SCHotline

SKIING on the beach tomorrow?”

“Late-night ski lift looking for a snow bunny.”

“Where are the cool Brooklyn ski bums? I’ve got tons to share.”

“Take a ride on the snow train.”

The come-ons in the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist last week — or any week — are as plentiful as they are obvious (and cheesy). Using a variety of euphemisms that have been around since Jay McInerney wrote about Bolivian Marching Powder, posters invite others to join them for a line or a lost weekend fueled by cocaine.

The cheeky openness of these ads is hardly anomalous. While cocaine and drug abuse seem to have faded from the headlines, with coverage limited to the not-so-veiled references surrounding the exploits of waifish celebrities, it is still very much a part of the social scene, especially in New York.

Evidence of that is popping up in music, television and even theater. Indeed, for a generation that has not had its John Belushi to drive home the dangers of drug abuse, references and even use are open, casual, even blatant.

“You do see it,” said Noel Ashman, an owner of the Plumm, a hotspot near the meatpacking district. “We’re pretty tight at the club with drug use, whenever we see it we kick it right out. But it has popped up more than it did five years ago.”

And like the red flash of a Louboutin pump, it is easy to spot.

“It’s definitely prevalent in clubs, bars, parties — everywhere, basically,” said Cristiano Andrade, 26, a Brooklynite who manages a wine shop and goes out in the city once or twice a week.

Drug-abuse experts say the blasé attitude toward cocaine use is a result of “generational amnesia.”

“There seems to be less of a stigma about” cocaine, said Dr. Herbert Kleber, director of the division of substance abuse at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan. As part of his oversight of research into cocaine addiction and treatment, and in his private clinical practice, Dr. Kleber hears stories about the drug’s use. “People don’t feel nearly as much the need to hide it,” he said. “They feel that they can use it in a more open fashion.”

The visibility of cultural markers — and the absence of cautionary tales — leads to the assumption that coke is not as harmful, say, as heroin (which was associated with the high-profile overdoses of River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain in the 90s), or methamphetamine, whose recent popularity in the gay community has led to a targeted campaign against it, said Perry N. Halkitis, a professor of applied psychology at New York University who studies behavior, the AIDS epidemic and drug abuse.

“If you’re a 19-year-old and you go out and party and you’re offered meth, you say no because you’ve heard these bad things,” he said. “But you’re offered coke, you say yes because you assume it’s safe.” And, he added, as the authorities crack down on meth, “people are going to tend to go to cocaine, which has similar, if not identical properties” as a stimulant.

NOT to mention that the supply and the price of cocaine, about $25 to $30 on the street for a half-gram bag, have remained stable for several years, said John Galea, director of the street studies unit of the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services. (In rare cases, a large bust can affect prices. Chief James P. O’Neill, the commanding officer of the New York Police Department Narcotics Division, said the authorities seized a record 20 tons of cocaine off the coast of Panama in March, and wholesale prices rose in the last few weeks.)

A prevalence among young people is not entirely borne out by national statistics. According to an annual survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, lifetime cocaine use remained stable between 2002 and 2005 among 18- to 25-year-olds. (Data before 2002 are noncomparable.) But the study — which estimates national rates based on a poll of 67,500 people — recorded a 20 percent increase in past-month use among that age group in 2005 from 2004, the last period for which data were available, said Joe Gfroerer, the group’s director of the division of population surveys. (There was no change in usage rates among people over 26.)

The Police Department has not recorded an increase in drug-related arrests at clubs recently, Chief O’Neill said. But, he added, “It doesn’t mean if you’re doing drugs in a club you won’t get caught.”

But in interviews over the last five months with people in the night-life, entertainment, media and finance industries, all said that cocaine is a prominent part of a night out. Teron Beal, 34, a songwriter and aspiring actor, said he encountered cocaine regularly and does it occasionally — and not only in clubs and bars. “When you’re in meetings and you’re in the studio, it’s offered like coffee,” he said. “If you say yeah, they’re cool with it and if you say no, they’re like O.K., and they just go and do it in front of you.”

“Coke is the new weed,” he continued. “Everybody says that.”

Tom Sykes, a former night-life reporter for The New York Post who chronicled his alcohol- and drug-fueled life in the memoir “What Did I Do Last Night?” said that cocaine is more socially acceptable than smoking. “You could go into a swanky party in New York and do a line and nobody would notice,” said Mr. Sykes, who is now sober. “Pull out a cigarette and people would think you’d pulled out a gun.”

And cocaine is not only popular in New York. “When I go to travel somewhere else, people think I do it and they’re so eager to shove it up my nose,” said Roxy Summers, a party promoter and D.J. who goes by the name Oxy Cottontail.

Mr. Beal, who is old enough to remember the drug wars of the 80s, said the perception of the drug has changed. “When I was growing up, it was like a VH-1 ‘Behind the Music’ moment whenever anyone talked about their cocaine habit,” he said. “It was like rock bottom, coke is crazy.” Now, he said, it is merely flashy fun.

Dominic Streatfeild, the author of “Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography,” who is based in London, where according to recent government studies, use among young people has tripled since the late 90s, had another theory. “In a culture obsessed with celebrity,” he said, “the fact that cocaine makes you feel rich and beautiful — it’s the perfect drug for our times.”

With Wall Street surging and a 24-hour global economy, young professionals have the money and the incentive to stay constantly wired.

“I do it every day,” said Kristoff, a European transplant to New York who works in finance and would not give his last name. He said he pays $150 for two grams of cocaine. “If I have to work at 6 in the morning and I have to be on top of the game, I’ll do it. I’ll take a gram of coke and make half a million dollars.”

That cavalier attitude carries over to pop culture, where references to cocaine are as prevalent as the 80s fashions that accompanied its previous heyday. Cocaine rap is a recognized genre in hip-hop, as Sasha Frere-Jones noted in a December 2006 article in the New Yorker; the platinum-selling rapper Young Jeezy made his name rhyming about his days as a dealer and adopted a menacing-looking snowman as his logo. In the last few years, the drug has been the subject of multiple anthologies, some of them flattering.

Recently the comic Todd Barry, a staple of the downtown comedy circuit, used a conversation he heard at a bar — when one man called a friend to remedy his “nose problem” — as the basis for a new joke in his act. And on a recent episode of NBC’s “30 Rock” when two go-getter writers attribute their success to cocaine, it was a laugh line, not a rebuke.

Even Broadway is not exempt: In “Talk Radio” and “Jack Goes Boating” (starring Liev Schreiber and Philip Seymour Hoffman, respectively), the characters do lines and carry on.

When Gridskipper, a travel blog, ran a post in March about the top bars in which to find cocaine in New York, the response was so overwhelming — the list of places named was like a taxonomy of “it” joints on the Lower East Side, the meatpacking district and Williamsburg — and the comment section so lively that the editors pursued the subject for several more days.

“Drug use tends to be cyclic,” Dr. Kleber said. “If you have a really dangerous drug, the generational remembering will come back quickly. If it takes time for the casualties to add up, the epidemic will last longer.” Referring to the drug’s last heyday, he added, “As some of my colleagues said, John Belushi had to die before people believed that these drugs were really dangerous.”

Besides its addictive potential, cocaine can cause elevated blood pressure, seizures, stroke, cardiac arrest or other heart problems, particularly in people with a pre-disposition. Combining it with alcohol, as many do, increases its toxicity, particularly in the liver, said Dr. Thomas Kosten, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience and the director of the division of addictions at Baylor College of Medicine.

But these negative effects are overshadowed by the drug’s glamorous image, which is perhaps best personified by Kate Moss. After a brief furor when photographs of Ms. Moss apparently snorting cocaine appeared on the cover of a British tabloid in 2005, she entered rehab for a short time and emerged more successful than ever, with bigger advertising contracts and her own line of clothing at Topshop, the British retailer.

“You never hear about the addiction, you just hear about exclusive photos of wild parties with cocaine, ” Mr. Streatfeild said. “The dangers of cocaine are without a doubt very real, but it’s never dispelled that Champagne image.”

IT took the death last February of the skateboard star and downtown bon vivant Harold Hunter, who died at 31 of a heart attack and whose wake was attended by friends like Rosario Dawson, for Ms. Summers, the D.J. and promoter, to rethink her own behavior.

“Harold’s death really affected me; I know the ways in which he treated night life,” she said, adding that she “never touched” cocaine again. Likewise, she said, people in her community of downtown skateboarders, musicians, artists, and D.J.s went into hiding with their drug habits. “But,” she added, “that only lasted six months, if that.”

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ND Wilson Romney 12-14
By Nathan DiBagno

Staff Writer

POWDERSVILLE ¾ Powdersville Councilman and former Sons of the Confederate Veterans National Cmdr. Ron Wilson said he was unhappy with comments Mitt Romney made about the Confederate flag, calling the Republican presidential candidate a “typical Yankee from Massachusetts.”

“I’m a big believer in Southern history, and I was appalled the last few days when one of the presidential candidates decided to make an attack against the Confederate flag,” Wilson said. “Mitt Romney made some of the most bizarre statements anyone has ever made concerning the Confederate flag. He’s a typical Yankee from Massachusetts who comes down here and wants us to vote for him, and then he wants to trash us when he’s asked about our heritage.”

Wilson then called on Palmetto State voters to not support the former Massachusetts governor during January’s primary elections.

“I sincerely hope that South Carolinians, when we get a chance to vote in the primaries in January, we’ll let him know what we think about his comments.”

During a CNN/Youtube debate, Romney said the Confederate flag was not one that he would recognize or hold up in his room.

“The people of our country have decided not to fly that flag. I think that’s the right thing,” Romney said. He also called the flag “divisive,” and said he didn’t believe it should be shown.  

The Sons of the Confederate Veterans has publicly criticized both Romney and Fred Thompson, another Republican presidential hopeful who said that Americans shouldn’t publicly display the flag at state capitols.

“I know that everybody who hangs the flag up in their room like that is not racist. I also know that for a great many Americans it’s a symbol of racism,” Thompson said. “He’s free to do whatever he wants to in his home. As far as a public place is concerned, I am glad that people have made the decision not to display it as a prominent flag, symbolic of something, at a state capitol.”

Although Wilson said he doesn’t like the statement Thompson made either, he doesn’t believe any candidate has been as offensive as Romney.

“He made the most outrageous comments of any candidate so far,” he said. “Mitt Romney ought to apologize to this state.”

Wilson said he instead supports U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, citing the Texas Republican’s opposition to the IRS, the income tax and the war in Iraq as some of the main reasons.

Wilson said that while Paul believes the United States should support the troops, he believes they should bring them back instead of wasting millions of dollars overseas.

“I believe I should vote for who I believe is the best candidate,” Wilson said. “The result is in the hands of the Lord.”

###

From: ndibagno@theeasleyprogress.com [mailto:ndibagno@theeasleyprogress.com]
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 09:31
To: wilsonr@atlanticbullionandcoin.com
Subject: powdersville post article

All we can say is WOW. Time magazine has chosen to run the great picture of a web video we did with Sarah Huckabee.

They did not credit us but we know who took it.

Here is the link to our video. http://youtube.com/watch?v=AEYRBwn7-IM

Below is the Time Magazine link along with a picture of it.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1693434,00.html

Who is this guy in the picture? There was a lone protester outside of the Huckabee rally in Greenville. CNN also reports there was someone passing out anonymous fliers about Huckabee.

SCHotline wondered who would protest Mike Huckabee so we waited until this fellow went back to his car. SCHotline knew the car and found out this person is associated with the Mitt Romney campaign in Greenville.

SCHotline knows his name and we know that he has been used by the Romney campaign in Greenville for tracking purposes. SCHotline is not going to name him but we will be on the look out for him at other events.

Rarely does a protester this sophisticated act alone.

SCHotline does have one word of caution for any anonymous protester out there. There is a state law against wearing a mask in public.

S.C. Code Ann. § 16-7-110
No person over sixteen years of age shall appear or enter upon any lane, walk, alley, street, road, public way or highway of this State or upon the public property of the State or of any municipality or county in this State while wearing a mask or other device which conceals his identity. Nor shall any such person demand entrance or admission to or enter upon the premises or into the enclosure or house of any other person while wearing a mask or device which conceals his identity. Nor shall any such person, while wearing a mask or device which conceals his identity, participate in any meeting or demonstration upon the private property of another unless he shall have first obtained the written permission of the owner and the occupant of such property.

Protest all you want to but you can’t wear a mask.