Does Smoking Marijuana Make You Smarter?

According to an article regarding cannabis and the brain at the website, NORML:

“Preclinical data recently published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrating that cannabinoids may spur brain cell growth has reignited the international debate regarding the impact of marijuana on the brain…Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon found that the administration of synthetic cannabinoids in rats stimulated the proliferation of newborn neurons (nerve cells) in the hippocampus region of the brain and significantly reduced measures of anxiety and depression-like behavior.”

NORML’s tag line is “working to reform marijuana laws,” so their articles are going to admittedly not veer far from the message “marijuana is good for you.”

On the other hand, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency webpage on marijuana states that habitual use of marijuana can lead to impairment of critical skills related to attention, memory, and learning.

So, who’s right?  Does pot destroy your brain or make it better?  There may be something to the University of Saskatchewan research, but if I have to judge by people I’ve known who are heavy pot smokers, I’d have to say it definitely didn’t make them smart.  Although they weren’t that bright to begin with, so my data may be skewed.

The only thing I do know for certain, is that you should never have Federal Express deliver your marijuana for you.

Watermelon Goblins, A Short Short Story

Check out Teresa Valle’s flash fiction story, Watermelon Goblins, on her blog, Cuentos, Little Stories by Teresa.  (Note: the link points to the full poem which has a couple of slightly off-color words.  Nothing major, but I like to warn people.) 

Here is an excerpt:

There’s a story everybody tells about a box that should never be opened, and in the story of course somebody always opens it and then things happen. This is a story told by all the people of the world, is what my grandmother always said. In some stories the box is made of gold, or pewter, or brass. In some it is made of woven rushes, or thin porcelain or wood. In my grandmother’s version, the box is made of mud, and inside the box lives a storyteller also made of mud. He is a mud goblin, with reaching hands and a large slobbering mouth.

It’s a pleasantly rambling story, yet it is still cohesive in its own quirky way.  It almost reads like creative nonfiction, except it’s creative fiction.  Teresa admits to “blenderizing fact and fiction” in her About Me page, so who knows, part of it could be nonfiction.  She also shares on her About Me page that her brothers have enormous foreheads but that her and her iguana have relatively small ones.

A Poem About Poems — Naomi Shihab Nye

Thank you to Amy Sorensen, a.k.a. The English Geek, for bringing this poem to my attention in her post, Why I Love April.  It’s by Naomi Shihab Nye and was written in response to one of the poet’s students asking her to write him a poem:

Valentine for Ernest Mann
by Naomi Shihab Nye

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

Freakin’ Donkey-Butt Comment Spammers!!!

Okay, I try not to cuss in this blog, so you can replace “Freakin’” and “donkey-butt” with words of your choice.

One of the things you have to contend with when you put something on the internet and then open it up to comments from the public are spammers, or people who will only comment on your article in order to include a link back to their own website.  Most of the time, they don’t even read what you wrote.  These comments are usually easy to spot, but some bottom-feeders are trickier than others.  I was almost fooled by this guy…

Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Tectonics!

I have A Bunch of Wordz set up to approve all comments, so I have to read them first, and I almost put this one through.  But then I looked at the post it was attached to — a very well written and easy to understand piece by guest blogger Lincoln Crisler about how to get published.  What’s there to get lost in translation?  Nothing.

So I decided to take part of the comment, put it in quotes, and google it.  Up came 28 pages of of the same exact comment, all obviously posted by the same person, but signed with different names.  The links all go back to various free lycos websites, none of which have anything on them (they all say “under construction”).  So I don’t even know why this scumbag is spamming everyone when he or she doesn’t even have a website.

Anyway, here’s the dirtbag’s IP address and email:

IP:  61.40.170.195

Email:  degreearm@gmail.com

I couldn’t find their name from the IP address, or I would have posted it.  If you’re more savvy about researching that sort of stuff than I am, feel free to add a comment with the information. 

And please, feel free to email this person, as well.  (Although I would guess, based on all their different names and websites, they have a large number of email accounts.  So I’m not sure if they would read their email any more than they would read an actual webpage they were commenting on).

Gah!  I hate these people.  Anway…end of rant and lemons to lemonade and all of that.  Here are a few posts that this person spammed.  You will find some interesting reading here.

• In a next evolution of the web public interaction will be less important — from Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior – predictions of how social media will be used in the future
• Cosmosprophecies talks about the odds of a recently discovered asteroid hitting the earth in the year 2029 (read about how you may only have 21 years left to live)
• khengze from Webs@Work tells how China’s horrible May earthquake, combined with the media spotlight currently on this country due to the upcoming Olympics, brought about an uncharacteristic lack of censorship on China’s internet recently  (If this topic interests you, you might want to also read my previous post on Chinese Interent Censorship.)
• Paperback Rider blogs about the very moment he went insane, the literary monkey on his back, and 5 different and interesting looking books he has recently read (by the way, it looks like he has taken the spam comment off his blog now — good for him)

Professional Sarcasm — The Celebrity Interview

Ken Levine, well-known Hollywood director, writer, and producer (M.A.S.H., Cheers), penned a very funny and sarcastic piece on How to Interview a Celebrity.  He gives young entertainment journalists advice such as:

“Never EVER talk about yourself or bring up any topic other than her. She will stare at you in disbelief like you just killed her puppy.”

and

“Once the budding young diva starts yammering learn what is print-worthy and what is just utter brain-dead nonsense. Listen carefully because often you won’t be able to distinguish one from the other.”

The article appears on Levine’s Blog at the internet newspaper, The Huffington Post.  I also like his take on the backstage workings of American Idol.

Thanks Zanetta Hardy for June Header Photo

Zanetta Hardy of Pennsylvania is this month’s featured photographer here at A Bunch of Wordz.  You can see more of Zanetta’s photos on the stock xchange.

Funny Computer Poem

This piece is called A Poem for Those Over 30, but I think people under 30 will appreciate the humor, as well.  The author is unknown.  It starts out:

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.

You can read the rest of the poem at joke-news.com.  One of the lines is a bit off-color, but it’s the best one in my opinion. 

Goat-Racing Museum, First (and Most Likely Last) of its Kind

Goats.  They get a surprisingly large amount of press.  Why is that?  I have a theory.  I think they’re media whores.  Oh sure, they might look complacent and oblivious to the presence of a camera, but underneath it all, they love the spotlight. 

And $300,000 worth of spotlight is exactly what a bunch of goat-loving Australians intend to give them.

abc.net.au published a story about a proposed $300,000 goat-racing museum and hall of fame in Queensland.  The story quotes a museum promoter as saying:

“As far as we know, this will be the first goat museum in the world.”

One of the comments from a reader, which had me laughing, was:

“There is a reason there is nothing like this in the world.”

But apparently, people down under take their goat-racing pretty darn seriously.  Check out this goat quote from a spokesman for the project published in a second article at abc.net.au.

“Right back to our first pioneers and explorers, everybody had goats…This isn’t going to be a comedy day, this is going to get dead serious. These people that are putting some of this money up are planning to make Barcaldine the goat racing capital of the nation.”

So what do you think?  Does goat-racing merit $300,000 worth of commemoration?

Thank You, Licoln Crisler

I just wanted to publicly thank Lincoln Crisler, author of the horror collection, Despairs & Delights, for guestblogging this week.  (Tip:  It looks like you can upgrade to 2-day shipping for free right now on his book at amazon.com.)

Crisler gave us a little bit of insight into the writing world.  If you missed any of his posts, here they are:

• Behind the Scenes with Lincoln Crisler Pt. I: Crafting the Tale
• Behind the Scenes with Lincoln Crisler Pt. II: Pushin’ it Outta the Nest
• Behind the Scenes with Lincoln Crisler Pt. III: Struttin’ Your Stuff

Laguna Sunset (A Poem)

So this poem I wrote has been traveling around on a sticky note for quite some time now, and I figured I’d better post it before I lost it.  It’s a Sappho, a vastly underused poetic form that I love for its unique rhythm and that I’m single-handedly trying to make popular again (and when I say “again,” I mean it hasn’t been all that much of a hot topic since literally B.C.).

It’s a short poem about Laguna Beach and the area I live in, Orange County, California, otherwise known as “The O.C.”

Laguna Sunset
by Edie Montgomery-Pool

Sun and ocean meet at the dusky seashore
Playing catch with streamers of rainbow ribbons
Every day they dance on the sand together
Children of eons

_______________

I grant permission for this poem to be reprinted in full or in part electronically, provided the following conditions are met: 1) the author’s name is listed; 2) the site on which the poem is published is not a vanity publisher or a scam poetry contest which requires its “winners” to make a purchase or pay a fee before being published. I grant permission for this poem to be reprinted non-electronically (as in, paper) provided the previous two conditions are met, as well as 3) the publication is for either a charitable or non-profit event or organization and 4) no fee is charged for the publication in which the poem appears. A comment notifying me you have used this poem is appreciated but not required.