Call for Postcard-sized Art

All artwork must be done in postcard size. Any media is acceptable. Fee is $5 for up to 3 cards per artist. Deadline: July 27, 2009.
For more info: robinwillow@hotmail.com

California should pay its people in pot

Here's another one from Harvey. I really like it. -charlie

California should pay its people in pot
by “Thomas Paine”
July 9, 2009

California’s state finances have gone to pot, and that’s what it should use to pay its employees.

Right now the state is issuing I.O.U.’s to those who work for it. Sacramento says they are worth the paper they’re printed on, but most Californians know that’s true only if they are used to roll joints.

The state’s key available assets are in its farms and fields….and in its prisons and legal system.

Medical marijuana is legal in California. Estimates put last year’s traffic in prescription-approved pot at around a billion dollars. If the state were properly organized to tax that and non-medical marijuana---whose dollar volume is many times greater---it might actually have enough money to pay its employees.

By legalizing marijuana, California could immediately free tens of thousands of prisoners at a savings of tens of millions of dollars. Those quick savings could be a down payment on the salaries of its employees (and cover the unemployment benefits that will be due prison builders and guards who will be laid off).

But they, in turn, could go to work GROWING marijuana. With its huge agricultural resources, California could immediately become the world hub of the legal marijuana trade. (Mendocino and other counties are already vying for this title).

It could also pay its employees if not in dollars, then in pot. Here’s how:

Once the legislature decides to legalize marijuana, the state could go into the business of growing its own. (The offices of the Department of Agriculture are not that far from the Bureau of Prisons).

Various California cities, including Oakland, are already raising pot to keep prices down for the legal medical trade. So official expertise is readily available. Like the current and previous two Presidents of the United States, the current Governor of California is known to have extensive first-hand knowledge about the many uses of this precious weed.

Thus the state could grow its own leafy payroll. Some marijuana will be immediately available from the confiscated stashes that have traditionally been consumed by arresting officers.

But there will obviously be a gap between the moment of legalization and the moment the first officially grown buds are ready to pick.

So while California waits, it can issue marijuana futures as pay instead of I.O.U.’s. The futures would include a special dispensation to sell the existing stashes many of the state employees may already be holding (of course, no state employee would break the law, so these will all be MEDICAL stashes).

Being the first state to legalize, California pot would skyrocket in value. Once the actual buds arrive from the government, state employees would be free to sell their redeemed futures in other states, which will then face a dilemma.

In these hard times, the tourist dollars from those “Okies in reverse” fanning out with their pot to sell will be hard to turn down. So will the potential tax revenues. So the other 49 states will be forced to choose between seeing those hard-earned pot proceeds headed to the Pacific in the pockets of previously impoverished California state employees---or legalizing it, taxing it, freeing their own prisoners, and growing it at home.

Tom Joad will have returned to roost, driving the ghost of a Volkwagen bus.

A dozen states have already legalized medical marijuana, Many are having state budgetary problems of their own.

But California is the only one now issuing I.O.U.s to state employees. Its topography, resident expertise and gubernatorial brain cell history make it an ideal candidate for what is bound to come, sooner or later. Why not now?

Yippie!

29th Summer of Mime Theatre at Kenyon School for Mime Theatre Faculty/Student Performance

Friday, July 10, 2009

7:30 PM - Bolton Theater, Kenyon College

Free Admission, Contact: Rick Wamer, 520-990-7425, ricgeocap@msn.com

For 29 consecutive summers, Kenyon College has had the rare distinction of hosting one of the nations longest standing centers for Mime Theatre training and performance in North America. This summer's season's final performance, featuring faculty members, Rick Wamer and Stephen Chipps with students of the adult seminar marks the 29th such annual performance. Showtime is 7:30 pm at the Bolton Theater of Kenyon College, admission free.

The presence of the mimes dates back to the summer of 1981 when Gregg Goldston, C. Nicholas Johnson and Deb Wasserman (the original founders of the School) hosted the first Kenyon seminar with only three to four students. Throughout the past 29 years, students have had opportunities to study under the best mimes in the world. Several visits by the late Marcel Marceau and the Polish mime Stefan Niedzialkowski have been especially memorable to the community and the students and staff of the seminars. "The gift of Marceau and Niedzialkowski, elevated our capacity to truly understand and develop our art," claims Wamer who took on the role of Artistic Director when Gregg Goldston left in 2001 to pursue interests in New York and abroad.

The students benefit from the unique approaches developed by Wamer and Chipps, founded upon the techniques and writing structures created by Marceau, Niedzialkowski, Goldston and Johnson. C. Nicholas Johnson returned for a few days to work with this year's students. "Nick has the amazing gift of helping the students see the essence of the art form. His influence is tremendous in my work, and I consider him an essential influence on the development of the students."

Next year will mark the 30 anniversary of mime at Kenyon College. Wamer promises it will be a memorable summer to look forward to.

The Faculty/Student show will take place on Friday, July 10th, at 7:30 PM at the Bolton Theater of Kenyon College, Gambier Ohio. Admission is free and donations to support the school will be gladly accepted.

C. Nicholas Johnson is the director of Wichita State University’s dance department and Artistic Partner with Sabrina Vasquez of Alithea Mime Theatre.

Nick Johnson was in Columbus for a brief visit last week, on his way to perform with the Mime school in Kenyon. He stopped by long enough for a cup of coffee and conversation beside the back yard pond. Alays a treat!

Hemp Raising Patriot Heroes, by Harvey Wasserman

Article submitted by Harvey Wasserman

Honor Our Hemp-Raising Patriot Heroes

By “Thomas Paine”

It is our patriotic duty to honor our Founding Heroes, America’s greatest hemp growers.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison---virtually all Revolutionary Americans who had access to land---embraced hemp’s critical role in our early economy.

Accordingly, they raised it in mass quantities.

We must now honor them by demanding its immediate legalization, to save our economy and our ecology.

For rope, for paper, for clothing, for food, for fuel, this miracle plant has been a critical crop for cash and survival for 6,000 years, since the onset of ancient China.

Today it is a multi-billion-dollar product there and in Germany and Canada, among other major economies.

There is no rational reason for hemp to be illegal. Some law enforcement “experts” say it resembles marijuana, and therefore must be banned.

What are they smoking? Certainly not hemp, which gives its imbibers little more than a splitting headache and a nasty cough.

Today, marijuana is the largest cash crop in many states and regions of the United States. A billion dollars-worth of it was purchased under medical auspices last year in California alone. Properly taxed, its users freed from our overcrowded prisons, pot’s legalization could offer a giant step out of our financial morass.

But as an agricultural staple, marijuana pales alongside hemp. This miracle weed returns on its own year after year, requiring no pesticides, herbicides or special fertilizers. It is hardy, fast-growing and supremely productive.

A single hemp plant can provide the basis for very high-quality rope, sails for ships, cloth for clothing, paper for documents, seeds for food and oil, the cellulosic base for ethanol, and much more. It is the feed of choice for untold numbers of birds and land animals. It can be the basis for innumerable stressed eco-systems where it survives and thrives with virtually no human input.

As a staple spread across the Great Plains and through the rest of America’s battered farmland, it could help restore our shattered crop base and our devastated rural economy.

Presidents Washington and Jefferson---both of them extremely advanced agronomists---cataloged their techniques for growing hemp at great length. They would simply not comprehend the concept---let alone the reality---that hemp might be illegal.

Early drafts of both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written on sturdy paper made of hemp.

Now, more than ever, we need the essence of both the documents and the crop.

Save Our Planet! Stimulate Our Economy!!

Honor our Founders!!! Be a Patriot!!!! Legalize Hemp Now!!!!!

“Thomas Paine’s” PASSIONS OF THE POTSMOKING PATRIOTS is at www.harveywasserman.com

Bread and Circus Theatre Auditions for Cabaret Night

Hello all!

We have had our first successful Cabaret night and we are ready for more. The Bread & Circus Cabaret night at the Harmony Artistic Center will take place the second Saturday night of the month. We are currently booking performers for our July 11th & August 8th performances.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A SINGER TO DO THIS! You can do anything.

If you are available and interested in performing a song, skit, monologue or variety act please email Carolyn at ccstritzel@yahoo.com. We had wonderful performers for our first night and the audience wants more.

TRY OUT YOUR AUDITION MONOLOG! Tell a joke or two. Any SCHTICK is welcome!

If you have always wanted to perform but never had the opportunity - here's your chance. If you are a local actor or performer, please think of this as a showcase for you to introduce yourself to the arts community of Columbus. At our first Cabaret Night, we had directors from 4 different local theatre companies in attendance.

Lora has a magic eye for photograhy

Lora gave me a gorgeous image. A garland of red tomatoes. My faces.

Pete and Michael

Pete moved to Seattle 15 years ago and has come back for the weekend each year, so far.

Michael also moved from Columbus years ago and has not missed one since returning.

Sarah

I take her pic every year, more than twenty.

Comfest Images Direct from iPhone

Roger has historic DVDs from pioneering Datagang. circa 1972

Pioneering portable video cam footage includes first comfest. Moonshine Coop. artists, performances, political and community meetings. Lots of old hippies when we were young.

interested? Go to
datagang@ATT.net

Judy V and the Goddesses

more updates to come. soon.

Katie, opens me to Comfest 2009.

Comfest, the "Party with a purpose" is a traditional 60s consciousness artisan and artist steetfest. A huge local attraction now, the Comfest is larger than was ever imagened possible.
Started at noon today, Fri. Runs all weekend long.
I will be sending updates and pics.

Florida Macaw

I am testing to see if I can upload to Blogger from my iPhone. The image was taken last February and altered in Color Splash ap.

Harold Pinter Remembered at OSU Drake Theatre

Ann Hall, Harold Pinter, and Katherine Burkman outside of a restaurant in London after celebrating Pinter's then 70th b-day.

Don't forget to come this Sunday evening, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. to the Drake Performance Center, on the OSU campus,1849 Cannon Dr. in the Roy Bowen Theatre to see a memorial event for British playwright Harold Pinter: scenes, poetry, etc. will receive a staged reading. Produced by Ann Hall, Alan Woods, and Katherine Burkman.

Free and open to the public, so bring your friends and relatives and anyone else. Parking across the street or in lots to the right and left also across the street from the Drake.

Actors participating are: Mark Auburn, Alan Woods, Norman Singer, Linda Katz, Nick Lingnovski, Ian Short, Acacia Duncan, Matt Slaybaugh, Ellen Nickles, Susie Gerald, Ann Hall and Joy Reilly.