Fresh from revelations that New York City, under the leadership of admitted pot smoker Mayor Bloomberg, is now the marijuana arrest capital of the world, this morning’s news is a downer indeed. Albert Hofmann, the father/inventor/synthesizer of LSD, has died at the age of 102.

So much for those who are against “drugs” like LSD and marijuana on a health basis. Hofmann himself took hundreds of LSD trips, and stayed quite mentally and professionally active to the very end.

He once upbraided Timothy Leary for popularizing LSD to the point where it became, to many, a recreational drug. Hofmann felt it should be approached seriously as a spiritual aid for getting closer to nature, an outlook that most experienced users of hallucinogens seem to share.

He is already greatly missed by many.

Tags: acid, Hofmann, LSD

Today Susan was making herself meatballs for lunch. She heated them up and put the plate down on the counter while heading to the refrigerator for some tomato sauce.

Up jumped Auri, who stuck out a claw and flipped one of the meatballs off the plate! She then played meatball hockey for quite a while after finding out it was too hot for her to eat!

Tags: kittens

Back in the Sixties or Seventies, David Peel released an album entitled “The Pope Smokes Dope”. While that scenario is extremely hard to believe, it is no doubt true that the current Pope and I share a different addiction…that of kissing cats.

Pope Benedict XVI is well-known as a cat lover and a recent New York times article goes into this in some depth.

But wait, there’s more! His official biography was written by a cat! How things have changed since Pope Gregory IX declared black cats to be evil, causing innumerable cats to be killed!

Like cats, Popes have multiple names. Pope Benedict’s cats may call him Benny, but I doubt it, since his real name is Joseph (he took the name Benedict when he was elected Pope). And, anti-Catholic propaganda to the contrary, even Popes don’t have unlimited power — Pope Benedict was unable to have his cats join him in his official residence. So fooey on the Vatican, anyway…at least “Catholic” begins with “cat”!

I’ve been kind of busy working on some of new projects for a few weeks, so perhaps I haven’t been paying enough attention to world events as I should have. Well, actually that must be true or I’d have a lot more posts here for April, because there’s plenty to worry about. And I don’t mean global warming, either, but some of the scariest things I’ve read since I heard Hillary Clinton was running for president:

Food shortages (even matzo shortages), food riots, and higher food prices. Perhaps this article isn’t enough to make you worry in detail, but OTOH it might be a good idea to dig up all those ideas people had when preparing for the great Y2K problem that never happened…

The Coming-Soon-to-a-Theater-of-War-Near-You Conflict with Islam. I’m not going to pretend I know all the answers when it comes to Muslims, Christianity, and Western culture, but Bill Warner, the interviewee of this piece, surely sounds like he does. It’s a very long article but you won’t notice that because, no matter how you feel about the subject, you’ll be shaken up when you read it.

And if that isn’t enough, now pundits are seeing the entire world at war — for centuries — over the effects of climate change.

Happy Earth Day.

…and just today, I found three people who were very lucky. Must be some good energy floating around or something.

The first: OK, you’ve heard of all those fools falling for Nigerian money scams. Some woman actually got her $4500 back, courtesy of the U.S. Postal Inspectors and the Nigerian government.

The second: this next lady should get on national TV. Her literally one-in-a-trillion-shot is far more interesting than any of the so-called “reality shows” now clogging the airwaves. In case you’re not one of those people who actually click on links, someone shot the woman between the eyes with a .44 caliber bullet that struck her head and split in half. Each half zipped around her skull under the skin and came out behind her ears; a few stiches and she’s good as new.

The third: dang, somehow this makes me proud of my Russian blood. An electrician in the Russian city of Vologda went drinking with a buddy, came home on the bus the next morning, stuffed some sausage in his mouth and fell asleep. It was only later that his wife noticed he had a 6″ knife sticking out of his back, courtesy of his drinking buddy who he apparently had a disagreement with.

He’s just fine too.