CRITICAL THINKING 101 - Aliaa Magda Elmady - Egyptian Rebel

You'll notice a new addition to my "Favorite Blog List"... Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, a 20 year old Egyptian woman, a rebel. To be honest I'd been putting off writing a post about the "Petition The White-House", and the 76,000 signatures that went into a petition by NORML to legalize cannabis or explain why not. The President rebuffed the most popular petition, sending it to the ONDCP to be answered, that's the "Office of National Drug Control Policy". They're paid by us tax-payers to lie to us, if you don't believe me refer to my "Favorite Media" section.

That is still to come, before you can graduate from "Critical Thinking 101", but right now, about Aliaa...

Best to explain this woman's goal, is this link from Business and Law: Aliaa Magda Elmahdy: Egytian Blogger's Nude Pictures Trigger Heated Debate".

WARNING: This Post is for Adults Only as it contains nudity.

Aliaa published a nude photo of herself on her blog to protest oppression in Egypt. Female nudity in Egypt is akin to cannabis in this country. And there are plenty who would like to see Aliaa arrested for posting the nude picture of herself. Some reports say there were 8 nudes, but there was only one, but in addition to her nude art, she posted nude art from several other sources.

In Egypt women are by law required to live in the shadows, covered up, and their femininity never revealed. '' I read an article today where the "Public Decency Police" are to arrest women in Saudi Arabia who have sexy eyes if they are not covered. Speak about Machismo... Egyptian men are expected to sow their seed, and women, are to become shadows.

Due to Aliaa's blog... there is a good chance she will be arrested, heavily fined, and flogged in public, naked I expect.

Aliaa has beautiful eyes, don't you think? Can you see her being arrested... ?

Additional Links:

Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, Nude Blogger: In Pictures

Do I need to expose myself smoking a joint, or eating a pot-brownie, to get recognition for the reality that exists in this country? Oppression exists? In our own homes. And it shouldn't have ever come to this.

[Both alcohol and tobacco are manufactured drugs. Alcohol should be obvious, but with tobacco, try smoking organic tobacco... very alkaline, noxious to inhale, unlike tobacco cigarettes today which are created expressly to bring pleasure and addiction to it's user.]

Cannabis, like a nude Egyptian woman are both natural. No amount of "manufacturing" can change that reality. That human nudity in an artful form is wrong, not a "a human right", is wrong. Just as it's wrong to arrest people for cannabis.

You decide - should we stone Aliaa, or sit with her and smoke some cannabis?

CRITICAL THINKING 101 - The Death Of Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse was a performer, singer, artist. I admit, I am unfamiliar with her work, her songs, but I am keenly aware of her death; she, like myself, are fellow artists. The death of any artist effects me deeply.

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In particular, Amy Winehouse's most poignant act might just be her death - a song she performed while dying. With all due respects... to Amy Winehouse, her family and friends, permit me, to continue. I do believe Amy sang us a final song in passing on.

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WIKIPEDIA LINK: AMY WINEHOUSE

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"Amy Jade Winehouse... an English singer-songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Her 2006 follow-up album, Back to Black, led to six Grammy Award nominations and five wins, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made Winehouse the first British female to win five Grammys, including three of the "Big Four": Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year."

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"On 14 February 2007, she won a BRIT Award for Best British Female Artist; she had also been nominated for Best British Album. She won the Ivor Novello Award three times, one in 2004 for Best Contemporary Song (musically and lyrically) for "Stronger Than Me", one in 2007 for Best Contemporary Song for "Rehab", and one in 2008 for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Love Is a Losing Game", among other distinctions. The album is the biggest seller of the 2000s in the United Kingdom. Winehouse is credited as an influence in the rise in popularity of female musicians and soul music, and also for revitalising British music."

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Wow!

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How many people can claim the success she'd achieved?

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Amy Winehouse died, July 23, 2011 at age 27. Speculation was she died of a drug overdose. After her death, the rumors began circulating. The irony is toxicology found no illegal drugs in her system; she died from consuming too much alcohol, vodka. Still, she gained a sort of notoriety in her latest album when she ranted against "Rehab"...

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"They tried to make me go to rehab / I said, 'No, no, no.' " --Amy Winehouse, "Rehab"

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She sang about her experiences in, "Back to Black": "released in the UK on 30 October 2006. It went to number one on the UK Albums Chart numerous times, and entered at number seven on the Billboard 200 in the US. It was the best-selling album in the UK of 2007, selling 1.85 million copies over the course of the year."

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Critical Thinking 101 is about common-sense. About how maybe "Rehab" isn't all it's cranked up to be. It's true, in my opinion, that rehab itself is an oft abused sentence of society towards an individual. Same with "community service". The question comes down to when is it appropriate to sentence an individual to either? And does it help? The individual that is.

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It's okay to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco (you wouldn't want to eat it), but it's not okay to use cannabis, aka, marijuana, although you can eat it, and most scientific research suggests it's not only not harmful, but beneficial too. Still, don't try to convince the ONDCP or Drug Czar of those studies, their job, by law, is to lie and do everything possible to create the worst possible scenario.

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Drugs are a class of substances in 3 categories. 1) Over-the-counter drugs: aspirin, vitamins, cough medicine, etc. 2) prescription drugs: those your doctor prescribes that you fill at a pharmacy. 3) illegal drugs, recreational drugs, prescription drugs given to you by someone else.

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Alcohol and tobacco are "drugs", but are never described as such, and the government makes a point of never linking those tow substances to the classification of a drug. The truth is, they are, drugs. Both have the potential to kill or cause injury, and do. Both are considered as being "regulated" by the law, and therefore, legal for adult consumption and any harmful effects or even deaths are written off as normal causes of death or in Amy Winehouse's death - "Death by Experimentation".

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But not so with cannabis/marijuana. It is classified as a "dangerous drug" and users or local home-growers are targeted by the federal government, state governments and local gov'ts as an imminent threat to society, and actually, so dangerous to society that billions of dollars are spent every day on cannabis prohibition enforcement, eradication, and arrests of persons found to violate those laws. Yet no one dies from using cannabis, nor is any cognitive impairment equal to the danger of a few drinks. So why the prejudice?

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Critical Thinking 101 is about looking at the law... the laws... and how they impact society.

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In Amy Winehouses's final song she sings about injustice, about hypocrisy, about right and wrong. About freedom, pursuit of happiness and the obstacles to attaining happiness. Our government prides itself on our supposed constitutional freedoms. On adherence to the laws because our laws are constitutional and just.

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The reality is not so simple, as laws are passed all the time that are not constitutional. Or federal laws trump state laws, where state laws - or their constitutions, are violated. An example is in NH, and it's Constitution, look at Article 83, and how it relates to agriculture, educational freedom, and how no law shall be passed that makes a commodity such as cannabis illegal.

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When news of the death of Amy Winehouse was first released, the former Whitehouse Drug Czar, William Bennett, Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute and special commentator for CNN news, promptly jumped on-board to scrutinize Amy's death as drug related. He went even further in criticizing her latest Grammy Award, suggesting that because of her out-spoken criticism of rehab, and suspicions of recurrent drug use, she didn't deserve such an award.

William J. Bennett... an outspoken opponent against legalizing any plants/recreational drugs such as cannabis/marijuana.

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He commented the following on CNN:

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CNN "With those awards, a message was sent: Mock addiction, create a rallying cry for those in its grip, blow your life up in every aspect other than financial success and name recognition, and you will be rewarded with the industry's gold medals. Today, at age 27, she is dead. The cause of death is unknown, but drugs took a toll on her life even if they did not they cause her death."

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He continues:

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CNN: "It now looks like Amy Winehouse joins the sad list of other talented entertainers whose lives were cut down by drug abuse. Citing the drug-fueled deaths of other troubled musicians at the same age, some are speculating there is something special, or ominous, about the age of 27. But change the age by just a few years, and you still have too much evidence of too much talent cut too short by substance abuse. From Heath Ledger to Brittany Murphy to River Phoenix to Andy Gibb to Elvis Presley, the list just goes on and on. Age is not the problem; drug abuse is."

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Well, William J. Bennett, in my humble opinion, is a narrow-minded hypocrite whose understanding and knowledge is driven by a self-satisfying narcissism! He is a recovering gambler who lost a great deal of money gambling, is a drinker, and a man obsessed with his own ideals.

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Brittany Murphy for example, again speculation and rumor was rampant regarding the cause of her death. Again, as William Bennett chose to believe, drugs were the cause. But again, as in the case of Amy Winehouse, drugs do not appear to be the cause of death.

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At 08:00 (16:00 GMT) on December 20, 2009, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to "a medical request"[33] at the Los Angeles home Murphy and Monjack shared. She had apparently collapsed in a bathroom. Firefighters attempted to resuscitate Murphy on the scene. She was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival at 10:04 after going into cardiac arrest.

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RE: Brittany Murphy: Shortly after her death, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told the Associated Press: "It appears to be natural." An autopsy was performed on December 21, 2009. Her death certificate listed the cause of death as "deferred". On February 4, 2010, the Los Angeles County coroner stated that the primary cause of Murphy's death was pneumonia. It is suspected that Brittany died of exposure to a deadly mold, as her husband died shortly after under similar circumstances.

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So why the fixation with drugs???

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Incompetence and stupidity is my opinion. Ignorance and the bliss associated with such blissful blindness to the facts. For politicians it sounds good, to themselves anyways, to come down hard on what they call "drugs". It feels good to point a finger at something, even if it lacks substantial proof. Cannabis/marijuana for example - listed as a schedule one drug with severe potential for abuse and zero medical benefit, has been patented by the fedral government as an anti-oxidant and with potential to prevent or shrink cancerous tumors - see patent, #6,630,507 which reads as follows:

Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants

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Abstract

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Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia.

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In response to a letter I sent asking for legalization of cannabis in America, my congresswoman, Senator Jean Shaheen, replied:

"Regardless of whether a state chooses to legalize medical marijuana, I believe that we should make a concerted effort to prevent recreational drug use, especially by youth. A study by the American Medical Association recently found that young people who smoke marijuana are up to five times more likely to move on to harder drugs. At a time when America's excessive demand for drugs is fueling violent crime at home and in neighboring countries, we need to strengthen initiatives to educate young people about the risks of drug use."

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All about young people, and more of the same about the "stepping stone" effect; and excessive drug violence; all but disproved, except maybe in Mexico. The message - better to wage war on Americans, ignore the constitutional rights of adults and make statements targeting children and young adults.

In conclusion, simple question:

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So, you want to protect the children, you have children or you know children. You care. But shit happens, and when you're not around you cannot always control what happens - that being the unexpected. So, albeit the fact that cannabis is "illegal" for adult use, tobacco and alcohol are also illegal for those under age 18. So, the question is this?

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Children in a home find an opportunity to search for, find, and experiment with one of 3 different drugs they might find.

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1) Tobacco

2) Alcohol

3) Cannabis/marijuana

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Which do you think is the safer drug for that young person to experiment with, if the worse were to happen? Which do you think is safer?

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My opinion... I pray that kid finds the cannabis first.

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We all contributed to the death of Amy Winehouse, since we as the people of this world are not able to distinguish between the different grays and colors of our reality. We are taught zero tolerance, passing standardized testing, accepting what we're told by those who are the authorities. We are encouraged to ask questions, but also encouraged not to question that which the authorities emphasize is unquestionable. We are herded into kennels, and raised as sheep. We are told it is for our own good.

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Without a doubt, I don't want to see any drugs in the hands of youth, but for adults, I want to experience freedom, not oppression. I think we all do, because without freedom, how can we properly raise our children?

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CRITICAL THINKING 101 - Welcome To Second Class...

I knew I was in trouble the next morning; when nothing bad happened.

Previously, you might recall I ended by saying I'd smoked marijuana with two good friends. I said I believed it to be the first time I'd really thought critically about a decision I had to make. It's important to understand I was very much against "drugs". And in my mind at the time marijuana was the number one worst drug out there.

So why did I do it?

Possible reasons put forth by various theories includes:

1) A need to belong; abandonment of good judgement and what's right or wrong.

2) A naive individual easy manipulated by his peers.

3) The search for truth being more important than accepting the word of others.

4) The criminal mind is just that, Criminal.

5) The desire to rebel against the system and blatant disregard for conformity and, the law.

6) Don't believe everything you're told!

I'll give you a few moments to decide what you think. You may want to go back to my previous post - "To Do or Not To Do", to get a better understanding of my question. Please do.

Without a doubt, my reason's centered on #3, and #6.

The next morning, after using marijuana - for the 2nd time, actually (the first time was 3 years earlier and I felt absolutely nothing, though it was without question marijuana), and actually experiencing "getting high/stoned, I fully expected to wake up needing heroin, or brain damaged. But I didn't. I felt fine. Better than fine, in fact. For the first time in my life I'd actually laughed my ass off, laughed so hard and good that I thought I would die (I didn't). I also got to really feel what paranoia feels like, followed by more laughter and camaraderie.

When I work up and realized I felt quite fine, I had to think about it for a few days. At the time, drinking age was 18, and I was 19. The Viet Nam War draft had ended just shy of my 18th birthday, and they had a draft lottery then, and the number picked for my DOB was 16, sweet 16, and straight out to Viet Nam, only the draft ended and then the war. The year was 1972... I was 18 and Pres. Nixon did the only good deed I'll ever remember him for, ending the war.

Promptly starting a new one, called the War on Drugs, with even more victims in the years that followed, and still do today. I my next post I will shed more of my expertise on this topic, as there is much more to it.

This topic isn't about marijuana. But without the influence of marijuana there's a good chance "critical thinking 101" would have never happened. I had never questioned anything in the past like I did from then on. That night, more than any other, defined the divide between my past and my future.

I no longer saw the world in black and white. I know longer looked at education as something I was expected to do. I no longer believed everything was as it seemed, or that those in a position of power knew what was truly right, or wrong. I began to make my own decisions, and sought knowledge and advice from people I respected when I had a question.

Ultimately I grew to understand the question was more important than the answer, that being free was a challenge, and difficult, but also worth every effort.

I was close to stopping my education prior to that night, simply because I was expected to do so, just getting a job in a factory, getting married, having children and buying that white house with the white picket fence. Staying put where I was born - in that locale, no interest in bettering myself. After-all, the only thing I heard from my parents was how I needed to succeed, get married, buy that house, etc... I was frankly overwhelmed by the expectations and sacred traditions.

I did NOT think outside the box then. I wasn't capable of doing so and would have looked at anyone who suggested it as nuts.

Sometimes I do miss the fact that I didn't simply succumb to the status quo and say NO to using marijuana. But I'm reminded that at age 16 I almost died from a overdose of alcohol, and that fact, held a wealth of information, in that, legal, didn't/doesn't mean safe to use. So why I wondered, even before I knew what I was thinking, was marijuana illegal when (I discovered later) it was "safe" to use, in the sense it being is virtually non-toxic? And why, when I woke up that morning after using marijuana, why did I feel real good, even motivated, when everything I'd been told had said I'd regret the decision the rest of my life.

When actually I didn't.

CRITICAL THINKING 101 - TO DO OR NOT TO DO?

You're presented with a present, doesn't matter from who; The reality is what matters... inside that box could be anything. ANY THING! This is not simply an obvious fact, but rather, it's Quantum Physics.

Rule #1: Nothing hidden is fixed on a quantum level until experienced on the physical level.

"Critical Thinking", the art of painting, creating, surviving with the human mind.

I think most professionals in the field of education, in particular, our public school system, as well as many private, religious, and charter schools know that "critical thinking" is key to a good education.

Trouble is, critical thinking is being pushed aside, in favor of standardized skills and standardized testing. That to be a contributing adult in the 21st century requires standardized skills, not critical thinking. The process and integration of standardized curriculum is well established already; most prominently in the Federal Government's, "No Child Left Behind", NCLB act. A noble idea maybe, gone wrong.

In addition we have a New right in schools... Today, a child can be arrested for bringing a pocket-knife to school; or a squirt-gun, even a toy soldier. If they write a story about war, murder, rage, destruction, they are suspected child-terrorist. They're not considered creative, or expressing themselves in the sense that students prior to the 1990's experienced things. Everything a student does or says today is noted and documented... if it's unconventional.

I know of one story where a student, I believe in middle-school, returned to school after Summer break, was asked to to the boring "What did you do over your summer vacation" assignment, and he wrote that he experimented "making bombs". It was a big story... he was arrested, his house searched, parents questioned, and they found pipes, matches, and other "bomb-making" materials at his house.

Yet, I know of another story where a student describes "over the summer", he ordered nuclear material, experimented with explosives, a nuclear reactor, and nuclear fusion. Turns out he's a child genius, and he works for the Dept of Homeland Security. He built nuclear reactors at home!

As a kid I had occasion to experiment with building exploding things using matches, or gunpowder (secured by opening a live bullet). I've asked people my age if they did the same (men), and they answer "sure, who didn't?"

Critical Thinking 101 involves making decisions based on circumstance, knowledge, rational interpretation, and either doing something or nothing. We always have at least three choices in life: 1) Do, 2) Do Nothing, 3) Take a moment and think about it.

Situation: You're 19 years of age; you graduated from HS; You're going to the local community college pursuing an AS degree in a subject that you are led to believe is your destiny; you don't question this reality.

Good or Not Good?

A dumb question actually, as we always have at least 3 choices. It may be neither good, nor not good. It may require "critical thought and consideration". At age 19 things aren't anywhere near figured out. To blindly accept one's situation is folly.

Situation 2: You're 19 years of age; it's a Friday night, the weekend, you're spending time with two childhood friends. You're able to drink alcohol legally, being as it's early 1970's, and most staes considered 18 the legal age; you haven't decided to go to a bar this night, instead, one of your friends asks if you want to smoke some Panama red - marijuana?

In school they taught you that "marijuana is a dangerous drug". They told you it would quickly lead to harder drugs, would destroy your brain, and you'd possible jump off a roof. As a result you're very ant-drug, and you think in right and wrong. You're presented with one of the worst challenges in life. Marijuana is illegal, you'd call the police, so righteous you are, if anyone offered such a deal; but in this case, you do the most unusual thing you've ever done. You say, "sure, I'll try it".

Somehow realizing there were more than two choices here, one being calling the police, and two being abandoning everything I'd ever been led to believe about marijuana, right and wrong, by simply saying "sure, let's spark it up!" I had perhaps the longest moment in time right then. I looked at my other friend who seemed to be teetering on the same edge as was I.

I finally decided, the truth about marijuana meant more to me than any principles, or what I'd been taught in school to believe without question. I thought critically perhaps for the first time in my life about a situation, and my options. Both my friend and I decided to try it.

Next Time: My cat is addicted to Kitty-Treats... and Now What???

Additional reading:

WIKIPEDIA: Critical thinking, in general, refers to a higher-order of thinking that questions assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, or sometimes true and sometimes false, or partly true and partly false. The origins of critical thinking can be traced in Western thought to the Socratic method of Ancient Greece...

Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself.

CRITICAL THINKING.ORG: "Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking."