Inconvenient Truth Revisited

 At the beginning of this century, former VP Al Gore began to blow the whistle on what was then called “global warming”.  By that time, climate scientists had begun to notice that average temperatures on Planet Earth had begun to rise.  Although this is hardly an unprecedented phenomenon (the planet has warmed and cooled through its estimated four billion or so years of history), this seems to have coincided with the ascent of Homo sapiens in a very short timeframe.  

Humans are probably the only warm blooded creatures lacking a fur coat.  To help us out, God provided brains so that we could devise means to keep warm.  Fire.   Combustion of carbon-based stuff: plants, wood, anything that burns.  Chemical reactions that are exothermic (big word meaning they give off heat).  They can all be summed up as:

C + O2 —–> CO2 + [HEAT]  

Feeling warmer?

Unfortunately, CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere.  Being heavier than air, it basically hangs around for centuries, and interferes with heat being released into outer space. For this reason, they  call CO2 (carbon dioxide) a greenhouse gas. To make matters worse, the stuff is chemically unreactive, which makes it harder to get rid of by converting to something else.  

Already, the increased energy in the atmosphere has had major impacts on climate.  Hurricanes are more frequent, and more severe, to the point where some climate scientists are suggesting that Category 5 is no longer sufficient to describe the worst storms – we need a Category 6!  Polar ice is melting rapidly, causing ocean levels to rise.  Calendar year 2023 was the hottest on record.  A decade ago, climate scientists set out an average increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius as the point of no return, so to speak: we are just about there, already.

What can we do about this? We, obviously, can start by burning less “fossil fuels” (named for all those carbon-based forms of life buried beneath our surface). There are technologies being developed to “capture” carbon dioxide and store it….someplace.  We also need to derive energy from alternate sources.  A great deal has been accomplished, but so much more needs to be done, with very little time left before a good part of the planet becomes uninhabitable.

With time running out, numerous issues remain unresolved.  In this country, we like our creature comforts.  We consume, per capita, many, many times the energy used by the rest of the world…because we can.  At the same time, we lecture to the rest of the world that other people need to consume less energy.  What about those who extract oil, gas, coal, etc., for fun and profit?  And get rich as a result? Developing other non-fossil fuel (solar, wind, fusion) substitutes costs lots of money.  Are the rich willing to part with some of these ill-gotten gains to pay for this?

Speaking of time running out, mine is almost up.  I’d like to think none of this is my fault. But I know better.  I feel for my grandson and his generation who will be around to deal with the mess we have made of this beautiful planet God created for our enjoyment. 

More Random Thoughts

Did you know smoking pot can make you sick to your stomach? I didn’t know, either, until I read a piece in The Washington Post the other day, by Leona Wen, who made her bones as Baltimore City Health Commissioner.  Dr Wen has written a number of articles in media since the start of the covid pandemic.  She describes something termed Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, which affects a small percentage of marijuana users.  Puking in excess while high – who knew? Dr.Wen did not suggest that most, or even a significant number of users are going to suffer bouts of vomiting, only one wonders what else can surface as cannabis products appear in greater amounts on the market.  We tend to oversimplify pot as two substances: CBD which alleviates seizures, and THC, which gets you high.  I’ll spare you the chemistry; suffice it to point out that there are a plethora of substances native to the pot plant, about the vast majority of which little is known.  No, it’s not FDA to the rescue.  Marijuana is not currently approved as a drug.  

Speaking of which, STOP THE PRESSES: Just this week, DEA has initiated action to reschedule marijuana, at long last.  The drug is currently listed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, which lists other bad actors such as LSD and heroin.  The reason? The drug has no accepted use in medicine.  No, it’s nowhere near as dangerous or habit forming as other drugs listed there, but it has no accepted use, yadda, yadda.  Catch 22.  Well, maybe it does – or at least some of its components.  Its new legal home would be in Schedule III.  This would enable research into its effects, among other things, which is sorely needed.  

Immigrants and migrants.  The terms are used interchangeably.  Outside of “indians” as we used to call native Americans (among other pejoratives), we are all either immigrants or descendants of immigrants.  I realize we can’t fit all who want to live here, in here, but without them, who is going to do our scut work? Surely, we can develop a humane, fair process for letting people in (don’t tell me they would take jobs from Americans, especially since large portions of our male population seems to have dropped out).

We have at least two major active war zones going.  Did you ever consider what the kids in these places are going through? Have you ever been around an explosion ? The noise, and shock, are major contributors to PTSD in adults, as we know only too well.  What about small children? I’m not talking about injured or wounded kids, just ones hearing blasts, perhaps watching their dwelling fall apart.  Most of them will never get therapy.  Are we to cope with pathologies in future? Might some become terrorists?

What’s the most serious form of cancer? Arguably, it’s cancer of the pancreas.  While it’s not, perhaps, as bad as some (none of them are any damn good, anyway), but most are treatable if discovered early.  Unfortunately, no tests are available to detect this one.  By the time symptoms are observed, it’s already too late.  This cancer claimed the lives of Alex Trebek, Steve Jobs and numerous other luminaries – and my father.  Whenever I have a physical, I always ask the doctor whether a test has been devised.  The answer is always no.

You Gotta Be Kidding

I have written posts on both of the (probable) major party candidates for 2024.  I wrote one entitled, “The Worst Ever” a few weeks before the 2020 election, and one (Bookends) a few months after Joe Biden took office. Since that  time, Biden’s predecessor has been indicted in several jurisdictions for various crimes and misdemeanors, in at least two states (Georgia and New York) and Federal courts in D.C. and Florida.  Biden, meanwhile, has passed sweeping infrastructure initiatives, has brought about a major effort to engage NATO in helping Ukraine fend off Russian aggression, tamed inflation and avoided an almost certain recession.  On the date I’m writing this, the NYSE has had the highest closing ever.  All of this with a slim-to-none majority in both houses of Congress during the first two years of his term.  A widely predicted Republican wave in the 2022 midterms turned out to be a trickle, at best.

Yet, with about 11 months to go before the 2024 election, Biden is several points behind the former president in the polls.  I know, I know it’s very early in the game, so to speak.  Yet, it borders on the unbelievable that this decent, relatively successful chief executive is even close to this turkey.  Age undoubtedly has much to do with it, but the GOP front runner is only a few years younger.  Unfortunately, I believe much of it can be summed up in lyrics to an old song: “There’s No Business like Show Business”.  One of the few things the guy did well at was his stint in “The Apprentice”.  He is a superb actor, and the MAGA crowd eats it up.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing of additional aspects of his behavior, almost on a daily basis.  The New York Times ran a piece yesterday (December 15) detailing how a “folder”, reportedly as thick as four reams or so of paper, and containing very highly sensitive classified material went “missing” in the final day of his term, and has yet to be found.  Who took it, and why? Was some of the stuff to be sold to pay legal bills? Fortunately for the former president, one of his appointees to the federal bench is in charge of the trial. And will probably slow walk it until well past the election.  The strategy? Reelect him, and he can make it go away via a pardon. 

Ok, have fun with pollsters.  You may not really mean it.  But consider:

  1.  Will we experience a day (or more) of retribution?
  2. If you are a member of a minority group, is this who you really want?
  3. The man seems to admire dictators.
  4. Do you really want a convicted felon in the White House?

Yes, America, we survived four years of sheer incompetence.  Do we want to roll the dice again? Ben Franklin perhaps framed the situation best in 1776: Yes, gentlemen, we have a republic.  If we can keep it.

On January 6, 2021 an insurrection took place at the Capitol.  There seems little doubt that the man set it up and encouraged the mob.  He continues to walk around free.  If you, or I, had done this, we would be in prison for a long time.  How do I know this? There are scores of foot soldiers (Proud Boys, Oath Keepers) already doing time.  While I know it takes a lot of “due process” to convict and imprison a former President (after all, it’s never been done before), does it seem fair to you? 

If the man has any talent, it lies in performance, as in acting.  As little use I have for him, I find his shtick quite entertaining.  Of course, what he says cannot, by any sentient person, be believed.  The Washington Post stopped counting after several thousand whoppers.  The truth, however, is that most  listeners know it’s BS, but don’t care.  Maybe we need to start caring.

Computers – A Senior’s Journey

Being In my mid-80’s, I was born in the age of the abacus.  Processors (UNIVAC comes to mind) needed whole rooms, special ventilation, etc., all the while having considerably less computing power than today’s cellphones, or, for that matter, with most calculators.  My first brush with the big ones was in a course in grad school.  We were to have the computer analyze data from a chemical kinetics experiment.  We had to type stuff onto individual cards, which were sorted and loaded into the device.  Every card had to be totally correct, or the whole exercise would be aborted.  For someone like me, no way!

Fast forward a couple of decades.  I needed to enter data from real stuff, on cocaine potency, or some such, into a PC, a Leading Edge processor (remember those?).  This thing had a core memory of 512 kilobytes: Imagine that! 

At this point, I need to get technical.  A byte is a measure of data.  1,000 of these equal a kilobyte (or something like that).  Sort of metric system lingo.  1,000 kilobytes equal a megabyte.  1,000 megabytes amount to a gigabyte.  At this point, we’ve about entered the 21st Century.  A couple of decades into it, we’re talking terabytes (1,000 gigabytes), with, seemingly, no end in sight.

Near the end of the last century, I retired from civil service and got a (real) job teaching high school and college chem.  Since I no longer had access to the powerful Leading Edge gizmo, I had a neighborhood kid build me one.  It had 512 kilobytes! State of the art! On my first Open School night (1994) I asked for a show of hands of people who had Internet access at home.  About 10% did.  The following year: About 30%.  By the fourth year, about everybody.  This was, of course, a Catholic high school in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Washington, DC area.

I tried getting my students to process data they had acquired in chem lab, with mixed success, at best. The process was much easier than my experience in  grad school.  We entered data, for example, on a keyboard directly into a PC.  I also got them to do Internet searches.  I tried to impress on them that just because the Internet said something, it was not an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount.  For example, kids, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws website is not an unbiased, objective source on pot legalization.  How much simpler it  was to teach in those days!

Unfortunately, fifteen years after retirement, I find myself falling further and further from the mainstream, so to speak.  We recently had to bid farewell to a 10-year old laptop.   Our son bought us a replacement, which turned out to be a tablet.  I still haven’t been able to get it to talk to my printer.  I have learned a few things, however.  Seems tablets are designed to work better with the cloud.  The what???

Ads

We are bombarded with them as long as we watch TV, listen to radio or otherwise participate in American life.  Even public radio and TV have begun allowing them, albeit in abbreviated form.  Though ad copywriters have jazzed them up to reach the younger generations (who spend most of the money, after all) there are recurrent themes which are still used, which, as a public service, I will attempt to deconstruct for you.

“Clinically Proven”.  Used mostly with drug ads.  “Clinically”.  Conjours up some kind of medical facility.  When I was a kid, “clinics” were places where poor people went to be treated.  Nowadays, it sort of means a facility or process where products are tested on people to see if they work.  “Proven”.  Implies that efficacy has been confirmed.  Absolutely.  No question.  As a scientist in an earlier life, I would ask, where’s the data?  Who conducted the study?  More than likely, it’s just a throwaway line.  Is anybody convinced?

“Fight”.  We hear this a lot during election season.  “I’ll fight for you.  I’ll fight for your right to (fill in the blanks).  How? Fisticuffs? Pistols? A rasslin match? More than likely, just empty words (except, maybe, for the U.S.House…).  Didn’t people once fight duels? Seems to have fallen out of fashion.

“Pure”.  I remember an Ivory Soap ad from childhood.  “Ivory Soap is 99 and 44/100% Pure.  It Floats!”. Lots of things would if they had air blown in during the manufacturing process, but how is this indicative of purity.  Here again, chemistry gets in the way of understanding a simple concept.  To a physical scientist, a mixture is defined as two ore more substances blended together.  A “pure” substance is one consisting of a single entity.  That’s all, Folks!

We all know  we need to eat more veggies.  You may not care for the taste, texture, etc. of vegetables.  But hey  Good news!.  You can now get these diet staples in a chewable form! Just like candy! Goody, goody gumdrops (I mean that literally)! “Balance of Nature”: Doesn’t that sound healthful?

“Not your father’s Oldsmobile”.  A catchphrase from back in the day.  Cars going in all sorts of terrain (dirt roads, mountain passes, sand dunes, beaches).  More likely, stuck in traffic, but they don’t show this in ads.  BTW, Oldsmobiles are no longer made.  In case you didn’t know.

Ads seem to come in seasons, so to speak.  We just got through the election season.  Didn’t know how evil my candidates were.  No wonder we are in such a state! Now that political ads have abruptly ended, we came into Open Season.  No, I don’t mean hunting.  It’s time to reexamine your healthcare options! Ads seem to be aimed (fired?) at seniors.  Guess we need more help.  Must be profitable for insurance companies.  Aren’t some literally offering a free lunch? Next, the Xmas shopping season.  Can’t hardly wait.

Then we have the cruise ads.  Wouldn’t you want to “explore the world in comfort”? At least one version of Viking’s commercial offers child-free sailing.  Might appeal to the Bill Maher types; to me, no kids is kind of depressing.

Another ad targeted at seniors.  Seems like a substance first detected…”in jellyfish” could protect us from, er, being less sharp (or make us more sharp)? No, it is not being touted as an over-the-counter cure for dementia, but who knows? Has prevagen been clinically proven? Not yet, but stay tuned.

Just a few examples.  I’m sure any of you could come up with more.

Mail, News and T.V.

Prior to my retirement from DEA, the powers that be sent me to a retirement seminar. We learned many useful things, but the one which sticks to this day – do not watch the news. It’s too conducive to depression. The U.S mail is also a major contributor. On any given day, I receive numerous entreaties to contribute (some are legit, others…..who knows).

A recent missive from the Christian Appalachian Project (I’m pretty sure it’s for real) introduced me to “Lisa, a mother of two, who knows what it’s like to scrape together enough to buy healthy (sic) food and essential clothing for her little girls”. The plea goes on to say that “[s]adly, she’s not alone. In fact, one in five children in Appalachia is hungry”. Where is Appalachia? Don’t know, really, but it seems to expand to more and more of the USA between the oceans. If it is true that the oceans are about to rise to claim increasing amounts of seashore real estate, that leaves less and less Lands of Plenty in these United States. Are you nervous yet??

Then there are homes for abused and abandoned children. We give a small pittance to ones in New York City (Covenant House) and Chicago (Mercy Home for Boys & Girls). Homes for unwanted, inconvenient children. Were any of them conceived as a result of rape or incest? Ya think? Yes, abortion is evil, sinful and a form of homicide, but those who advocate for its prohibition should consider what to do with the lives they save. All too often, after birth, yer on your own, kid.

If that doesn’t grab you, The Washington Post’s October 21st edition carried a lengthy article concerning a decline in life expectancy in these United States. Apparently, on average, a Japanese person, as well as a Portugese citizen, live about five years longer that an American of a similar age. Causes include bad food habits, widespread opioid and other drug and alcohol abuse, suicides, gun violence and inadequate medical care.

We get numerous letters similar to the ones described above. Teens and childen kicked out of abusive homes in big cities. Not to mention the rest of the world. But the U.S. is the richest nation the planet has ever seen. Can’t we do better than this? If you are Christian, consider the words of Jesus: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.

Hardly a day goes by without hearing of another unprecedented event in our climate. July was the hottest month on record. Pakistan and Greece have been flooded almost apocalyptically. A Category 5 hurricane just slammed into Apoculpo, Mexico. Never happened before. This morning’s Post (October 30) published a front page piece on the effect of climate warming on little kids in Yemen, a war torn nation on the Arabian peninsula. Yemen sits cheek-to-jowl with oil rich (filthy rich) nations such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. So, why can’t they just go cool off in the air conditioning? Just like the oil barons. Was it St. Luke who observed that the pursuit of money is the root of all evil? Is climate change for real? Ask the babies and little kids of Yemen who are being parboiled.

And, yes, we have two major wars going down. Just what we need, not to mention people in Palestine, Israel, Russia and Ukraine. As a former president observed (in a somewhat different context), there are fine people. On both sides. In the case of the Middle East, there are sins on both sides.

While all this goes on, Congress is stymied by a lack of a Speaker. Well, no, the GOP finally selected a backbencher. Now we can get serious about government shutdowns and all the useful things the House gets to do. Don’t you feel better already?

Finally, to break the monotony, we have had our (un)regularly scheduled mass shooting event, this time in Maine. At last count, only 18 lives were lost. The perp had an arsenal of legally purchased weaponry. He had recently been hospitalized for mental problems, hearing voices, etc. Apparently, some of the I’s had been dotted,T’s crossed, but to extend the cliches, dots were not connected. The system worked, until it didn’t. When will we realize that the best armed citizenry in the world is too well armed? The ultimate solution? Get the guns off the streets!

There you have it. I watch the news. I’ve only myself to blame.

Merry Minuet

They’re Rioting in Africa,

They’re Starving in Spain

There’s Hurricanes in Florida,

And Texas needs rain

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.

The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles

Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.

And I don’t like anybody very much……..

You get the drift. In a quote attributed to Rodney King, “Can’t we just get along”? The little ditty, recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1950’s, only illustrates the old French saying, “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” (the more things change, the more they stay the same). Why do people prey on others?

A very few examples: White European settlers vs “Indians”. Yes, I know, the settlers wanted land. As children, most of us were taught that the indigenous people got along with the settlers (the myth surrounding the first Thanksgiving comes to mind). The reality, however is starkly different. For starters, the Europeans wiped out numerous natives from disease. Over the next centuries, the natives were routed from their lands and herded onto “reservations”. It is little wonder that diseases of despair: poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction and other pathologies have all but wiped them out as a functioning people.

Then we have America’s Original Sin: Slavery. Although I’m not an expert in the field, it appears that wealthy (upper class?) Africans worked with the British and other maritime powers to buy “lower class” people to sell for a large profit to (wealthy) settlers in the New World. These folk needed the help: they were usually “gentlemen” who had never worked manually at anything.

Jews. Israel is very much in the news lately, while Hamas (proxy for Iran?) ravages the “Jewish state” for all it’s worth. Since its founding in 1948, Israel is the hands down success story in the Middle East. Its military can likely pound Hamas into the stone age. This is, however, an old, old story, ranging from progroms in the 19th Century (think Fiddler on the Roof) to the Holocaust in the 20th. Why? The Jews are too damn successful. The culture values education. Their people are much more likely to be professionals. Or shopkeepers. Or other business owners. This engenders envy on the part of less successful cultures.

I well remember going to college with numerous Jewish students, many of whom were trying to become MD’s. Med schools back in the day actively discriminated against them. Competition for grades was, to say the least, cutthroat. For example, (caution: chemistry lesson coming up….) I took a course in qualitative organic analysis. To determine which other elements were bonded to carbon, one conducted a “sodium fusion” test. Using a disposable test tube, we would heat sodium metal with the unknown and then plunge it into cold water, thus breaking the tube. Obviously, numerous test tubes were broken. Long before the semester ended, the stock room ran out of them. At the end of the semester, one student was found to have hoarded the whole supply. A Jewish kid looking to claw his way into medical school.

How about women? The “weaker sex” that outlives men, can endure much more suffering (check out childbearing, guys). Our groundbreaking republic didn’t allow them to vote for the first century of its existence. On the other hand, our British forbears had heads of state from the 17th Century (Elizabeth I), the 19th (Victoria) and Elizabeth II in the 20th and 21st. Israel had Golda Meir in the 1970’s. India, the world’s largest democracy, was ruled by Indira Ghandi. Then, the U.K. ‘s Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, prevented Ronald Reagan from “going wobbly” in the last decade of the 20th. Perhaps it is in the arts where humankind has mostly been deprived of female accomplishments through male chauvinism. Music has benefitted from the talents of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beech and others who have never been recognized, or performed, nearly as much as men of inferior talent. The situation is changing rapidly in this century, as a consequence of male slackerhood. WAKE UP, GUYS!

Why do we hate so much? St. Luke proposed one solution: “The pursuit of money is the root of all evil”. Maybe so.

They’re Rioting in Africa

There’s Strife in Iran

What Nature Doesn’t Do to Us,

Will Be Done by Our Fellow Man

Drugs and Alphabet Soup

Over the last century, the Federal effort to fight illicit drug trafficking has been carried out by several agencies: FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics), BDAC (Bureau of Drug Abuse Control), BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) and the current flagship, DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).

Conventional wisdom argued that the agency best suited to solve “the drug problem” was, of course, the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover would have none of this. He reasoned that the problem had no solution, and he didn’t want his agents getting “dirty”. After his passing in 1972 , the Bureau did get into “drug work” with mixed success, at best. Whether the Bureau could have made a decisive dent in the problem, we’ll never know. The FBI certainly led them all in terms of PR.

Let’s get to the agencies; The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was formed in 1930, within the Treasury Department. It had become obvious that “narcotics” trafficking and addiction had become a major problem. The nation had come to realize that heroin was not a cure for morphine addiction, and organized crime had spread drugs everywhere. The Bureau was underresourced throughout its existence. It also suffered from lack of its own laboratory system. As I have mentioned in previous posts, drug trafficking is legally considered a “victimless crime”, in that nobody complains to law enforcement, “hey, he just sold me dope”. Consequently, prosecuters need to present evidence that an illegal substance has changed hands, and what the substance actually is. Lab services to FBN agents were provided by other Treasury labs, most notably by Alcohol and Tobacco Tax facilities. Also, there is, to this day, no universally accepted definition of “narcotic”, to my knowledge. Narcotics are generally considered to be agents which cause stupor. However, cocaine and marijuana are classified, for legal purposes, as narcotics.

By the 1950’s, new sets of drugs were causing major problems – hallucinogens (LSD, STP, MDA, peyote, to name a few), amphetamines (abused by truckers, WWII soldiers and others needing to go without sleep for extended periods of time). What is the typical Federal response to something like this? Reorganize! Create a new crime fighter! The result: The Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC), formed as a part of FDA, in 1966, when the government was seen as the ultimate problem solver. Anything was possible. The new bureau’s charter was to fight trafficking in these newer remedies. Never mind that FDA personnel had no arrest powers. We’ll just go out and recruit some agents to do this stuff!

Nice thought, America. The new Bureau lasted just a couple of years, and was merged with FBN in 1968. New name: Bureau of Narcotics (whatever that means) and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). BNDD became a part of the Department of Justice. This time, the new outfit was permitted to form its own lab system. I was recruited as a founding member of the New York regional lab. We also established labs in Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC, along with a Special Testing and Research facility. We later added San Diego and Miami.

The “drug problem” continued to soar, however, and BNDD was not having (or seeming to) an impact. The Nixon Administration declared WAR!! If the FBI was AWOL, why not form another agency? Taking personnel from the Treasury Department and using them to beef up the Bureau, and voila! The Drug Enforcement Admimistration was born as the lead agency in the War on July 1, 1973. The Drug what? Whoever conceived this agency had a tin ear for nomenclature. From Day 1, DEA had powerful enemies, most notably, the U.S. Customs Service, within Treasury.

The new agency was, from its onset, starved for funds. Subsequent events taught me a valuable lesson in public administration: follow the money! In 1984, the Asset Forfeiture Laws were passed. Their principal purpose was to deprive criminals of ill gotten gains. DEA began to pass funds to the Treasury, far exceeding its budget, from seizures of vehicles, yachts and other trinkets from the bad guys. This transformed it into a money making agency.

Despite all these wars and agency name changes, the “drug problem” continues to fester, and, not incidently, kill many people. When I left DEA in 1994, fentanyl analogs largely were attempts to circumvent drug laws. Since then, fentanyl, itself, has become virtually mainstream. Illicit drug use is a disease of despair – an attempt, however futile, to ease personal suffering. It is, in many respects, a death wish. We will never solve the “problem” until we can deal with this social dysfunction – and find a way to get money out of the trade. And not only from the bad guys.

Doggies

In 57 years of marriage, Flo and I have had a number of dogs. As a child growing up, I never had one. We had a variety of other animals: gold fish, hamsters and even a cat, but no dogs. My mother didn’t like them. Case closed. Flo, on the other hand, had a lovable old hound, Jafe by name (first initials of three girlfriends, don’t ask).

For our first year of marriage, we were dogless. After a year, we bought a house. Shortly after, I came home one night from work, and we had a newly weaned beagle puppy. I got to name him Claude, after a first cousin I basically couldn’t stand (oh well). To say I was not tempermentally ready for a dog would be an undertatement. Claude was central casting’s perfect image of a purebred beagle. Unfortunately, his first love was for the fields. He was a champion escape artist (we had another one later – tell you all about it). On at least one of Claude’s escapades, he was kidnapped for about a week, before we got an (anonymous) phone call (don’t want to get involved or anything) telling us where he was. We got him back; shortly after, Uncle Sam transferred us to DC. After a few more escapes, we gave up and gave him to a couple with a farm. Plenty of room to run.

We were not long w/o a dog before Flo visited the local dog pound and adopted a german shepherd female we named Grandi. She was everything Claude never was for us: faithful, loving and protective. By that time, we had a son and daughter, and we had to getsome other animals: a hamster and two cats. Grandi coexisted with all of them. As Ed, our son-in-law has observed, the worst thing about dogs is they don’t live long enough. When Grandi developed severe hip displasure at life’s end, Jen took her out several times daily with a towel to prop up her hindquarters, for about 2 weeks. Finally, we faced the inevitable and had her euthanized.

Once again to the pound to get a large male mutt. Sidney we called him. Sid liked to get away once in awhile. His MO was to burrow under the chain link fence in our backyard. I was constantly trying to escape-proof the yard, including a locking mechanism fitted to a gate. After I had finished these modifications, my next door neighbor observed, “Roger, if he figures this one out, sell him to a circus”. Sid did have another quirk: he was a “fear biter”. He often hid under the dining room table. If you dared to place your hand under the table, he would growl, fearsomely. Well, your hand shouldn’t be under the table, anyway. He was also a problem solver. Did he need water? He would place his water dish under the tap (never did figure out how to turn it on, though. That would have had him sold to a circus).

One practical use for Sid was as shotgun (and potential protector?) for the Deputy Lab Director of DEA’s Mid-Atlantic Lab in (not quite) downtown DC. The facility was located in a really bad neighborhood. Street people would try to enter after hours, and would often set off the alarms. I would have to cruise into the breech to investigate the possible cause of the alarm. At Flo’s instance, Sid would ride in with me. Fortunately, none of these break-ins ever materialized, but it felt good to have my 140- pound fear biter at my side.

After the inevitable happened to Sid, we moved. Our local PetSmart held an adoption one Saturday; of course, Flo went. She found a female border collie mix. They also featured a black lab female. Who they threatened to euthanize. Couldn’t let that happen. We adopted both. With apologies to the late Bill Haley, we adopted two hound dogs named Rhythm ‘n Blues (only we called them Heather ‘n Jill). Heather, the border collie, was one smart dog – too smart for her own good, and too smart for us. She was an escape artist. Just loved to roam. Whether Jill felt the same, we never knew, but she faithfully followed Heather’s lead. Every time. Once, they had been gone for about a week; when I opened our front door, there was Jill! Shortly after, Heather appeared. Don’t know where they went. Will never know. Heather eventually died. Jill lasted about four more months.

Save the best for last. We got Bella, a female Golden Retriever from a “breeder”. She was the runt of the litter, spent most of her time in a small cage in a remote part of the property. Although almost a year old, she weighed about 35 pounds soaking wet, and had experienced zero socialization. Since we were getting her from a breeder, we paid about a grand. Within a day or so, we had her examined by a doggie cardiologist, (ka ching, ka ching) who blew the whistle on the breeder and told them not to cash our check. Over time, Bella became a beloved part of the family. Although we have spent lots of money on vet bills, she is healthy (pretty much), intelligent, and for my money, the best one we’ve had. She is almost 10, and likely to be the last we’ll ever have.

Then there are the granddogs. Midas was Ed’s dog when he married Jen. A yellow Lab, he was the sweetest dog. And very bright. He passed away too young, of cancer. Having had good luck with the breed, they acquired Nelson (also a yellow lab male, named for a British admiral). Also a good dog. Currently, they have a black Lab named Halsey (this time for an American flag officer, World War II vintage). Davis, our grandson, has grown up with these guys. Lucky for him!

Drug Factoids

Amphetamines fall into two broad categories: CNS stimulants, and hallucinogens. For those of you who are into alphabet soups, CNS stands for Central Nervous System. (Aren’t you glad you asked?). The hallucinogens are all Schedule I, having no medical use. Amphetamine and Methamphetamine are both Schedule II’s. This short treatise will deal mainly with methamphetamine.

Amphetamine and methamphetamine are usually found as sulfate salts. The free bases of both of them are not suitable for ingestion. Further, both amphetamine and “meth” (aka speed, crank and too many other argot terms to list) contain in their structure an “asymmetric carbon”, which is a carbon atom bonded to four different substituents (sorry you asked?). This results in two distinct compounds, different in their ability to rotate polarized light (so what) and profound differences in their effects on the human body (very important). Depending on the synthetic procedure used to prepare them, the final product will be the right hand product (designated by the prefix dextro), or the left handed (levo) form. Or a mixture of the two; chemists refer to this as a racemic mixture. In the case of amphetamines, the dextro form is CNS active, while the levo form is, for the most part, inactive.

These compounds have effects similar to cocaine, which is to say, they’re CNS stimulants. Their popularity stems from their ease of manufacture. You don’t have to import them from South America, but you can easily synthesize them from readily available chemicals, with rudimentary equipment found in your local Lowes or Home Depot. No laboratory is needed; folks make meth in motel bathrooms. No, I’m not about to tell you how to make meth. You can get recipes on the Internet. The only pitfalls involve safety, which most stoneheads could care less about anyway.

During my career with DEA, numerous attempts were made to track shipments of precursor chemicals to lead agents to clandestine labs. Cold and sinus remedies containing drugs like ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, for example, can easily be coverted to meth if you have a recipe (again, readily found on the Web). The stuff is so easily synthesized in small batches that enforcement often seems like a Whack-a-Mole proposition. Words on a T-shirt I have probably sums it up best: Chemistry is like cooking….Just don’t lick the spoon.

You can feel on top of the world, so to speak, without need of sleep – until you don’t. Long distance truckers used them to drive for days at a time. Unfortunately, many got into serious, often fatal, crashes following an encounter with a hallucination. Was Adolf Hitler a user? We can never know for sure, but the Nazi German military supplied amphetamines to the Wehrmacht (we probably did, too, to our own troops).

As an old saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Meth chronic users suffer numerous serious health conditions, usually caused by neglect of nutrition, personal hygiene and eventually mental stability. In short, speed kills.