Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Little green men and human lab rats

There's been a story floating around for a while now, i first picked it up on Crikey but it's been reported in a few places since then about how a SF lawyer has filed suit against the CIA and the US Army on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America and six former American soldiers who claim they are survivors of classified government tests conducted at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland . These tests, happening between between 1950 and 1975 involved all sorts of chemical mayhem, including but not limited to VX, tabun, soman, sarin, cyanide, LSD, PCP, and World War I-era blister agents like phosgene and mustard.
US Soldier before and after classified tests

This lawyer, Gordon Erspamer, alleges that almost 8000 soldiers were used as lab rats for these unhinged experinments after "Suddenly, they stopped using civilian subjects and said, 'Oh, we can get these military guys for free. The government could do whatever it wanted to them without liability."
Don't get me wrong, this type of shit is not kosher at all, and we here at the Trim in no way support this type of behaviour on anyones part, least of all government agents. There's no way they know how to throw a good party, what are they doing giving away LSD?
However, I want to focus in on one particular piece in this article, about the Vietnam veteran Frank Rochelle.
To summarise, Frank is 20, in the army, and sees a notice for the Edgewood program. it promises "relief from guard duty, the freedom to wear civilian clothes, three-day weekends, and, upon completion, and a medal of commendation". All he had to do was cop some chemicals. Dude signs the secrecy and liability papers, and then proceeds to catch 3 rounds of "nonlethal incapacitating agents like DHMP and glycolate, both of which act as sedatives that produce hallucinations".
Again, couldn't imagine a worse place to be than with government agents while really high. Possibly in jail, but that would be about it.
According to Erspamer's complaint, "Over the next two to three days, Frank was hallucinating and high: he thought he was three feet tall, saw animals on the walls, thought he was being pursued by a 6-foot-tall white rabbit, heard people calling his name, thought that all his freckles were bugs under his skin, and used a razor to try to cut these bugs out. No one from the clinical staff intervened on his behalf".

Now, i'll be honest. I'm no stranger to some of these chemicals myself. I've never touched any WW1 blistering agents, but to quote Jackson, i've had a visionary experience or two in my time. I've never thought my freckles were bugs, but apparently thats par for the course with ice addicts, and I can see how someone would eventually make a connection like that if they were mad high all the time.
Now, i'm betting that Frank was in no way expecting to feel like he was 3 feet tall, or to see a 6 foot tall white rabbit, and that's inherently where the problem is. If Frank had been fully informed prior to taking these crazy chemicals, he probably would have had a great trip. Instead, he ended up with something like this...
"Frank, meet Frank. He'll be stalking you for the next 72 hours..."

Now, if Frank had been allowed to chill in front of the TV with his buddies and watch Bee Movie (trust me, it's the bomb) he would have laughed his arse off and enjoyed the animals coming out of the wall. Instead, he was with some CIA Squaresville chumps, subjecting him to a battery of nasty tests, and ruining his high. who wants to be out of your skull, and have someone taking readings and questioning you? That type of shit would be scary enough if you were totally sober, so i'm not getting at Frank for cracking under the pressure, that can happen to the best of us, and probably would.
My point is simply that all "mind expanding" drugs are totally reliant on your surroundings to define what kind of trip you have, and a government testing facility is no place for a person to trip balls. It just isn't. I
The lesson here, the government still has no idea about why people take drugs, and also, you can't learn about Acid from tests.
Also, anything or anyone that has anything to do with the government will totally blow your high.
Peace

Sunday, March 29, 2009

News Wrap Up

So here's my favourite news story from this week.
Man steals car, claims to be Foreigner Drummer.

I don't think i've come across a funnier news story than this in quite some time.
A homeless dude convinced a woman and a valet that he was the ex-drummer for the band Foreigner, he then proceeded to "borrow" this womans car, and crashed it soon after, before being taken into custody.
Would you claim to be this man?

There's a few genius bits in this article. Firstly, if you were going to claim to be a celebrity, why choose the ex-drummer for Foreigner? It does have kitsch value, but most people would be unimpressed by this claim to fame, plus, foreigner has had a lot of drummers. I'm pretty sure everyone over the age of 40 has been the drummer for Foreigner at one point or another.
Secondly, and this is what really pumps this article to legendary status, is the fact that the guy said his name was Cory James.
Foreigner has never had a drummer named Cory James.
So it seems that this guy had the idea to fake out a woman and steal her car, but couldn't think of one name of an ex-Foreigner drummer, so he just made one up. And it worked! Imagine that conversation...
"Hi, i'm Cory James".
"Hi Cory, what is it you do?"
"I use to be the Drummer for Foreigner"
"Oh wow, a celebrity! Hey bartender, this guy's Cory James"
"Who's Cory James?"
"The drummer for Foreigner"
"Oh..... sweet."
"So, can I borrow your corvette?"
"Yeah sure, I trust the ex-drummer for Foreigner not to steal my car".

Genius.