MAPTalk-Digest Monday, December 3 2007 Volume 07 : Number 126
001 Winning the war on, well, pot
From: Herb <>
002 Fwd: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
From: "DH Michon" <>
003 Yup, now the Star Press has a webform Re: MAP: Fwd: Delivery Status Not
From: Richard Lake <>
004 Colombia: Web: Colombia Coca Farmers Elude Black Hawks, Resist U.S. on
From: Allan Erickson <>
005 US NY: Web: OPED: Monkey Business
From: Allan Erickson <>
006 Re: Yup, now the Star Press has a webform Re: MAP: Fwd: Delivery Status
From: "DH Michon" <>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subj: 001 Winning the war on, well, pot
From: Herb <>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 14:55:45 -0800
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/politicalblog/?p=2354
12/2/2007
Winning the war on, well, pot
By Kevin Woster
While we're on the subject of the war on drugs, doesn't it seem like most of
the big busts you read about involve marijuana?
Does it make sense to commit so many resources to fight a drug that's hardly
meth or heroin?
Should we celebrate because we nab some out-of-state, not-so-intuitive,
probably dirt poor "mule" driving a pickupload of pot across our state and
send him or her or them to prison for a very long time?
Is that success in the war on drugs, when - meanwhile - pretty much
everybody seems to agree that the biggest drug threat we face here in South
Dakota these days is methamphetamine?
How are we doing on that war?
I don't smoke pot. I don't have any interest in smoking pot. The few times I
tried it in college I was underwhelmed by its effects.
I don't think getting stoned is a particularly good thing, especially if you
do it a lot. I don't think getting drunk is, either, especially if you do it
a lot.
I think it makes a great deal of sense to keep drunk or drugged drivers from
getting behind the wheel. I feel safer knowing that our law-enforcement
officers are committed to that.
That's a war that makes perfect sense to me. I hope we win it.
I worry about a lot of things. But I don't spend a lot of time worrying
about the horrible impact marjiuana is having on our society.
If somebody wants to get loopy in their BarcaLounger while watching re-runs
of the Andy Griffith Show and consuming great portions of Fritos and
Tahitian Treat, I guess I don't worry much about that, either.
Can somebody tell me why I should?
------------------------------
Subj: 002 Fwd: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
From: "DH Michon" <>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 19:20:01 -0800
Looks like there's some problem with this contact or address. Bummer.
Dave
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <>
Date: Dec 1, 2007 8:20 PM
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
To:
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
Technical details of permanent failure:
TEMP_FAILURE: Could not initiate SMTP conversation with any hosts:
[66.118.65.254.thestarpress.com. (1): Destination address required]
----- Original message -----
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Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:27:22 -0600
From: "DH Michon" <>
To:
Subject: Letter to the Editor
MIME-Version: 1.0
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boundary="----=_Part_11572_20186083.1196281642655"
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Dear Editor,
The Star Press's coverage of the "Muncie-Delaware County Drug Task Force"
(DTF) audit: *Drug Task Force Faces Audit Critical (sic)*; 11-26; Star
Press; was a welcome look into the affairs of one of these Prohibition
----- Message truncated -----
- --
DH Michon
3305 Sundet Rd.
Eau Claire, WI 54703
1-(715) 830-9368
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attachment: http://mapinc.org/temp/28tIgFaPZKzjA.html
------------------------------
Subj: 003 Yup, now the Star Press has a webform Re: MAP: Fwd: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
From: Richard Lake <>
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 19:46:49 -0800
With about 4,000 sources in the DB, it is hard to keep up with all
the changes, unless folks like you let us know. Thanks!
I kind of like webforms better, because it is easy to click the link
when editing to see if that is still good, whereas I seldom have time
to poke around a website to see if an email address is still good.
Now that Matt has given the editors a kewl tool to make long URLs
shorter, you will see them pop up here and there. I decided to give
the webform for the rag a short URL: http://drugsense.org/url/170EAKxC
Richard
At 10:20 PM 12/2/07, DH Michon wrote:
>Looks like there's some problem with this contact or address. Bummer.
>Dave
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <>
>Date: Dec 1, 2007 8:20 PM
>Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
>To:
>
>This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
>
>Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
>
>
>
>Technical details of permanent failure:
>TEMP_FAILURE: Could not initiate SMTP conversation with any hosts:
>[66.118.65.254.thestarpress.com. (1): Destination address required]
>
> ----- Original message -----
>
>Received: by 10.86.84.5 with SMTP id h5mr5322030fgb.1196281642652;
> Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:27:22 -0800 (PST)
>Received: by 10.86.62.16 with HTTP; Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:27:22 -0800 (PST)
>Message-ID: <>
>Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:27:22 -0600
>From: "DH Michon" <>
>To:
>Subject: Letter to the Editor
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="----=_Part_11572_20186083.1196281642655"
>
>------=_Part_11572_20186083.1196281642655
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Content-Disposition: inline
>
>Dear Editor,
>
>The Star Press's coverage of the "Muncie-Delaware County Drug Task Force"
>(DTF) audit: *Drug Task Force Faces Audit Critical (sic)*; 11-26; Star
>Press; was a welcome look into the affairs of one of these Prohibition
>
> ----- Message truncated -----
>
>--
>DH Michon
>3305 Sundet Rd.
>Eau Claire, WI 54703
>
>1-(715) 830-9368
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Attachment: http://mapinc.org/temp/28tIgFaPZKzjA.html
------------------------------
Subj: 004 Colombia: Web: Colombia Coca Farmers Elude Black Hawks, Resist U.S. on Cocaine
From: Allan Erickson <>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:57:35 -0800
Colombia Coca Farmers Elude Black Hawks, Resist U.S. on Cocaine
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=3D20601086&sid=3DaeNM2WHz_4gs&refer=3Dlatin_america
=E6
http://morningdonut.blogspot.com/
- ---=
------------------------------
Subj: 005 US NY: Web: OPED: Monkey Business
From: Allan Erickson <>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:04:56 -0800
Note: this is from the NY Times Opinion, Blogs section:
Newshawk: allan
Webpage:
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/monkey-business/?ref=3Dopinio
Pubdate: Sun, 02 Dec 2007
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company
Contact:
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Stanley Fish
Note: Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University
Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University,
in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences=20
at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the
University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke
University. He is the author of 10 books. His new book on higher
education, "Save the World On Your Own Time," will be published in
2008.
Monkey Business
In a case now pending in a federal court in Brooklyn, Mamie Manneh of
Staten Island stands accused of having brought smoked bushmeat =96 known=20
colloquially as monkey meat =96 into the United States without proper
permits, in violation of the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species.
Ms. Manneh=92s defense is that in her religion the eating of bushmeat
has
both a cultural and a spiritual significance. In an affidavit, 17 of
her co-religionists declared, =93We eat bushmeat for our souls.=94
Manneh=92s
lawyer, Jan Rostal, has analogized the African-based practice to the
consumption at a Passover seder of foods like bitter herbs =93that might=20
have some reference to the Exodus.=94 In a motion to dismiss, Rostal
said
that the case, while apparently novel, =93represents the sort of clash
of
cultural and religious values inherent in the melting pot that is
America.=94
No, it doesn=92t. It represents a more fundamental clash: between the
imperatives of religion and the rule of law. The question raised by the=20
case is whether the fact of a religious belief is sufficient to exempt=20
the believer from the application of generally applicable laws =97 laws=20
(like driving on the right-hand side of the road) that apply to every
citizen no matter what his or her religious, ethical or moral
convictions. Is religious belief a special case, so special that the
devout practitioner gets a pass?
John Locke posed that question in =93A Letter Concerning Toleration=94=20
(1689), and his analysis of it remains relevant today. Locke asks if it=20
is lawful for Meliboeus (a name borrowed from pastoral poetry) to
slaughter a calf and offer it as a sacrifice at a religious meeting. It=20
depends, he says, on whether slaughtering a calf in order to put food
on his family=92s table is lawful. If it is, then killing the calf for=20
ritual purposes is perfectly allowable, for =93what may be spent on a
feast may be spent on a sacrifice.=94
But the logic also holds in the opposite direction. Suppose, Locke
imagines, a disease had destroyed a large number of cattle and the
government decreed that no more could be slaughtered. The prohibition
would surely extend to religious rituals, not as a specific target of
state action, but as a practice swept up in the wake of a general law.
That law, Locke observes, would not be =93made about a religious matter,=20
but about a political matter.=94 It would be true that some people would=20
no longer be able to engage in behavior they considered central to
their religious life, but because that would not be the result aimed at=20
=97 the good of the commonwealth would be the concern =97 the government=20
could not be accused of contriving to harm religion, even if that were=20
an unintended consequence of its action.
Nor would it be wise to exempt persons of certain beliefs from the
general prohibition; for that would amount to bending the law to the
preferences and desires of particular citizens, and once you begin to
do that there is no logical place to stop and the rule of law would be=20
destroyed.
The upshot of Locke=92s argument is that religious practices flourish
only at the sufferance of the state. In theory you have the right to
worship in the manner dictated by your faith, but should an aspect of
that worship run up against a duly enacted regulation, the regulation,=20
provided it is neutral in intention, trumps the demands of worship.
This same line of reasoning can be found in religion clause cases
stretching from Reynolds v. United States (1878) to Employment Division=20
v. Smith (1990). (There is an alternative tradition of =93accommodating=94
religion in cases like Sherbert v. Verner and Wisconsin v. Yoder.)
In Reynolds the court considered the argument made by a man convicted
of practicing polygamy that it is the religious duty of male members of=20
the Mormon Church to engage in plural marriage, and that the penalty
for failing to do so =93would be damnation in the life to come.=94 The=20
court observed that the prohibition against polygamy was general and
not directed at any sect, and asked, =93can a man excuse=94 his illegal=20
practice of an interdicted behavior just =93because of his religious
belief?=94
The answer is swift, firm and Lockean. =93To permit this would be to
make
the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the=20
land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto
himself.=94 In such a circumstance, the court concluded, =93government=20
could exist only in name.=94
The same logic rules in Smith. Here the issue was the ingestion at a
Native American religious ceremony of peyote, deemed a =93controlled
substance=94 by the laws of Oregon. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for=20
the majority, notes that the Native American celebrants =93contend that=20
their religious motivation for using peyote places them beyond the
reach of a criminal law that is not specifically directed at their
religious practice and that is concededly constitutional as applied to=20
those who use the drug for other reasons.=94 In short, the demand is
that
the law be applied differently to persons with different beliefs =97 you=20
can=92t use peyote as a recreational drug, but I can use it because I
consider it sacramental =97 and this Scalia refuses to do.
The intention of the Oregon law, he points out, was not to curtail
anyone=92s free exercise of religion, and the fact that the free
exercise
rights of some people happened to be impacted negatively is =93merely
the
incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid
principle.=94 If the affected believers are unhappy, Scalia concludes,=20
let them turn to the =93political process=94 and try to get laws passed=20
that will address their concerns.
That is exactly what happened on two fronts. Congress passed a law
making the use of peyote in religious ceremonies an exception to the
controlled substances regulations. And the same Congress passed the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993), which transferred the burden=20
of proof from the religious practitioner to the government.
Where the assumption in Reynolds and Smith is that the state need only=20
be innocent of the intention to impede free exercise, the distinction
between intentional effects and what Scalia calls =93incidental=94
effects
is RFRA=92s first casualty: =93Laws =91neutral=92 toward religion may
burden
religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with
religious exercise.=94 Whatever the source and pedigree of the burden,=20
whether it is designed or accidental, those who suffer it must have a
legal recourse.
Accordingly, in any instance where the burden is =93substantial,=94 the=20
state must demonstrate that the law in question =93(1) is in furtherance=20
of a compelling government interest; and (2) is the least restrictive
means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.=94 In other=20
words, the fact of a law duly passed by the appropriate bodies is not
enough; with respect to a particular class of persons =96 religious
believers =96 that law cannot take effect unless it can be shown that
the
highest state considerations require that it be applied without
exception.
While RFRA was hailed as a victory for religious freedom by many,
others saw in it the realization of the fear expressed by the Reynolds=20
and Smith courts, the fear that any law could be lawfully disobeyed by=20
someone who asserted that it interfered with the free exercise of his
or her religion. In effect, they complained, the rule of law was being=20
subordinated to the private convictions of an ever expanding set of
citizens. For, as Scalia observes in Smith, who can tell another that a=20
certain practice is not central to the free exercise of his religion?
Prison inmates can claim that their religious requires them to eat
porterhouse steak every day. And Meliboeus must be allowed to slaughter=20
his calf even when his non-religious neighbors are prevented from doing=20
so.
This brings us back to Mamie Manneh and monkey-meat. How will she fare=20
in the courts? Her attorney is mounting an RFRA defense, but the act
was weakened in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997), when Justice Kennedy
challenged Congress=92s ability to pass it. Congress, he said, has the=20
power to enforce rights, not to create them: =93Legislation which alters=20
the Free Exercise Clauses=92s meaning=94 =96 by creating a special right
of
exemption from general laws =96 =93cannot be said to be enforcing the
clause.=94 Moreover, said Kennedy, =93if Congress could define its own=20
power by altering the Fourteenth Amendment=92s meaning, no longer would=20
the Constitution be =91superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary=20
means.=92=94 In short, saying what the Constitution means is our job,
not
yours.
That might have seemed the end of it, but in a 2006 case (Gonzales v. O=20
Centro), the Roberts court interpreted Boerne as invalidating only the=20
application of RFRA to the states. Given that Ms. Manneh=92s case is
being adjudicated in a federal court, an RFRA defense is at least
plausible, although the fact that bushmeat is associated with diseases=20
like ebola will likely be enough to satisfy even the =93compelling
interest=94 test and give the government a victory.
But no matter how the case turns out, we can be sure of one thing: it
won=92t be the last, because the issues Locke identified and analyzed
will never be resolved. In her dissent in Boerne, Justice O=92Connor
wrote, =93Our Nation=92s Founders conceived of a Republic receptive to=20
voluntary religious expression, not a secular society in which
religious expression is tolerated only when it does not conflict with
generally applicable law.=94
Yes, that=92s the question. Do we begin by assuming the special status
of
religious expression and reason from there? Or do we begin with the
rule of law and look with suspicion on any claim to be exempt for it,
even if the claim is made in the name of apparently benign religious
motives? =46rom Reynolds to the present moment, everyone has had an
answer to that question, but I predict that no one will ever have the
last word.=
------------------------------
Subj: 006 Re: Yup, now the Star Press has a webform Re: MAP: Fwd: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
From: "DH Michon" <>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 11:18:28 -0800
Thanks, Richard, for all you, and the other tettnal peeps at MAP, do.
- -----------Dave
On Dec 2, 2007 9:46 PM, Richard Lake <> wrote:
> With about 4,000 sources in the DB, it is hard to keep up with all
> the changes, unless folks like you let us know. Thanks!
>
> I kind of like webforms better, because it is easy to click the link
> when editing to see if that is still good, whereas I seldom have time
> to poke around a website to see if an email address is still good.
>
> Now that Matt has given the editors a kewl tool to make long URLs
> shorter, you will see them pop up here and there. I decided to give
> the webform for the rag a short URL: http://drugsense.org/url/170EAKxC
>
> Richard
>
> At 10:20 PM 12/2/07, DH Michon wrote:
>
> >Looks like there's some problem with this contact or address. Bummer.
> >Dave
> >
> >---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <>
> >Date: Dec 1, 2007 8:20 PM
> >Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
> >To:
> >
> >This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
> >
> >Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
> >
> >
> >
> >Technical details of permanent failure:
> >TEMP_FAILURE: Could not initiate SMTP conversation with any hosts:
>>[66.118.65.254.thestarpress.com. (1): Destination address required]
> >
> > ----- Original message -----
> >
> >Received: by 10.86.84.5 with SMTP id h5mr5322030fgb.1196281642652;
> > Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:27:22 -0800 (PST)
> >Received: by 10.86.62.16 with HTTP; Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:27:22 -0800 (PST)
> >Message-ID: <>
> >Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:27:22 -0600
> >From: "DH Michon" <>
> >To:
> >Subject: Letter to the Editor
> >MIME-Version: 1.0
> >Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> > boundary="----=_Part_11572_20186083.1196281642655"
> >
> >------=_Part_11572_20186083.1196281642655
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >Content-Disposition: inline
> >
> >Dear Editor,
> >
> >The Star Press's coverage of the "Muncie-Delaware County Drug Task Force"
> >(DTF) audit: *Drug Task Force Faces Audit Critical (sic)*; 11-26; Star
> >Press; was a welcome look into the affairs of one of these Prohibition
> >
> > ----- Message truncated -----
> >
> >--
> >DH Michon
> >3305 Sundet Rd.
> >Eau Claire, WI 54703
> >
> >1-(715) 830-9368
> >
>
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Attachment: http://mapinc.org/temp/28tIgFaPZKzjA.html
>
>
- --
DH Michon
3305 Sundet Rd.
Eau Claire, WI 54703
1-(715) 830-9368
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attachment: http://mapinc.org/temp/13Hr31nr1opjI.html
------------------------------
End of MAPTalk-Digest V07 #126
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