Dirt

Someone I respect and admire recommends this book. It does sound intriguing.

#FB00725
 

Biochemical assassinations

Assassination is usually defined as politically inspired murder. The term is probably derived from the Arabic word for hemp (Hashish), which was apparently used by Hasan-ban-Sabah (c. 1034–1124) to induce motivation in his followers. These "hashishins" or assassins were assigned to carry out political and other murders, usually at the cost of their own lives. Thus, at the etymological level, there is already a connection between assassination and compounds derived from nature.

Biochemicals in the context of assassination involve mostly plant-derived drugs or toxins. They can be organic compounds such as alkaloids, diterpenes, cardiac and cynogenic glycosides, nitro-containing compounds, oxalates, resins, certain proteins and amino acids. A selection of these biochemicals were effectively used in assassination attempts throughout history.

The ancient civilizations of the Near East, Greece and Rome developed the use of poisons in political homicide to a high degree of efficiency. In classical Rome, mushroom poisons were expertly administered by Agrippina (a.d.16–a.d. 59.), wife of Emperor Claudius and mother of Nero. She successfully disposed of several political rivals, including Marcus Silanus who was to succeed Claudius, and eventually Claudius himself. Agrippina probably employed the properties of the amanita species, which contain amanitin polypeptides that produce degenerative changes in the liver, kidney, and cardiac muscles. In ancient Egypt, Queen Cleopatra in her search for a suitable suicide compound became familiar with the properties of henbane (Hyoscyanus niger ) and belladonna (Atropa belladonna ), although she judged death by these plants to be rapid, but painful. Cleopatra was also disappointed with Strychnos nux-vomita (a tree whose seeds yield strychnine). Strychnine causes stimulation of the central nervous system, produces generalized convulsions, and distorted facial features at death. The latter did not suit Cleopatra, who eventually settled for the bite of an asp (Egyptian cobra), which produced a more serene and prompt death worthy of a queen.

Hemlock is another notorious biochemical used in political murders. The hemlock plant contains coniine, an alkaloid, and was used to execute the Greek philosopher Socrates (c.479 B.C. –399 B.C. ). The drug causes progressive motor paralysis extending upwards from the extremities until death results from respiratory failure. Some of the deadliest political poisons were concocted by the alchemists of the Middle Ages. La Cantrella was a secret assassination weapon used by Cesare Borgia (1476–1507) and Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1519) to despatch their enemies. Even today, its exact composition is not known, but it was most probably a mixture of naturally derived copper, arsenic and crude phosphorus.

Read rest of article here.

#FB00724

Getting caught

Date of ad unknown

Getting caught with a marijuana plant in your home can land you in jail for several years with a felony conviction.

Marijuana smokers are no longer arrested in eight states. The U.S. Congress and many other states are considering similar reforms.

But growing any amount of marijuana remains a serious crime in most states and under federal law. It means that 15 million regular smokers are forced to support an illicit market.

This doesn't make sense to us.

Smokers should be permitted to grow their own marijuana.

Cultivation for personal use should be decriminalized. A proposal to do just that is pending in California and will soon be introduced in Oregon.

Write your state and federal elected representatives. Tell them you support decriminalizing private marijuana cultivation for personal use.

Help make the new marijuana laws come out right side up.

JOIN NORML.

Money is needed to finish the job once and for all.

#FB00723

 

Looking for a ufologist?

You've come to the right place. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ufologists

Four out of dozens:

John Keel (birth name: Alva John Kiehle) (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009), journalist, investigated the famous Mothman Sightings in West Virginia in 1966 and 1967.

David M. Jacobs (b1942), alien abduction researcher.

Michael D. Swords, biophysicist at Western Michigan University, prominent ufologist for the Center for UFO Studies.

Bob Lazar (b. 1959), owner of a mail-order scientific supply company who claims to have worked from 1988 until 1989 at an area called S-4 (Sector Four).

#FB00722

Bracken ferns

The bracken fern:  It tastes like asparagus and almonds you can pick it wild on hillsides, open pastures, burned-over areas, in woodlands and other shaded places.

The young immature fronds of bracken ferns are known as fiddleheads and were widely consumed by Native Americans in the U.S. for centuries as well as in other regions of the world.  They are still consumed by millions throughout the world today, are considered more of a delicacy in the U.S.now, but are very popular and commonly in Japan and Korea.

Bracken ferns are thought to have the widest distribution of any fern in the world, are most prolific herbaceous plant in North America, with the exception of Antarctica, are found on every continent and in every environment except for deserts.  They’re also one of the oldest ferns in the world with fossil records going back 55 million years.

Read more at source here.

#FB00721

Heirloom seeds

I am in the heirloom seed-trading business. Not for money, but because I enjoy gathering and sharing seeds. I have an agreement with a US-based heirloom seed company to trade my seeds for theirs. I have connections in West Africa (in particular, Mauritania, Malawi, and Senegal). My seed partner and neighbor, Mohamadou, who is as excited about seed-gathering as I am, is helping me get okra and a variety of vegetable and herb seeds from West Africa so I can share his seeds with the seed company's seeds. It's somewhat in dispute, but it is believed that okra, for example, was first grown in West Afria, so the okra seeds used there are hundreds, if not thousands of years old.

Do you have connections in other countries such as Africa, South America, or Southeast Asia... and can get your hands on various seeds? Knowing about their provenence is important, as is an idea of what the mature plant looks like. Knowing the scientific name would also be helpful.

Overseas seed-sharing isn't exactly legal, I believe, particularly when traveling through international mail or airports,  but we haven't had any problems so far. For my readers living in Equador, Brazil or the Phillipines, for example, would you be able to get your hands on some viable/indigenous okra or other vegetable seeds for me (namely: melons, watermelons, eggplant, cucumbers, basil and other herbs, edible/decorative gourds, winter/summer squashes?) I know this is an odd request, but I would be grateful for whatever you can do to help me.

In exchange, this seed company (I prefer not to mention their name, but Martha Stewart buys from them), will trade any seeds I want to share with my friends back in West Africa as well as for me to use. I am particularly interested in all kinds of okra... particularly the red varieties.)

The heirloom varieties of many vegetables are widely available online in various parts of this country, but it's hard to find seeds used in other parts of the world, particularly less-developed mostly rural areas of the world.

#FB00720

Mushrooms and Santa

According to the BBC, the shamans of the indigenous Sámi people of Lapland consumed small amounts of Amanita muscaria in their visionary rituals and drank urine from their reindeer, who eat the iconic red-and-white mushroom as part of their diet and metabolize its toxins without harm, excreting a fluid still full of psychoactive compounds but free from toxins. One of the known psychedelic effects of Amanita muscaria on humans is the sensation of flying, which might explain the origin of the myth about the man clad in red and white soaring through the sky on his reindeer-drawn sled, dispensing tokens of love to the world. 

A decade after the BBC first brought this speculative theory to the popular imagination, filmmaker Matthew Salton set out to reenvision Christmas as a celebration not of capitalism but of shamanism in a wonderful op-doc for the New York Times, lensing the theory through the work of two scholars — Boston university classicist Carl Ruck, who studies ancient shamanistic traditions and ecstatic rituals, and mycologist Lawrence Millman.

https://vimeo.com/248496167?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=5619280

For more on Amanita muscaria and its chemistry, its cultural myths, and its scientific promise, ethnobotanist Rob Nelson of Untamed Science has an excellent (and beautifully cinematic) primer:

--Maria Popova

Subscribe to her great newsletter.

I've been subscribing to Maria's newsletter for years (It used to have a different name.) Maria's writing is phenomenal. Maria has a true gift for digging out a compilation of unique, weird, and wonderful odds and ends and tying them together into something truly worth reading.

#FB00719