"Sometime in November of 1985, a black bear living in the Chattahoochee National Forest in north Georgia stumbled upon a duffel bag containing about 75 pounds of 95 percent pure cocaine."

"The bear, which only weighed about 175 pounds itself, ate some of the cocaine and died within about 20 minutes.... The chief medical examiner at the Georgia State Crime Lab later estimated the bear had absorbed about 3 or 4 grams of cocaine into its bloodstream at the time of its death. After about a week, a local hunter, never identified, found the bear and told his friends about it, but didn’t report it to the authorities.... On the morning of Sept. 11, 1985, Fred M. Myers of Knoxville, Tennessee, found a dead man in his driveway, sprawled out on his back over an unopened parachute, seemingly fine except for a trickle of dried blood from each nostril. Myers later remembered hearing a crash around midnight the night before. The dead man was wearing a bulletproof vest and night vision goggles and carried two different pistols, ammunition, a stiletto, freeze-dried food, six Krugerrands, $4,500 cash, IDs in multiple names, a membership card to the Miami Jockey Club, and several inspirational epigrams, one of which read, 'There is only one tactical principle not subject to change: It is to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.' He also had a duffel bag with about 75 pounds of cocaine, all of which was recovered...."

From "They’re Making a Movie About the Cocaine Bear! Wait, What?/Here is the true story of the cocaine bear" (Slate).

"Do you support the government’s intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia?"

That was Rand Paul's question to Rachel Levine, Biden’s nominee for assistant health secretary. He's quoted at "The Absurd Criticism of Rand Paul’s Rachel Levine Questioning" (National Review). 

It's a precise question. If it can't be answered, why can't it be answered? If it's an outrageous question, that must be because the answer is plainly "no," so why couldn't Levine forthrightly say "no"? There are some questions where the right answer is to refuse to answer — for example questions that nose into an individual's private life — but was Rand Paul's question a question like that? Is anyone making a clear statement of why these were questions that should not have been dignified with answers?

"U.S. Olympic team boxer Virginia Fuchs will face no punishment for failing a doping test after the U.S. Anti-Doping Association determined the violation had been caused by..."

"... two substances transmitted by her boyfriend through sex.... 'While the World Anti-Doping Code requires that this no-fault finding be considered a violation and be publicly announced, we strongly believe this case and others like it, including meat contamination and prescription medication contamination cases, should be considered no violation,' [USADA CEO Travis] Tygart said. 'We will continue to advocate for changes to the World Anti-Doping Code so that where there is no intent to cheat and no performance benefit, an athlete should not face any violation or unnecessary public attention.'"

From "Sex gets Olympic boxer Virginia Fuchs out of doping ban" (NY Post).

"The [coca] economy has collapsed. We plant coca because it is a solution for our survival. But now, no one is buying it."

Says a Peruvian cocalero, who, we're told, farms coca "for traditional indigenous uses," quoted in "The coronavirus has gutted the price of coca. It could reshape the cocaine trade" (WaPo). I don't really understand how he's the victim of the supposed global market collapse if he's only providing for traditional indigenous uses, but I do accept the proposition that coca farming in Peru is "a solution for... survival."

Are we, the readers of WaPo, supposed to feel bad about the collapse of the coca market? I think so, because the article goes on to say that drug trafficking will come back after the lockdown, but the big operations — the "supersized cartels" — will survive and prosper, and as usual, we are prompted to care about small business... including, apparently, small criminal businesses.

The comments at WaPo find their own path and — surprise! — make it about Trump: "This will be hard news for Trump supporters. If meth and heroin supplies are disrupted, a part of the economy they actually participate in will be taking a hit"/"Notice trump isn't sniffing his runny nose as much as he used to"/"Finally! Something to explain trump's impatience to reopen the country - it's screwing with his cocaine trafficking logistics. Shoulda knowed."

How crazy is America right now? We've had low-level crazy for a while, and then they put us under house arrest for 3 months and they've hidden the faces behind masks, then we all watched video of a mind-bending murder, which was the go-ahead to pour back into the streets en masse and express ourselves — suddenly, emotively, violently — and all the while we were starving for our usual drugs.

How crazy is America right now?

Quite insane.

Crazy, but the other side is much worse than my side.

More or less the usual American-style craziness. Keep your bearings. We'll be okay.

We're actually quite sane, just blowing off some steam. Things will work out.

 

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