...I'd say this guy kind of undercuts evolution.

I fear for the future of mankind, for we see in this man the beginnings of idiocracy.

The larger article at the NYTimes is fairly entertaining. Especially the part about being drunk playing J.R.

So, Robert, your problem with someone you don't know doing what he wants to and talking about it is what, exactly? Are you feeling harmed or just threatened that other people express themselves a little more openly?
If this is the kind of thing that makes you 'fear for the future' . . .

Robert:

1) Would you feel the same if he just drank alcohol?

2) What do you say about the growing percentage of people who are permanently on anti-depressants and other mood altering drugs? Or the large number of boys being doped into feminine submission in our schools?

... oh and

3) You do realize that this is pretty normal for Hollywood?

He's an idiot who thinks he had an out of body experience on a drug trip.

No he's not on public assistance or otherwise a leech.

And no I don't harbor the illusion that all drug use is abuse. The closest thing I do to drugs though is my weekly cigar. My job entails random testing, so even if I were so inclined, I would be risking to much to experiment.

But someone who thinks they had an out of body experience where they were flying and passes it off as a spiritual experience is an idiot, whatever their employment.

DrCos, people are free to be as stupid as they like. I don't have to respect them for it.

A. I didn't compare it to smoking a cigar, I said its the closest I come, I didn't feel the need to add that it was a few miles away from that. Seemed rather obvious to me.

B. I am not commenting on their biochemical impact miss Alkon, what I AM saying, is that if a man gets himself hopped up on a chemical, and runs around in a tent under the visual delusion that he's grown fur, and then passes that off as a spiritual out of body experience...he's a fucking moron.

The only thing I fear is that we have a case of survival of the fittest being proved wrong.

Look, I don't give a damn if someone snorts blow or smokes crack or chows down on shrooms or lights up a joint. Its not drug use that bothers me. Its the rest of his idiocy that annoys me.

Put another way, its one thing for David Hasselhof to get himself so drunk he can barely crawl to a hamburger and eat it, it would be quite another if after the fact he were claiming that as a profound spiritual experience.

--------

Ben David, if he thought alcohol was giving him some special spiritual insight...yeah, I would.

As to what I would say about the growing number of people on...etc etc etc.

Meh, I have ADHD and popped a few prescription pills for that for decades. While I was deployed I took a prescription drug to help me out after it was suggested that my memory lapses were due to being a little bit to close to some explosions during the first year of the Iraq war.

Chemicals have their place in treatment, hell our bodies are based, when you get right down to it, entirely upon chemical reactions, right down to our brain activity. Do I think overprescription is a problem? Certainly I do. Do people tend to look for miracles in bottles? Sure, its part of our national culture and spirit to be wowed by science and technology. And to that end people sometimes take it to far, looking for pills when a little self discipline is all it takes. But just because it can be taken to far doesn't mean those pills are never necessary as part of treatment.

As far as doping boys into feminine submission...correct me if I'm wrong but isn't bullying and school violence still an ongoing issue around the country? If people are trying to dope boys into submission, they're not doing a very good job of it.

I have loved Larry since I dream of jeannie, and could care less about his drug use. But I am pretty sure he came close to death while waiting for a liver transplant, so I am reasonably sure he was doing more than Indian rituals. It us amazing how the David crosbys and Larry hagmans seem to get livers while mere mortals die off daily waiting.

Ben David, I have a son who was prescribed medication for ADD when he was 8. He was not a behavior problem. He was a very intelligent kid who was having an extremely difficult time focusing on his work. Medicating him was not a decision I made lightly and I beat myself up for a long time due to the perception that the only kids on medication are the kids with lazy parents. Your assertion that boys are being doped into submission is the most ignorant thing I've ever heard. My son is now 19 and goes to college while working a part-time job and playing in a band. I know that the medication has helped him tremendously and have no regrets. The only thing I regret is uneducated people spouting off silly comments about things they have no knowledge about.

This guy had a replacement liver installed about ten years ago... He drank the first one clean away. If you want to get harsh with him for substance abuse, that's the place to start.

He doesn't seem to be saying anything too extraordinary here... He's describing the sensations that happens when you take powerful drugs. He's not recommending them, or promising that anyone else could sprout feathers and fly

> I fear for the future of mankind

Really? By this?

At DragonCon, Larry was every bit a gentleman, even to the "little people".
So he didn't act like an idiot.

One statement doesn't an idiot make - he was just describing what he felt.

I'm sure there are others here who know better.

Amy on LSD\shrooms. I'm truly surprised by this revelation.

ronc, if it makes you feel better - I know a guy who toked and drank his way through two livers. He had no money or clout to speak of (his daughter, however, was a fierce and determined advocate).

Ben David, despite my better judgment, I'm going to ask you to provide some proof, some citation to a credible source, to support your assertion that "submission" is "feminine." And please take care to define your terms.

Amy, I'd love to know the name of that drug. My squirrels daydream. Which is fine (they're creative and reliable), but there are times when I'd like them to produce well in advance of deadline.

Thank you.

Let's be ckear, I was on acid at least 20 percent of my classroom time, and it was wonderful for the time. Couldn't do it now though.

Funny, I never liked LSD much, so I tried it a lot just to make sure.

Peyote just made me nauseated, and I never had the types of experiences I was hoping for after reading the Castenada books.

Mushrooms were probably the best psychedelic experience of the lot.

But they're all just doorways into your own psyche. You go through it and hopefully learn something and deal with whatever you need to deal with.

Here's what I find unfortunate (and talk about the dumbing-down of America): the party culture took over and now demands that you have no enlightenment experiences from psychedelics.

Just fun and sex and dance dance dance.

Christ! This is a revelation! You guys are MUCH druggier, impulsive, and more recklessly medicated than I could ever have imagined. It's a tremendous surprise that you could all have been so casually irresponsible.

Now come sit beside me.

Hagman can go to hell...twice. He destroyed his own liver through his drinking, then used his affluence to bypass those who needed liver transplants, and didn't owe their condition to their own bad decisions.

Fuck you, Larry.

"Its not drug use that bothers me. Its the rest of his idiocy that annoys me."
What 'rest of his idiocy'?
His support of the Democratic party? His support for alternative energy?

"people are free to be as stupid as they like. I don't have to respect them for it."
Neither do you have to dump on them either. Although seeing as how you're 'free...'

Close to a year ago, I read an article about the use of mushrooms to cure lung cancer. The US was finally allowing a few universities to do research again since the 70s, after Japan had shown them to be an almost cure. I wondered a few months later when my father was diagnosed with this same form of cancer, had they been researching actual medicinal uses for these things in the past thirty years if he would have been cured. Or at least, those last few months of his life been amazingly better.

It's a shame that our fears allow us to ban scientific pursuits.

It's also a shame that what one man's spiritual journey, no matter substance altered or not, gives many such a threatened view that they must ridicule.

Try to engage your brain instead of just your emotions before commenting on drugs.

I wanted to get Robert's opinions, since he made a rather blanket statement.

Interesting how you and others immediately jumped into self-righteous-victimology-umbrage-mode - when I asked an question without even voicing an opinion.

Prejudiced much, eh?
Or do you just KNOW what non-religious people are also thinking- 'cause we're all such neanderthal?

You stated your prejudice very clearly, for all to see:

Or the large number of boys being doped into feminine submission in our schools?

You don't mean with psoriasis drugs, do you?

I smoke pot still, once in a great while. I ate a lot of acid back in the day. I stopped once I hit 25, and then only did it once a year, on my birthday, to remind myself not to take myself so seriously all the time. Kind of like a reality check. I stopped taking it long before the girls were born because I don't know who makes it anymore and have heard horror stories from some people about what it's being made with nowadays (LSD, I mean). Peyote made me sick to my stomach, and, like Gog, I didn't get to meet Don Juan when I took it, so I stopped. The shrooms were okay, but they made my stomach a little squicky too, so I don't eat them anymore either. A little wine, a little weed, and I'm good to go.

You stated your prejudice very clearly

- a prejudice you seem to share since you've repeatedly called out the pathologization of normal boyhood in both "let kids be kids" and "let men be men" posts...

Keep digging, instead of just admitting you jumped the gun - and assumed you knew what I was thinking, since religious people couldn't possibly have any original thoughts...

Good one, NY Times. Publishing a story like this on a full moon is oh-so-douchie. Who cares about Larry Hagman's weekend warrior bullshit? The world's circling the toilet bowl, and then there's this clown?

Glory-fucking-be! Eating a mushroom or LSD makes you feel love and compassion for other living things? Gee-whiz, that's such a cinch. I wonder how many people are on the same journey? -- the difference being that their progress is measured in sweat and tears. Day after day, night after night. Worrying, reaching out, showing humility, getting back up, listening. Step by ever-loving step.

You fucking coward, Hagman. Wipe that shit-eating grin off your fucking yoont. Go piss up a rope with a rake. Darn!

On the other hand, this is a somewhat interesting interview. Being buried in a wheat/cannabis field is a peculiar idea. Thanks for the link, Amy. Always interesting to read the posts and comments here.

There's definitely a therapeutic side to these drugs, but you have to be careful doncha? I prefer sobriety these past several years, thanks much.

As far as recreational experiences, there's a new documentary about The Merry Pranksters group that might be interesting. Don't really know much about that whole deal other than reading "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". Didn't they have to drop one of the young women off at Larry McMurtry's house because she was getting too far gone on acid? She thought a doll was her child? That doesn't really evoke a sense of merriment.

I don't know. Alcohol can be the worst of the worst. I don't know about this stuff sometimes, y'all. Dammit.

"...when I asked an question without even voicing an opinion." ~Ben David

BD, the idea you expressed, that submission is "feminine," is an opinion.

If instead you meant that boys are being drugged into feminine submission, instead of being drugged into masculine submission, please elaborate... on the unsupported assertion you made, which may or may not be an opinion.

Well, there are those on here who "know better". Some who apparently haven't even met the guy.

Assuming that ADD/ADHD is really just about medicating boys into being girls reflects a suspicion that ADD/ADHD is bullshit.

I doubt that is what he was talking about. There is a growing body of evidence that ADHD medication is being prescribed for many children who don't actually have the condition, usually because they are more active than average, and often "willful" children.

From this article:

Stimulant drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in millions of American children are effective but are probably being prescribed to many youths who do not have the disorder, concludes a report by Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

By the way, expecting boys to behave isn't "feminizing" them. Boys were expected to behave -- and did -- when I was growing up, and they'd get whacked by their dad if they didn't. There was no acting out in any of my classes. We'd get our little asses kicked.

Posted by: Amy Alkon

True, but then they were also allowed outlets for their energy back then as well.

Just a couple of years ago whne my brother was in grade school they werent allwed to run durring recess - not even when palying backet ball - thy had to walk slowly, and if the moved too fast the ball would be confiscated and they would have to sit against a wall until recess was over

WayneB:

I doubt that is what he was talking about. There is a growing body of evidence that ADHD medication is being prescribed for many children who don't actually have the condition, usually because they are more active than average, and often "willful" children.

... and it's been discussed on this blog - including the preponderance of boys who are misdiagnosed.

All part of a larger pro-male take on this blog, and approving reviews of books about letting boys be boys and "free range parenting".

I never said ADD was BS. Or even expressed my own opinion.

I asked a question about someone else's opinions after they issued a blanket condemnation of all drug use.

*You* characterized submission as feminine.

Step up.

Feminine nature has an profoundly receptive component.

Crid, that's distinct from submission.

Michelle:

*You* characterized submission as feminine.

In the context of boys being disciplined/drugged in much larger numbers than girls - to conform to standards of classroom docility more natural to girls.

.... just curious - are you blonde?

>Crid:

>Christ! This is a revelation! You guys are MUCH >druggier, impulsive, and more recklessly medicated >than I could ever have imagined. It's a tremendous >surprise that you could all have been so casually >irresponsible.

>Now come sit beside me.

Oh! Oh! Is it the weekend yet?! No? the heck with it (twirls finger in air) Paarrtee! (jumps over to go sit on other side of 16 squirrel grrl) This is gonna be a good one...

(finger twirl, "PARTTEE")