hear about his bitterness and score-settling. I hope she does a segment on it this weekend.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
But think of the ratings!
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: there’s a good Slate article exploring how the main problem everybody has with the book is that it has the temerity to exist.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t even know Wilmer had a book.
rikyrah
Phuck that Cillizza troll
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: “Our Revolution” It think
PhoenixRising
I dispute her contention that using a secured email server to get her job done was a mistake that had consequences. If the email scandal hadn’t been there, the irrational attacks would have been about something else. It didn’t matter what. They knew she was going to beat Trump and had to cut her down to their level before she did. So they attacked relentlessly, whatever she did or didn’t do, and now they want to be let off the hook. Well, the first rule of holes is…
Corner Stone
@Patricia Kayden:
She will never be out of politics. Long after she is dead and eulogized they will be slagging her for any reason they can think of. Look at Chelsea. They are swarming her, fucking daring her to dip her toe into politics or elected office. They have reams of pre-written think pieces destroying her for being Bill’s daughter or HRC’s daughter or a dynasty daughter or just a daughter.
TenguPhule
@PhoenixRising:
To dig deeper.
MORE DERP! //
dmsilev
@debit: So many to choose from. Or, to quote the Lord High Executioner,
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks. According to Amazon, it came out on November 15.
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
If you ever lose that argument with yourself, let us know, so we can do a fund-raiser for your bail.
Well, either that, or we’ll tag along to help you.
Baud
@PhoenixRising: I agree. The parts of the book I’m most afraid of is where she’ll be overly apologetic and gracious.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
But Hillary’s book is the one that’s too soon.
tobie
I hope the book sells like hot cakes and puts all these a–holes who refused to acknowledge her base of support to shame. My preordered copy has shipped. If you can afford to do so, buy a copy. God willing it will render Cilliza and Halperin speechless.
Major Major Major Major
Gonna re-share what I think is a good piece of satire from the New Yorker.
It’s Time for Hillary Clinton to Gracefully Bow Out of Public Life, Along with All Other Women
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: I think I heard of his book, but I assumed it was forward looking about his political “revolution.”
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If we can ever get a weekend without a natural or Trump made disaster we might get a full AMJoy segment for a damn change. I am feigning.
chopper
I’d ask cillizza exactly how hilz should have handled it, but unfortunately I’m sure he’d tell me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone:
I doubt that you have enough time off to do it. It would be like a full time job.
PhoenixRising
@Baud: this implies that
a) it’s ‘Bernie’s book’ in the sense that he’s revenue sharing with the writer or
b) while this country faced the most important test in 75 years at least, he had time to sit back and write a book instead of busting his ass for the only person who could beat Trump
I thought I despised Sanders after his response to a question on police violence against youth of color at the second Dem debate (‘we’re gonna get those kids off the street corner and into jobs’) but there are reservoirs of disdain in me that remained untapped until now.
Baud
@PhoenixRising: Someone said his Guide to Political Revolution was just a publication of his tweets and speeches. I don’t know if this book had original material.
Major Major Major Major
Getting the feeling my pie filter is about to get a workout. Just a sense.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Baud: I don’t know if I’m afraid of them, necessarily. They’ll reveal that she’s a much better person than I am, or than any of the people who are attacking her over any of this trivial bullshit, but I knew that already.
Baud
BTW, has anyone who is talking about her book actually read it?
(((CassandraLeo)))
@tobie: Still need to order mine. Haven’t yet decided whether to get an e-book or buy from a local bookstore. Will definitely pick it up, though – I’m genuinely interested in what she has to say for its own sake and it will also figure as background research into a narrative I want to write.
SFAW
@PhoenixRising:
Well, thank FSM that Bernie was here to help. Would Hitlary ever help you with that? NO!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Who has that kind of time?
Steve in the ATL
@Major Major Major Major:
Dude, I’ve hardly posted at all lately.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
Only more enjoyable.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m wondering if your sense is Not Reliable. Or is it Naturally Right?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Chris Hayes seems to like it. Even Chinchilla gave it a good headline, something like Hillary Clinton is completely right but god do I hate that bitch
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Don’t dirty their assumptions with facts, Baud.
Corner Stone
Why does the name Kyle Rudolph sound like a serial killer? What’s his middle name? Isn’t that all we need to know now?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Best election analysis yet.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
You might try to make your reading billable. Win-win-win, I say. Well, except for the client you bill, that is.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
While Trump’s kids are actually literally trashing the White House.
I’m with Village. They all need to go for the crime of criminal stupidity.
Quinerly
@TenguPhule:
Gonna need a bigger wall.
Omnes Omnibus
It is Daniel.
Corner Stone
@Baud: I figure she has to hit Houston at some point on her tour. I am going to buy like ten books and have them all dedicated to me and then give them away as Xmas presents. Fucking Glorious.
Major Major Major Major
@Quinerly: Trump is building us one, remember?
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Could spread it out among many. Who’d notice?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TenguPhule: Remember Mayor Fredo? Senator Ivanka? Media boomlets from the campaign. “They’re so poised!” “They connect with Trump voters!” Fredo was supposed to be elected mayor of NYC on that.
TenguPhule
@Quinerly:
It will be transparent and the journalists will pay for it.
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
Can we assume that they would be gifted to the “economically anxious” you know? That WOULD be good fun.
danielx
Seconded. Comments to his tweet are pretty much like “you are a sorry excuse for a journalist and you are still making excuses for your fucked-up election coverage”.
TenguPhule
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh c’mon! I was drinking to forget those.
Now I have to start over.
Baud
@Corner Stone:
“To Corner Stone. Fuck Trump. Fuck him up his stupid ass. Love, Hillary.”
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: want.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was debating whether to spell it out, or see if you’d come up with that on your own. Well done, Grasshopper. (Not that I ever doubted, of course.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Perfect. 50/50 she’d sign it.
Corner Stone
@Baud: “To Corner Stone, Back off Creep!”
It works either way, tbh.
trittico
#FuckChrisCillizza seems like the perfect hashtag for our times.
Eric S.
@TenguPhule: it’s going to be a big beautiful wall. Huge. The best.
Gelfling545
@tobie: I’m ordering 3 for gifts. I may order one for the only self confessed Trump voter I know as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: And you get billed an hour. And you get billed an hour. And you get billed an hour….
SiubhanDuinne
Chris Cillizza can GFH and then FOAD and the GFH again and then DIAF and then GFH one more time.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Outstanding.
Jack the Second
@Wapiti: She was supposed to drop out of the race, obviously.
Corner Stone
WTH, Saints? You paid that child whupper big money to hit the sticks in crunch time. Now you puss out?
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, yes he can.
Major Major Major Major
@Jack the Second: Japanese ritual suicide with Chinchilla as her second, obviously.
Gelfling545
@Baud: So it’s about a revolution that DIDN’T happen?
TenguPhule
@SFAW:
Does gifted represent “slam into their heads repeatedly in hopes that osmosis will occur”?
Eric S.
@Omnes Omnibus: This is a job for the gig economy. We can find enough people with strong fingers looking for work. I know we can.
Baud
@Gelfling545:
Good question. Here’s the Amazon description.
TenguPhule
@Eric S.:
And just think of all the secondary employment opportunities.
The Construction Lime business alone would triple overnight.
SiubhanDuinne
@Patricia Kayden:
Yep, this. I’ve lost track of how many versions of “Hillary Needs to Shut Up and Go Away and Not Write Books and Not Do Book Tours” op-eds and columns I’ve seen in the past few weeks.
Well, I pre-ordered the e-book version the minute it was announced. It should download to my Kindle at 12:01 a.m., and I can’t wait to read it!
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Wasn’t the book already reviewed and panned as “not a revolution, more of a weak turn of the wrist”?
Baud
@TenguPhule: It’s a stimulus.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Personal pleasure is a side benefit.
Baud
@TenguPhule: I completely forgot about it until this thread.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: We’re counting on you to do a book report.
eclare
@Major Major Major Major: Heh, see you included the word “satire” in the link
Major Major Major Major
@eclare: Poe’s Law and all. Evidently.
Villago Delenda Est
@TenguPhule: This is why we have tumbrel manifests, and we update the order regularly to give these assclowns the status they crave.
Starfish
The reporting on the heroin story is excellent. The story itself is so sad. All of the kids that are going to grow up in foster care…
PsiFighter37
@Starfish: That is nuts. I know the heroin epidemic is a real thing, especially in the rural parts of this country (and even in some parts of NY), but in Manhattan…it seems incredibly foreign. There is some deep pathology that must drive people to stick themselves with syringes over and over again. I cannot fathom doing something like that to myself.
Baud
@PsiFighter37: Manhattan used to have a heroin epidemic back in the day, no?
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
chopper
@Baud:
doesn’t matter, bros will buy it by the case. gotta cover the costs of defending your wife from fraud charges somehow amirite?
germy
efgoldman
@PsiFighter37:
I’m sorry, but that’s just dumb.
It’s called “addiction” and it’s a well-known chemical phenomenon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: : applause :
in other news….
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
Today the NYT had an obituary for the man who directed the “Man from Hope” piece that was shown at Bill Clinton’s inauguration. It had to mention, with an ironic smirk, that Clinton had a $250 haircut to prepare for the film. Why is that worthy of mention in this obituary? Why is it shocking that a person preparing for a film to be shown at the convention where he’s being nominated would get a good haircut?
ETA: Not inauguration, nominating convention
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Better than my writing now.
eclare
@SiubhanDuinne: Hahaha…I give you an A+
Ohio Mom
Now I feel a little bad for recycling that section of the Enquirer without reading it.
While we get it delivered every day, I usually only look at it, I don’t read it. If it’s an article about something I already know about, the omissions and biases piss me off; if it’s about something I don’t know much about, I’m afraid I’ll come away with the wrong information.
What I find most useful are the notices about things like highway exit closings, the entertainment section for things that might be fun to do, and since I am turning into an oldster, the occasional obituary if it is for someone I used to know.
danielx
@Villago Delenda Est:
I really want to follow the one that carries Roger Stone.
zhena gogolia
@chopper:
It’s worth going to the twitter thread to see the responses.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Why is the NYT garbage?
Baud
@germy: Cute.
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
She’s coming to my town but I can’t stand crowds.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ooh, that would be great!! Joy Ann rocks.
HinTN
@Major Major Major Major: OT – You were right, Customs in and out of Vancouver is incredibly easy, except don’t ever arrive around noon because there’s yoouge lines to get to the easy parts. Oofda
Major Major Major Major
@HinTN:
Woohoo!
;)
germy
Baud
@germy: Android has had that for a while, but it’s considered not that secure. I assume Apple has improved it.
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: Good, you can see the new sayings! :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
piratedan
well, Chris would definitely be deserving of a high tumbrel number, so would the NYT editors who kept assigning all of those HRC hit pieces out while stopping any follow up on the Trump bombshells. Plus the guy at MSNBC who keeps hiring all of these fucking Republicans and their equivalent at CNN who managed to turn the election coverage into part of his campaign
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Haberman. Thrush. Hacktacular.
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: ooh, did any of mine make it?
Corner Stone
@HinTN: Little story. Customs at Vancouver almost didn’t let me and my son into Canada a couple years ago. I did not have a signed affidavit from his mother that he was ok to be crossing the border with me. The guy was like, “Heck, where is mom?” …
Omnes Omnibus
@Eric S.: I am not sure that reviving Murder Inc. is a good Idea.
Another Scott
@PhoenixRising: Remember him dropping everything to go visit the Vatican? That was something, wasn’t it?
VTDigger:
Bernie just loved the trappings of being a big-shot, didn’t he…?
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott: I had forgotten about that escapade.
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
I imagine there’s an inside joke/story that I’m not getting.
jl
Seven days of heroin, or 365 days of Cillizza? Which is worse for your brain?
I guess on basic daily activities of living, heroin is worse, but probably not much more you can say.
Corner Stone
@PsiFighter37:
There actually is a mirror somewhere in your Manhattan apartment, correct?
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: wasn’t Bernie supposed to be famous for riding commercial (and coach no less!)?
But yes, lobster at the Vatican.
Wapiti
@Corner Stone: Nah, the nym is play on a family name. But I’ve always thought that N.A. elk were cool.
PsiFighter37
@efgoldman: I am well aware; I am referring to the fact that it seems to be infecting entire areas. Addiction on this scale doesn’t just happen out of the blue. I think it’s a combination of some sort of collectively deep depression based on economic hopelessness, along with the ease with which drugs / painkillers can be obtained, that led to this.
Maybe I am using words a bit imprecisely, but that is what I am referring to. The article Cole mentioned makes it seem like drugs are ravaging entire areas on a daily basis.
Corner Stone
@SFAW: There wasn’t, but I added one just for you.
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
I realize it’s not unusual, but … now I’m really confused.
Jeffro
@germy: Gutsy but so on-point it hurts
Corner Stone
@zhena gogolia:
I’ll come up there if you want to go. Hmm, that may not make it better…
PsiFighter37
@Corner Stone: It’s been a long time since asshole Corner Stone made an appearance. Yes, there is, and I am pointing out the obvious – that I can’t imagine or fathom it. I don’t know anyone personally, from family or friends (from those I went to elementary school with to those I know at work) who have been impacted. But it’s clearly a huge, huge issue that is a big problem outside of the big-city bubble.
I know I am a part of that bubble. But it’s still shocking and surprising and sad to see entire communities seemingly becoming afflicted by heroin addiction. Heroin was certainly mentioned in DARE (not entirely the best example) when I was growing up, but I was much more familiar with marijuana (how quaint, in some ways) and cocaine being the supposedly bigger scourges. At least in the mid-1990s, I don’t recall heroin being anywhere talked about as much as it is now.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Starfish: I’m in the process of organizing a speaker panel of regional Family Services Directors to discuss the impact the epidemic has had on their caseloads of foster care families needed. It’s for a membership meeting of a the Mental Health and Addiction Advocacy Coalition of Ohio’s SW Hub. I consult for them; my wee NAMI affiliate was a member before it was acquired for a consolidated affiliate. I expect the stories to be horrific. The need has been overwhelming for some time now. Much of my consulting has involved regional county task forces’ response as I was actively involved with that work during my NAMI days.
So the story has lots of personal resonance for me. It’s an excellent and accurate representation of the situation here.
@efgoldman: You’re right; addiction is a disease, and opiates actually remodel the neural pathways. Also tolerance builds very quickly so a dose required to stave off withdrawal may approach a respiration suppressing dose with surprising speed.
danielx
@chopper:
It would be cynical to think that Cillizza would tweet something like purely as click bait…wouldn’t it?
“Hey, if they’re mad about something I wrote, I’m winning because they’re talking about me!”
On the other hand, what else could one expect him to say? I don’t think there’s room for the concepts of “I really fucked up” or “I’m sorry” either one in his world view.
Mike J
@Corner Stone:
The big news on twitter today is that someday your sex robots may do that for you.
debbie
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Any chance you can get Kasich to loosen his grip on the rainy day fund to help with this?
Omnes Omnibus
@PsiFighter37: In the ’70s “decent, hard working, rural Americans” were shocked by the deep pathology in the big cities that must drive people to stick themselves with syringes over and over again. They could not fathom doing something like that to themselves.
Suzanne
@TenguPhule:
Let’s build the border wall and then line them up against it. Should be big enough.
Kay
Don’t be silly. The email server was the biggest story of the 2016 campaign. I know because they covered it non-stop every day for 16 months. They ignored health care, taxes, civil rights, education, environmental issues and foreign policy- they ignored even the most basic reporting on Donald Trump’s finances and business interests because Americans had to know what the email server said about Hillary Clinton as a person. It meant she was bad. Very bad.
Every day I thank my lucky stars that they saved the country from Hillary Clinton and her poor server management skills.
Corner Stone
@SFAW: Yeah, there actually isn’t a joke there because the Custom’s guy was actually concerned about a parent stealing their child across a border due to a custody dispute between two parents/guardians. If there is a divorce or a separation some people with means will defy court orders and take minor children to other jurisdictions away from the other parent. My son and I were going to Alaska via cruise out of Vancouver, in the company of my dad, stepmom and about 10 other people. But he had no way of knowing that. Even though my ex had a notary sign off on her accepting getting him a passport, I understood his (Customs) concern. He asked my son several questions and let us go through. I called my ex and said, “Send me an electronic version of X,Y,Z in case anyone else asks.”
The actual joke is super inside baseball.
debbie
@Baud:
I’d bet a ton of bright young things have reviewed it at Goodreads.
jl
@PsiFighter37: I think a lot of regional problems are due to interaction of state-specific health care regulation and markets, and Rx drug industry marketing and distribution. Drug companies very aggressively marketed the drug to doctors and pharmacists, pushed it for chronic pain when its effectiveness and protocols for avoiding addiction were really only understood for acute pain. Three big distributors supply almost all the Rx drugs to the country, and they were not eager to look into sketchy, but very profitable, sales patterns. In states where regulations did not put up obstacles to those things, and there was a big demand, that was a part of it. Not all of it, but a big part.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: How do they know that mom is alive? That you are divorced rather than a widower? Do they ask the questions of any solo parent?
ETA: How was the Alaska cruise? My parents are considering one.
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
Got it. Thanks.
chopper
@piratedan:
a low number. It’s like the draft. no, I haven’t fantasized about how this all goes down, why do you ask?
Amaranthine RBG
Hey look – yet another thread purporting to dissect the 2016 election disaster in which posters just restate the same fucking thing they’ve said a thousand times before.
@WINNING!
jl
@Kay: Cillizza is like the proverbial fish who only knows the sea, so can’t even comprehend what it is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: a legal question, if you’re working pro bono in this thread (if not, you can bill Cole): Would Sarah Huckabee Sanders accusing Comey of “giving false testimony” constitute slander? Publicly accusing him of a crime with no evidence (that I can see)?
and can we start calling her Jethrene?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amaranthine RBG: we want to keep you coming back, Steve. We love you, and value your posts.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: The passport for a minor child has a place for a death certificate of the other parent. Customs would have seen the paperwork in that case. If the spouse is living and able, they have to agree by notarized paperwork form. If they can not be located or refuse to agree that is a different form.
danielx
In the mid-nineties, it wasn’t a small town scourge as it is now. And it wasn’t affecting large numbers of white people in affluent communities. Maybe more to the point, we hadn’t invaded Afghanistan, where a shitload of opium base production comes from.
ETA: I live in a relatively high end suburb/town (can’t think how they let me in) and there are ODs every day.
Just one more canuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: which one’s Fredo? Eric or Junior? Or are both of them Fredo?
Raven
The power has been off for 4 hrs. Luckily the red beans and collards were done and I did the salmon on the gas grill!
Corner Stone
@PsiFighter37: Wait a second…I am the asshole here? WTF?
Mayur
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s it right there.
The bitterness that a number of folks (including myself, NYC-raised and not white) have about the current opioid epidemic is that this shit happened in a far more widely-encompassing, deadly, and violence-ridden way in the 70s and 80s and was treated like… a crime wave requiring overwhelming force directed at the most vulnerable. Treatment? Ha! Let’s just throw them in jail forever or gun them down. Suddenly it happens to white people and it’s an epidemic requiring empathy, treatment, and rebuilding communities. Liberals were demonized for forty fucking years for pushing that approach to drugs and suddenly were supposed to pretend that this is a totally new thing that deserves to elicit support from all of us because it’s happening to white people.
jl
To file under ‘GOP is as bad as Trump, just bad in a different way’. I wonder if this stunt is part of their tax reform (aka, slash) scam:
This nifty GOP trick will punish the poor and increase the deficit — at the same time!
” [the GOP Congressional proposal] would put every American applying for the earned-income tax credit (EITC) through a sort of mini-audit before getting their refund. This would both place huge new burdens on the working poor and divert scarce Internal Revenue Service resources away from other audit targets, such as big corporations, that offer a much higher return on investment. ”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-nifty-gop-trick-will-punish-the-poor-and-increase-the-deficit–at-the-same-time/2017/09/11/6d6c5e6e-972e-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html
Chet Murthy
@PhoenixRising:
This *is* the First Clinton Rule: they’re guilty of -something-; we just need to figure out what it is. -Something-. -Something-.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
SHS reading off those sound bytes from the card blew my mind. Someone actually approved those talking points?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Just one more canuck: Both, Fredo I and Fredo II
though I think SNL Is on to something and I suspect if the Trump staffers who named Junior “Fredo” really wanted to insult him they’d have called him “Eric:
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@debbie: We’re trying really hard – both hubs of that coalition and many other organizations. No one is especially hopeful, to be candid.
@Omnes Omnibus: @PsiFighter37
Exactly the case. That was before opiate prescriptions were handed out like aspirin, and enormous bottles were left in medicine cabinets. When another generation might swipe mom’s valium for a party, opiates became available for fun – right there in the bathroom. And many thousands of people (of all ages) were prescribed long courses of opiates, during which they became addicted. Some of those scripts were diverted to family and friends, with or without the original patient’s consent. When a doc or docs wouldn’t write more scripts, they were bought on the street.
Merchants of illegal drugs seized a business opportunity and the market for heroin – less expensive than the pharmaceuticals – exploded. The opiates rewire the brain, and tolerance builds very quickly, so the need to dose again to avoid withdrawal becomes more frequent and at shorter intervals.
That’s how it’s happened. And many people don’t believe those lives are worth saving with naxolone, or medication assisted treatment. Which is the most successful because of the unique way opiates remodel neural pathways. The puritans want to punish the “bad people” for “poor choices.” Never mind that those choices were often not knowingly made, starting with a legally prescribed medication from a MD.
That’s how it happened, and continues to happen. You may have different views, PsiFighter37, but this is what I’ve been working on for the last 3.5 years in the area that’s the subject of the article. I work with law enforcement, social services agencies, and various treatment providers, and my information about the addiction process comes from physicians (mostly psychiatrists) who treat these folks professionally.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Second question first: Jethrene is acceptable. First question second: Comey is a public figure so defaming him would require that the the plaintiff acted in (IIRC) actual or reckless disregard of the truth. It is a very tough standard to beat.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: Last time I took Spawn the Elder out of the country, I provided the notarized form at every checkpoint, and everyone looked at me completely confused. I don’t think many of them actually check. I only ever had one airline employee actually read the entire damn thing.
efgoldman
@danielx:
And the manufacturers weren’t pushing [see what I did there?] opioids out the door way out of proportion to the actual market Rx requirements.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Thanks, I knew my aunt had to sign off on some paperwork when her ex took their son to meet his extended family in Italy.
Kay
The opiate addiction crisis sort of snuck up on us, because people can function for a while on opiates. If they have a low skill repetitive job they can show up for a time and do it. They’re not violent or erratic or even blatantly, visibly high when they’re early on and maintaining- it’s nothing like meth. Meth users look insane and the physical toll is incredible. It was like a large group of people contracted a disease and it took a while for them to move thru the early stages and they all hit late stage at around the same time. I remember the actual day I found out juveniles were stealing opiates from elderly relatives and I remember being told someone was a heroin addict and saying “heroin? really?” It wasn’t that it was a “street drug” or an “urban drug” it’s that is was kind of an exotic drug to me- something rock stars did in the 1960’s and
1970’s. For one thing I assumed it was wildly expensive. I was shocked when I found it was much cheaper than buying Oxy or Percocet illegally. It was if you said to me that 20 year old factory workers were addicted not to “alcohol” but instead to “imported champagne”.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
YES.YES.YES.
We did a 7 day cruise and then 7 or so day overland through Princess Cruise Lines. We left out of Vancouver and docked in Whittier, AK. This was in July 2015. If they have ever thought about it then I would suggest they absolutely do it. This was not something I had really thought about due to cost and time but it was on my dad’s bucket list and he kind of sort of pushed me into it. The ABSOLUTE best thing that we could have done.
I could go on but will just say that it is actually strenuous even though you are being pampered. But 1000% worth it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mayur: Johnny Thunders was white.
lamh36
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: ah, thanks
The Beast itself? Isn’t the recently belawyered Hope Hicks her boss?
Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Two people near and dear to me had surgeries (hip replacement and badly broken ankle) that resulted in oxy scripts. Both stopped the oxy the moment they could – the lived with pain. They are both obsessively disciplined and terrified of addiction. I suspect that they both stopped to soon, but I can’t make that call. They used it and got through. Not everyone does.
Kay
@lamh36:
Wow. The Russia/immigrant thing fascinates me. I don’t get it. I don’t believe the “sow chaos” theory. They want something specific. There’s a policy goal here. But why anti-immigrant? What interest does Russia have in people staying where they are? I don’t know- is it possible they don’t want their own people getting the hell out of there? Is it almost an idea around sort of trapping a native population that isn’t having a lot of children inside various borders? Why the fuck does Russia care about US immigration?
frosty
@PsiFighter37:
West Side and East Side Baltimore.
Mike J
@Corner Stone: Leave out of Seattle next time. There are probably a few people here who would have a beer with you.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Kay:
That’s one of the ways it snuck up on society – nobody understood how drug dealers capitalized on a very captive market. And also, as you note, use is not as immediately obvious as something like meth, where people are obviously impaired and in visible physical decline very quickly. But with the opiates, it can be quite subtle until economics drive the switch to heroin, which may be at a higher opiate dose (or may not be) which speeds up the tolerance cycle of the addiction and varying dose strengths contribute to shortened withdrawal intervals.
But it would probably never occur to anyone not involved in the criminal justice system how inexpensive and widely available heroin has gotten. Why/how would they know?
Another Scott
@Kay: Be fair, now.
They told us all about her family foundation, also too.
What sort of monster has a huge charity that actually raises huge amounts of money and gives it away?!!? Such people can’t be trusted, obviously.
We dodged a bullet there, didn’t we?
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@debbie:
Just checked Goodreads. Rated at 3.14 stars, but there are accusations of Russian bots leaving 1-star ratings.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: The one my ‘rents are looking at sounds similar. I’ve encouraged it whenever they mention it.
Kay
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
It’s awful because looking back it was pieces- a dawning realization. I can remember a specific incident of interviewing an older woman, a “respectable” opiate addict and realizing midway thru she was incredibly fucked up on those “pain patches” they were all using. It’s the slowness, the long spaces, the serene quality they have where you could sneak up behind them and yell and they wouldn’t flinch.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I have lots of Vi.co.d1n left from my unfortunate March incident. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so I only used it infrequently and briefly.
The stuff they give you pre-op, though. That is something else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Picture looks like about a dozen people, mostly young women, I’m assuming NYC, since I know the ObamaBros were taping their interview with her today or tomorrow– dropping tomorrow afternoon. She’ll be on TRMS tomorrow night I believe, followed a Special Exclusive Report, of Chris Hayes gazing adoringly at Wilmer while he truculently rebuts whatever she said that he didn’t like.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Liberals tend to be pro-immigrant and pro-minority. Populists can be anti-both. Separate liberals from populists and liberals don’t win. Populist appeals have always made me nervous because they risk betraying liberalism. I know you tend to see the positives of populism and encourage it. I see the other side and tend to fear it.
randy khan
I’ve been watching a Facebook thread the last few days, started by a friend who I considered a rational Bernie supporter (e.g., he got that the only reasonable choice after the nomination was to go all in for HRC). He started it by saying that his dislike of Hillary was not misogynistic because he dislikes Bill more, and it’s deteriorated from there. I finally had to jump in when somebody said that Hillary was only marginally better on character issues than Trump, which so utterly insane I had trouble not smashing the keyboard in frustration. But reading the thread, yeah, there’s a lot of misogyny there, and it’s almost scary how many Bernie supporters really sincerely believe that she stole the nomination from him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: When I had my ACL surgery and they gave me IV valium before the knock-out drug. The V made me feel HAPPY.
efgoldman
@randy khan:
I said way back at the beginning of the process: the first thing they need learn to do is fucking count votes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
almost as if his bellowing for months about a rigged system had some effect. Weaponized sanctimony.
joel hanes
@PsiFighter37:
based on economic hopelessness
I contend that while the despair is real, it is not so much economic as alienation.
Ex: people that eat one or more meal per day together as a family are happier than people who don’t.
When and where I grew up, almost everyone did. Now, almost no one does.
Number of single-person households is higher.
Number of childless couples is higher.
We’re bowling alone.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Hey, I don’t bowl and I have you fuck-faces, don’t I?*
*I have other networks as well.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had patient-controlled morphine, post-op, when my hips were replaced. That were good stuff. What was interesting — from a psychological or pharmacological or something-ological point of view — was that they stopped me after two or three days, gave me ibuprofen, and that was that. Didn’t even jones for it. (Although after only two or three, I guess that’s not surprising, but I was paranoid about liking it too much.)
efgoldman
@joel hanes:
Our daughter was an avid reader from about age five. We forbade her from bringing books (pre-Kindle) to the dinner table.
Nowadays we’d probably forbid any and all electronic/intartoobz devices.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
the deep pathology … that must drive people
It starts out not very different from the reasons that some people start to drink too much.
Ruckus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
Are we talking hillbilly heroin or actual heroin? Because there is a wide difference in delivery methods and ease of acquisition. I’m not sure that @PsiFighter37: is wrong, a lot of people don’t like needles and might just have a hard time going down that road. But pills? Lot’s of us take pills on a regular basis, and may even have had opiate pain killers prescribed at one time or another. Getting hooked on those is just as easy, maybe easier than shooting up, without the concept of a needle. It doesn’t leave as much evidence, at first, either.
SFAW
@randy khan:
“Almost”?
Jeffro
@jl: God bless Catherine Rampell – she really does take a scalpel to these cretins.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: I get that. I was playing off someone else’s language for a reason. Cheers.
PhoenixRising
@Omnes Omnibus: we prefer to be called ‘howling band of jackals’
Jeffro
@chopper:
Which is a shame because if you had, we could compare notes…
Aleta
Re: Manhattan and heroin
It happens I was looking at this nyc gov site in the last few days, because the son of my college bf recently died of heroin overdose in Brooklyn. In his 20’s, a high income white kid/family.
So for NYC and heroin, some of the the stats by borough in 2016 were in this table: Number and rate of unintentional drug poisoning (overdose) deaths involving heroin, New York City, 2013-2016* .
Numbers for 2016, for heroin deaths only. (At the link are the rates, and the stats for ODs from other drugs.)
–Borough of residence
Bronx 308
Brooklyn 297
Manhattan 244
Queens 235
Staten Island 116
—Borough of death
Bronx 201
Broo 196
Man 167
Que 123
S.Is. 64
* The rate of unintentional drug overdose death increased for the sixth consecutive year, from 8.2 per 100,000 residents in 2010 to 19.9 per 100,000 residents in 2016, a 143% increase.
From NYS Dept of health (for 2010-2015 od death rate increases)
August 9, 2016 – The Health Department today released new data confirming a 66 percent increase in overdose deaths in New York City from 2010-2015. Heroin overdose death rates increased by 158 percent from 2010-2015, and heroin was involved in 59 percent of drug overdose deaths in 2015.
Mayur
@Omnes Omnibus: sorry; we might be talking past each other. Obviously, a huge number of crack and heroin addicts, famous and otherwise, have been white. (No doubt the correct line to draw is between that Real America I’m always hearing about and us godless savage gay Communist pedophiles on the coasts.) but the point is, as I assumed you were noting, that the right and center’s response to drug problems swung 180 degrees from ignore/punish to empathize once the right kind of people were afflicted. Moreover, liberals’ approach to the issue was used as a cudgel against them on a myriad of issues for decades until suddenly the right and center decided that drug use could be an “epidemic” rather than a crime wave or a cultural signifier of degeneracy.
This is just hitting home in a way that’s almost unbearable since I read TNC’s recent essay about the president-asterisk. Republicans have derided and demonized liberals for decades when we lament the destruction of black communities via redlining, environmental injustice, state-sanctioned punitive law enforcement , and overall neglect. Suddenly a couple of old white guys show up talking about the hollowing-out of WHITE communities and it’s the most salient issue ever and one that requires the most pressing attention of both parties and conveniently demands an admission of failure by the Democrats (thanks, BernieBros). Not cool.
PhoenixRising
@Jeffro: @chopper:
Technically that’s called conspiracy but don’t let me slow your roll gentlemen. I’ll be over here with a cool glass of iced tea for everyone.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: I had morphine, years ago, after a different accident. I can understand why people like it.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah. And the guy’s response when I picked out a few highlights (foundations, Trump not paying people, Trump constantly lying, Trump being unable to denounce white supremacists, racists, and neo-Nazis), the guy more or less said we just had different standards for what qualifies as character. It was impressive in an awful way.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus: seventies was injecting black tar heroin; now it’s smoking brown oil heroin. That’s when white suburban kids got into it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I know several “posh” people who have a “gear” issue, who are fine in war zones but need something else to get through peace time. I am not one of them, but, for me, I suspect it is timing and exposure. I could see myself in Anthony Loyd. I drink more when I am bored.
joel hanes
@Corner Stone:
My family did a week mid-August on an American Cruise Lines small ship cruise (125 passengers), circling from Juneau for glaciers and whales and small harbors and mountain goats and grizzlies. I’d do it again. Some few passengers found it hard to adapt to the temperatures, which stayed 55 to 65 F, and the persistent drizzle; I found it glorious.
Omnes Omnibus
@PhoenixRising: I like to ad-lib.
Corner Stone
@Mayur:
Nope. There is no talking past each other at this blog. There are those who agree with me and the rest are idiots with nothing valuable to add.
Aleta
@Aleta: Wait, I screwed up the numbers above. Will correct them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I didn’t know about the highlighted part– I thought they rescinded the aid because of their own earthquake, to say nothing of it still being early in hurricane season.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Ruckus: In this b region, the switch was from pharmaceuticals to actual heroin due to supply and price. Estimates are that 75-80+ % started with legal pills, either their own or diverted, and progressed to snorting or shooting actual heroin.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think it was when I was being wheeled in to get my wisdom teeth chiseled out, I asked the nurse what she’d given me. She said “Valium”. I said “I have got to get me some of that!”
Brachiator
@Kay:
Low skill, repetitive job? Hell, a good chunk of those addicted are doctors and lawyers.
Roger Moore
@Quinerly:
Trump is planning on building us a yuge, beautiful wall. Little does he know what it will be used for.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mayur: Aside from being contrary, the point about JT was that he was a counter-cultural figure.
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
Now I see why Quinerly was pining for
the fjordsyou when you were away.joel hanes
@randy khan:
there’s a lot of misogyny there, and it’s almost scary how many Bernie supporters really sincerely believe that she stole the nomination from him.
This and this.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: You do know that she is mad as a bag of ferrets, right?
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have you [military term of affection elided], don’t I?
You do indeed.
And here we are, I am, seeking your company on a Monday night.
But the primate in me suspects it’s not the attachment equivalent of hugs and sharing food.
Corner Stone
@joel hanes: One morning my son and I woke up and went down to get breakfast. We were playfully arguing about something we had seen yesterday when we hit deck level and started freezing. We both stopped and looked over the rails at the icebergs/icesheets in Glacier Bay. It was one of those, “Whuh? WHUH??” moments.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: please tell me the part about haye’s interview with Wilmer tomorrow is a joke. Pretty please?
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
I get that.
I know that. I was answering PF by replying to your reply. Think of it as an etiquette goof.
Sorry ’bout that, chief.
joel hanes
@Corner Stone:
Glacier Bay
We were in a “small” ship, and got in close to two calving glaciers. Waves from falling ice rocked the ship a bit. The cracking and creaking of the ice as it moves is eerie; I can’t describe it adequately.
danielx
@PhoenixRising:
Screw ‘howling band of jackals’. Splitters.
– Band of howling jackals
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
A) Ozark says otherwise
B) “Mad” as in angry or “mad” as in nuts?
C) And that makes her different from the rest of us how?
D) She seems nice
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Brachiator: True story. Both of my personal lawyer friends with opiate addiction issues started on prescribed meds following sports injuries. One had a racket to get more pills for years, and got treatment after his incarceration. He’s now a paralegal in another state b where his wife got a job, and he’ll never get his license back.
The other progressed from pills to shooting and had been in and out of treatment and jail. I’m not being sure where he is now. He went to heroin because of price after he sold a high 6 figures’ worth of very good art to buy drugs.
Those are just the 2 who didn’t get treatment before fucking up their lives terribly: I know others, plus a couple of docs and a former periodontist, who’d done great work for me. He gave up his license and DEA number to avoid prison.
Aleta
I copied the numbers above at 210 wrong. WRONG!
@Aleta:
@Aleta:
Might be the right thing to delete the above comment so those numbers don’t escape. Sorry.
From this link: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/epi/databrief89.pdf. For 2016, number of heroin deaths in NYC. (Rates and other drug stats are at link.)
–Borough of residence
Bronx 176
Brooklyn 164
Manhattan 118
Queens 120
Staten Island 67
—Borough of death
Bronx 201
Broo 196
Man 167
Que 123
S.Is. 64
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Chief?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@tobie: it is about tomorrow, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on there before the end of the week. I predict there are two well-known, angry narcissists who will be following HRC’s media blitz this week with petulant attentiveness.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: A: W’eves.
B: Yes.
C: Fuck if I know.
D: Yes, she does.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Sorry about that, Chief”
Maxwell Smart quote
innumerable repetitions, because innumerable goof-ups
danielx
@SFAW:
Why not both? Most people here are one or the other at various times.
efgoldman
@Aleta:
This is not necessarily new. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch nailed it almost 60 years ago. A very depressing book.
Ruckus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Well that just shows you how long ago it has been since I’ve done any off script products. 35 yrs worth of time actually. Didn’t know that snorting it was acceptable. Never partook my self but did know a couple of heroin users and they were both needle guys. One tried it and said no and he was a coke dealer. Another was shooting up on board ship in the navy and no one knew until he got caught one day with a needle in his arm. We should have known that something was up, he was bothered way too little by all the bullshit. Of course we found out that the bullshit just never registered.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator:
Insurance defense and real estate lawyers meet your criteria
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Chief is for CWOs. They would find me and fuck up my paperwork.
Fair Economist
@PsiFighter37: The medical system pushes opiates. Hard. I was with my mother when she was getting treatment for a chronic (but not particularly painful) wound. The nurse prescribed her a 30-day supply of opiate pills and instructed her to take them “at the first sign of pain”. That’s a recipe for addiction (not blaming the nurse; I know she’s just following orders). This is pretty typical and has happened to both her and her second husband multiple times. My mother (and her new husband) has always been pretty sharp about this stuff and largely ignored the constant pushing, taking pills only very occasionally for severe pain. Most people don’t have her medical knowledge, though.
Now she’s in the hospital indefinitely with a genuinely painful condition and they’ve finally managed to get her on opiates. She’s getting pretty sick, and I figured initially it didn’t make too much difference anymore if they finally got her addicted. But, she got colon impactions twice and since she’s no longer a good surgery patient that might well have killed her if they hadn’t been able to clear it with some aggressive (and rather disgusting) medical treatment. Opiates are just amazingly good at killing people.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Yes that would be poetic justice, using his wall, but maybe we should spend the money on something better and use walls we already have.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
CWOs
In my battalion, and as an enlisted man, they would claim that I fucked up their paperwork.
tobie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m already snorting in laughter.
Brachiator
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
The brother of a college friend was district attorney who would prosecute drug dealers by day and use drugs himself at night. He started with cocaine and moved into some kind of combo. Not sure how his addiction problems began.
I found it sadly amusing that there would be regular busts of drug dealers in the Venice area of Los Angeles. A considerable number of users were from the nearby affluent neighborhood of Cheviot Hills. They would drive through Venice the way that someone would drive to a convenience store to pick up groceries and a six pack of beer, and then hunker down in the comfort of their upscale community and shoot up with impunity.
efgoldman
@joel hanes:
Twenty-two years, my dad (a CWO) NEVER fucked up paperwork.
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
More complicated than that. Doctors often don’t push opiates enough for terminally ill patients with pain.
PBO
@joel hanes: As a commissioned officer who spent a lot of time cultivating the PBO, one can win. He would never call me sir. I never forced it. At my BC’s change of command, he made sure that I was covered. Little things.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
They are also watched fairly hard if they write too many scrips for them.
Omnes Omnibus
As a commissioned officer who spent a lot of time cultivating the PBO, one can win. He would never call me sir. I never forced it. At my BC’s change of command, he made sure that I was covered. Little things.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
When you are in real pain, the opiates stop that but don’t normally cause addiction. I’ve used an opiate pain killer for migraines and once the pain is gone (15 minutes, which is big in migraine treatment) there is no other effect. And I have no need or desire to take them for recreational use. As you don’t normally take them for long periods they function like intended, they stop pain and nothing else. It’s when you use them on a regular basis that they become addicting.
PIGL
@TenguPhule: no need to rush….let him watch for a while, give him time to think about it first.
Xenos
@Omnes Omnibus:I have been prescribed oxycontin on a couple occasions (things like wisdom teeth extractions). Not only did not become addicted, the stuff did little for the pain. Advil was a lot more effective.
Either variations in individual chemistry make a huge difference here, or there are many contributing factors are involved that we just don’t understand very well.
It is also possible that I am morally superior to everyone who gets addicted. Can’t rule that out.
Brachiator
@Xenos:
I presume that you are doing snark. Even so, I will bet good money that a big chunk of drug treatment facilities are filled with people who thought that they were superior types who could never become addicted.
Omnes Omnibus
@Xenos:
Comments?
PIGL
@Mayur: thank you for this. Therés nothing I could possibly add.
Ruckus
@Xenos:
Have been prescribed oxy once, for post surgical pain. I took one pill and called the doc and said what else you got oxy makes me sick and does nothing for the pain. He called in a scrip of vicodin and that works fine. Next surgery, vicodin. Took 2 pills per scrip schedule and that’s that. Still have the rest. As I wrote up thread, if taken as intended and prescribed, for pain and not any longer than necessary, opiates are not normally addicting.
And yes I think we can rule that out. We are going to in any event.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator:
Maybe once, not anymore. I don’t know anybody who had even a moderate pain issue who didn’t get opiates prescribed. My mom and her husband have to pitch them out from time to time and they don’t even fill all the prescriptions. Maybe they’re backing off in some places but not in Alabama.
For the terminally ill, they often don’t get enough to stop the pain because opiates don’t help much with chronic pain. The first study came out recently (a scandal in itself that it took so long) and found that people randomized to opiates actually hurt MORE after a couple of months.
PIGL
@Omnes Omnibus: so we’re all the YVR punk rockers in the early 80s. Read “Guilty of Everything”….John Thunders features in it.
Xenos
@Brachiator: snark, of course. Like many here, I find infuriating that a lot smug jerks who insisted on being as tough as possible on addicted people and the communities where they lived are demanding the compassion and support they never had for anyone else.
Mary G
This was my response to Chris
I’ve had a zillion opiate prescriptions for RA pain, surgeries, etc. Never took them all and never enjoyed it, but if I don’t have any I am anxious, so I have some at all times.
Kathleen
@Baud: Know thread is dead but I have to post this – if Hillary had trumpeted an “invitation from the Pope” which turned out to be some disclaimers from Francis followed by a brief meeting in the hallway, you would have never, ever ever been able to forget it. Also too lobster sliders and private jet.
sherparick
@TenguPhule: Can we launch Chinchilla over it?
sherparick
@Fair Economist: Its because whether natural or synthetic, the body builds an increasing tolerance to opiates. By the way, although the NY Times says Trump really cares about the opiate epidemic, his solution is the same as it is for hurricane relief: tax cuts for billionaires like his pals the Mercers and others (since Trump himself does not pay taxes apparently, he can only rake it in by holding more events and weekends at his golf clubs), along with letting Jeff Sessions throw more black people in prison and throw Hispanics out of the country.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
As an alcoholic, let me throw in my $0.02 on the subject.
In my opinion, the only difference between me and an opiate addict is that alcohol is legal and can be purchased without a prescription.
The underlying issues that cause psychological dependence and addiction are the same.
Physical addiction is another matter, though Alcohol Withdrawal can be life threatening to the point where you will be sent to the ICU (as I have several times) for detox.
Ironically, benzodiazepines such as Librium, Xanax, etc., are used to alleviate the worst symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.
It’s ironic because benzos carry a heavy risk of addiction.
That said, while I was in ICU for a detox, they treated me with Librium for 4 days for my withdrawal.
I was released on the 5th day and wasn’t really suffering from withdrawal any more.
Imagine my surprise that a 90 pill prescription for Librium was among my discharge papers.
Since I wasn’t Jonesing any more and didn’t need them, I tore up the script instead of risking benzo addiction.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: this thread is so dead, but just wanted to say that I am so swiping the phrase “mad as a bag of ferrets”. That is all, thank you.
Brendancalling
Cilizza RTed my comment that he should be locked in a trunk and thrown into the Marianas Trench. Several of his followers were butt hurt by that.
I think he thinks it means he has a sense of humor except I’m not joking.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: You should quit your day job and write headlines for a living. You have a real knack.
J R in WV
@Aleta:
I wondered about that first set of numbers because the two sets of subtotals had differing totals.