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Tales From The Other Side - Alternative Culture to enlighten a mediocre mood

Alternative Culture and ideas, ready to be injected into your Reality.

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Tales From The Other Side - July 2007

Ibogaine - The End of Drug Addiction?

July 29th 2007 11:13

Ibogaine is a drug with some extraordinary properties. It’s an extremely potent (and recognised as dangerous) hallucinogenic, derived from dogwood.

The extraordinary property of Ibogaine that makes it so amazing is that it cures addictions. Speed, Cocaine, Heroin, Nicotine – the standard effect of Ibogine is to eliminate these kinds of physical addictions. What’s more amazing though, is that many who have experienced the drug claim that it also has properties that force the user to address the original cause of their addiction. Recollections typically include either an in depth discussion of their life with some form of higher deity, or a reliving of much of their life, becoming a spectator to major points of their past.

If you turned your TV on and heard that scientists had suddenly discovered a plant that could cure drug addicts, relieving society of the burden, you’d be overjoyed. However, Ibogaine and it’s properties have been known since at least the early 1900’s.

So why has Ibogaine not been used in trials? There are three answers to this.

1. It has. From what I can work out from This Site tests are being currently conducted with Ibogaine as an experimental treatment.

2. While there may be minor movements to utilize Ibogaine, it has not been a widely popular option, and has certainly not been loudly supported by any government. Many Governments legally restrict the use of Ibogaine, yet information on the laws regarding its use are difficult to find. One reason that this is the case may be that the drug is in fact dangerous, and has been implicated in deaths in the past.

3. However there is a third reason why I believe most of us would find ourselves unfamiliar with Ibogaine. Unfortunately I also find it the most likely. Governments have not promoted testing with the substance as they oppose it on a purely ideological basis, where most drugs (especially hallucinogenic drugs, which are associated so strongly with Hippy subculture) are seen as objectively bad. This attitude is also found in wider society, where drugs are automatically bad (and caffeine, medication, cigarettes and alcohol are seen as separate substances to ‘drugs’).

Ibogaine is an interesting drug, with a significant potential for both good and harm. I am interested to see what role it has yet to play in our society.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Drugs, Politics, Health

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The Illusion of Privacy

July 26th 2007 06:54

We all want a bit of privacy. Even the most extroverted of us are generally inclined to want to go to the loo withuot an audience. Yet it would seem to be arguable that Privacy is losing it's value, discovering a reduced appeal. The desire of so many to appear on shows such as Big Brother - the ultimate in zero privacy - would seem a testement to this. Further more, those who share every element of their life on the Internet - blogging, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube - freely surrender their privcy.

However, not all loss of privacy is so volountary. A recent article from the Sydney Morning Herald discussed the increasing use of Closed Circut filming of Australian Schools. We are also on film walking down a city street, or at a railway station. We are being filmed at the airport. We are being filmed in the Supermarkets. There are people out in the world who probably know more about us then we could even suspect.

With this in mind, it's easy to consider that the Facebook crowd might not be so much surrendering privacy, but giving in to the fact that it's all an illusion anyway.

Where does it go from here? Could you wake up and find your face suddenly selling phones on Bus Seats, with an insulting message? Yes. It's happened before.

The 'Flickrgate' controvery, over Virgin mobile using Creative Commons lisenced photographs from Flickr (without giving notice to the original photographers) is a lesson in the unpredictability of an age where every shiny surface is a mirror, and playing 'spot my own face on somebody eles website' isn't even a novelty any more.

Consider your own feelings about this. Have a think about how privacy is possible when your every moment is captured. And if you prefer to mull it over in the fresh outside air, don't forget to smile for the cameras.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics, Internet

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Queer eye is Blackface.

July 23rd 2007 12:09

Burn a cork in water. Let it disintegrate. Mix into a paste. Wipe over your face, making sure you apply balm first to protect your skin. Then you do the lips with Fire Engine Red Lipstick.

This is how to prepare a blackface mask. The painted on Black Faces that Minstrels had to wear for them to be accepted as performers on TV. Black people couldn’t perform just as black people in America’s olden days (America’s not-so-olden-as-we-might-wish days). They had to cover up, perform as effective parodies of themselves in order to become fodder for entertainment, something white folk could sit back and be delightfully entertained by.

These days we have black people all over our TV screens, minus the blackface and over the top self parodies. However a new group have come along to fill the space.

The gays.

They’re cute. They’re cuddly. They have sex with other men (not that that’s ever mentioned). They have lisps and girly mannerisms.

I know a lot of gay blokes. (Not many lesbians though. How odd.) Some of them are very flamboyant, so it’s easy to see the argument that there’s no sense in over analysing the roles of homosexuals on TV. “That’s just the way they are” one might say.

However, there’s little denying that on TV, gay blokes in shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are really only accepted so long as they represent parodies of themselves. Having a gay character in a popular soapie or drama without them being “THE GAY ONE” is still the exception rather than the rule.

Until then, we’re going to have the ‘lisping faggot’ on TV, making straight boy laugh and be entertained, while still being able to maintain a sense of superiority, just like the ‘Tap-Dancing Coon’ did for white boy all those years ago.

We’ve come a long way?

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture

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The Aboriginal Firewater Myth

July 21st 2007 14:11

The widely accepted version of the Australian Aboriginals alcohol problems goes as such; Aboriginals live in the bush with their mates, no drugs or alcohol to speak of. Then came the white folk, bringing all that rotten stuff with them.

This works off the presumption that Aboriginals had no alcohol available to them before white folk came.

This is false. The Aboriginals did not, of course, have as much access to Alcohol specifically before the Colonization of Australia but Alcohol was definitely available. A document entitled AUSTRALIAN SUPPLEMENT FOR THE NATURAL HIGHS FAQ, available via Erowid.org, claims:

Australian Aboriginals used nicotine (from native tobacco and Pituri) and alcohol (from natural fermentation of Eucalyptus gunii sugar rich sap or from honey ants and the flowers of Lysiphyllum carronii mixed together).

There is a popular theory/Urban Legend in Australia, known loosely as the firewater theory – that Aboriginals cannot handle alcohol because they were born with the (perhaps genetic)inability to handle the substance. The evidence that Aboriginals used Alcohol long before White Man showed up blows this argument out of the water. In addition, a quote from Austlii states that Research published in 1991 by Associate Professor Wayne Hall and Dr Randolph Spargo found no evidence of truth in the "fire water theory" which maintains that Aboriginal people are biologically less able to handle alcohol.

Furthermore, the anecdotal evidence suggesting that substances such as alcohol and nicotine were used sparingly, with restraint (when indeed Australia is full of psychoactive and potential psychoactive substances) would suggest that mealy bringing Aboriginals into contact with drugs was not the specific cause of Indigenous Substance Abuse.

So then – why is it that Indigenous Australians have so many drinking problems when the majority of other Australians do not?

First of all, there’s a need to recognize that the perception is different to the reality. The Majority of Aboriginals do not have problems with substance abuse. Statistically, more Indigenous Australians abstain from drinking than the majority of non Indigenous Australians. However, by those same statistics, out of Indigenous Australians who DO drink, a disproportionate number have problems associated with drinking. Now if this is not from a biological basis, why is it?

Personally, I believe the answer lies in an alternative understanding of addiction. To me the difference is in why does a typical individual drink, and why does a problem drinker drink, Aboriginal or not. A typical individual will drink to have fun, or to socialize. However, they will still have other ways of having fun and socializing independent of alcohol. A problem drinker tends to be self medicating to some extent, to try to drive away some kind of pain. However, when sobriety returns, nothing is better, or improved.

Indigenous Australians still suffer pains of unaddressed wrongs. Until that changes we will still see many trying to find the answers to their problems at the bottom of a can of beer.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Drugs, Politics, Health

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The Dancing Man

July 20th 2007 12:30

Sometimes you've just got to break it down...

I was working at the Mall site of my book shop a while ago. This means I sit in a little section outside of the shop, selling books to people in the middle of the plaza. My position is facing Supre, a clothing shop (for girls who are way too young or way too skinny). Supre is playing some bad pop music. As I stand there, pretty bored (nobody is buying books today) some dude walks past.

Suddenly he jumps, limbs flailing. Thankfully he’s not epileptic – he’s just dancing. Having a bit of a boogie in the middle of the plaza and he’s all like, ‘who gives a damn if they think I’m odd.’
Then he stops. You know the cool thing? The really really cool thing? He doesn’t even look around to see if anyone noticed him. It doesn’t matter.

As he walks past me though, we catch a glance from each other. He kinds of grins when he sees me smiling. Then he keeps walking.

How awesome is that?

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany

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Poly-phasic sleep.

July 6th 2007 14:03

I became familiar with the concept of poly-phasic sleep through reading a chapter of The Game. My friend has tried it to limited success. However, there are other people who have tried and succeeded with it over long periods of time.

Polyphasic (AKA Da Vinci or Uberman) sleep is effectively a process of sleeping only 2 -5 hours’ daily through use of interspersed naps. To do this you have to basically ween yourself into it – at first you’ll keep falling asleep when you’re meant to be awake, but eventually you’ll adapt and viola! Super new always awake you

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Health, Miscalany

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Saw 2 vs Eyes Wide Shut.

July 5th 2007 01:08

Spoiler Warning for both films!

Saw Three is the third in a highly popular series of horror films. Eyes Wide Shut is Stanley Kubrick’s final film, finished after his death

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Film

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Generations Dying is Change

July 2nd 2007 01:23

What causes social change? Popular views suggest that new ideas are promoted by radicals. However, do these promoted ideas actually become the reality? Not really. They may appeal to a lot of folk, but generally, the majority will feel most comfortable playing it safe.

I read a quote the other day… and of course I never wrote it down. Gahhhh. Anyway, the quote basically said that change doesn’t come from shifts in perception. They come when the Generation that held the previous set of values, off and dies

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics, Miscalany

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May 2009

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January 2009

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