Baltimore Riot | April 2015

latimes:

Baltimore is in a state of unrest tonight, with rioting and looting breaking out after the funeral of Freddie Gray, the man who suffered a severed spine in police custody and died this month. We’re covering the events live here.

1st photo: Baltimore police form a perimeter around a CVS store that was looted and burned. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
2nd photo: A youth who has washed pepper spray from his eyes walks near a building that caught fire. Credit: Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency
3rd photo: A man has his eyes cleaned after getting pepper spray in them. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
4th photo: A man shouts for calm as protesters face off with police as the CVS burns. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
5th photo: Police move a protester back. Credit: Matt Rourke / Associated Press
6th photo: Police fire tear gas canisters as protests move along Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
7th photo: A police vehicle burns. Credit: Jerry Jackson / Associated Press

DON'T CASH CROP MY CORN ROWS: Cultural Appropriation

Amandla Stenberg discussing appropriation of black culture. 

"Quote of the day"

"Spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself and little less time trying to impress people."

-The Breakfast Club

THE ENERGY OF FEELINGS

We are moving into a new era. One in which we are remembering who we really are. That we are unlimited Beings. That we are magnetic Beings. And it’s time to start realizing this and living from this point of awareness.

We are not simply bodies, we are energy… energy through and through. The same energy as everything we see around us… and I mean Everything. Hard as though that concept may be to grasp.

So if you do find it hard to grasp, don’t try to analyse it, just take it as read. And know that it’s time to stop living in your head, in your mind – and that it’s time instead to start living from the heart… being guided by your feelings, your intuition, your inner knowing. That is where your power resides. That is where You reside. The all-knowing You.

Your heart space is your control center. Let the focus of your awareness be there, rather than in your mind. This is where the true You resides – the truth of who you really are.

Sometimes… no… often… there are things that your mind cannot understand, but your heart ‘gets’ them, and these things flow into and are assimilated by your heart. These are things that you have an intuitive understanding of, that you cannot put into words.

Words are limiting. We often cannot express what we feel because there are no words. And I know you know that feeling. That intense feeling of emotion, when you are overwhelmed with love, joy, amazement or gratitude at something that has occurred. That is often when we cry, or laugh, or jump up and down to express ourselves, because words are not sufficient.

Your heart space holds your inner wisdom

When you have that overwhelming feeling of joy, love, gratitude or happiness (and happiness is probably all of those things combined), the feeling is so intense that it infuses your whole body doesn’t it? You can feel it infusing every cell and every molecule and it lights you up like a lighthouse. You are overflowing with this incredible feeling which translates into light energy. As you are filled with this light, so you are beaming it out like a lighthouse. And as these waves of light energy beam out from you they are magnetically drawing in more of the same, in unlimited amounts.

It’s a flow of energy, a circular flow. The more light you emit the more you draw in and the more you draw in the more you emit… This is the flow of life. It’s energy. It’s us.

The energy of our feelings is emitted from us on a particular frequency or vibration, like a radio frequency, with each ‘type’ of feeling (happy, sad, angry etc.) being a difference frequency. Because we are magnetic, we draw to us things that are on the same frequency or vibration as the one we are emitting. Which is why feeling GOOD is so important. When you feel good then you are emitting the ‘feel good’ vibration and will magnetically attract to you things that are on that same frequency (ie. more things to make you feel good). And of course the same thing happens when you don’t feel good… Those feelings magnetically attract more things on the ‘not feeling good’ lower frequency… Which is why you can get stuck in a rut. And why just changing your thoughts can change your life.

Be in your heart, not your mind

We are brought up and educated to believe that the mind is everything, that our mind controls us, when in fact the mind knows nothing about what is good for us emotionally or physically.

The mind is a tool for us to use, but it has no idea what makes us happy – we can only know that by noticing the way we feel in response to people, things, experiences. It is our feelings that tell us what makes us happy and what is good for us. And those things that make us feel good are telling us about who we really are. Which is what we are here to experience… except many have forgotten this.

So let’s now start remembering that we are energy and start paying attention to our feelings, living from our heart and being who we were born to be. For that is where our true freedom resides.

By: Susan Harper Todd

BIG PHARMA: OG's of 'Medical Marijuana'

At the turn of the century, before the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis and Squibb of Bristol-Myers Squibb, were marketing cannabis extracts and tinctures labeled as “uniformly effective at dose levels of 10 mg.”

In those days, most medicines had the same generic characteristics, so drug companies had to rely on marketing and brand recognition to sell their products.

According to the Antique Cannabis Book, six percent of all manufactured drugs at the time contained cannabis in one form or another, whether in powder, tablets, fluid extracts or tinctures. Some call that period, from the turn of the century to 1937, the “Golden Age of Medical Cannabis” as marijuana products flourished with little to no stigma or legal ramifications.

Then, like now, cannabis was prescribed for a variety of ailments including epilepsy, migraines, stomach worms, mental illnesses and some addictions. It was also used by veterinaries for pets.

While smoking was not common, tinctures and extracts were developed on a regular basis. The pharmaceutical companies had the benefit of their own expertise in standardizing and establishing dosing and responses. They initially used weed grown in India but soon realized growing their own was more reliable. In doing so, they learned about sinsemilla (seedless) cultivation.

Parke-Davis (now owned by Pfizer) worked with Eli Lilly to create its own plant strain called Cannabis Americana, a domesticated Indica strain. 

According to Forbes, Parke-Davis did not stop with weed. It sold various types of cocaine before it became illegal, developed ketamine and held the patent for PCP.

A Pfizer spokesman told Forbes it was no longer involved in cannabis research. Eli Lilly nor Bristol-Myers Squibb would comment on whether they would get back into the field.

(Photo Courtesy Cannador.com)