Ecstasy--pure human ecstasy, not the cheap drug--is a beautiful, necessary thing. Living the modern life of civilized apes, we sometimes either impoverish ourselves of the ecstasy of life or outright outlaw it. Not good; not right. Seeing visions was essential to a great many of America's original people. How they got 'em seems natural enough--fasting, dancing, natural stimulants, worship of nature, etc...
  To which I say: Beatles = liberation.

  Thus it was at the sixth annual 'Beatles-a-thon', 12 hours of live Beatles music provided by Joe and Matt Peppercorn and their band of highly proficient deep believers in the Beatles canon. I was ecstatic simply waiting in line half-an-hour before it began at the Blue Stone at 12:30 p.m. December 26. Liverpool and nirvana, here we come!

So as it turns out, we never made it to Frenchman Street.

Every year, a few friends and I engage in a weekend of musical tourism, taking trips to cities which claim a vibrant live music scene and/or some historical interest. Past trips have included Memphis (Beale Street, Sun Records, Graceland) and Nashville (Downtown, Grand Ole Opry), among others. You know, famous places. 

This year, we decided to make our pilgrimage to New Orleans to get hammered and listen to jazz. From the moment we got into the cab at the airport, locals directed us to Frenchman street. According to pretty much everybody, this was the place to see jazz. The party was great, the music was fantastic, and you didn’t have to worry about the filth and violence of Bourbon Street. So sayeth the cabbie, the hotel concierge and the guy working at CVS.

But the problem was that our hotel was right in the middle of the French Quarter. Everything was a just a short walk away, from bars to museums to famous cemeteries – everything, that is, except for Frenchman Street. At over three miles away, it was unquestionably a cab ride proposition if we intended to drink seriously.

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Beyond Vietnam,” 1967

“If the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state.” Dr. Christoph Hufeland (1762-1836)

Before Reynoldsburg police broke down the door to her home November 19, 2015, Linda Leisure, long-time corruption investigator and whistleblower, thought she had seen it all – including previous police break-ins into her home. But she had no psychiatric history and never before witnessed “forced psychiatry” Ohio-style.   

  Earlier that day, during a verbal argument with a police officer at her home, Leisure cursed him for ignoring her complaints about harassment she was suffering from Columbus police officers Delmar and Steve Knotts, one who lived across the street from her Reynoldsburg home. Within minutes, a woman identified as a “social worker” came to Leisure’s home. Leisure described the woman as “unprofessional” and that she “looked like a bag lady.” A few minutes of discussion through a partially-opened door led the “social worker” to diagnose Leisure with “a mood disorder,” according to police records.

JPMorgan Chase and Co. is a bank “too big to fail,” and according to the G20 or The Group of Twenty, it is the bank too big to fail.
  The G20 is an international forum of the world’s major governments and central banks, and recently published a report stating if JPMorgan were to get into trouble, the greatest global financial havoc could follow because the bank is interconnected with so many smaller banks and investors.
  As Wall Street sputters into 2016 amidst global market volatility, many in Central Ohio and the rest of the state aren’t aware of how connected JPMorgan is to the local workforce and beyond. Way beyond, as in 200,000 state worker retirees and their beneficiaries.
  JPMorgan is the region’s largest private-employer with more than 20,000 workers, and many are well-paid. JPMorgan is also the custodian of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System’s international fund, which accounts for $21 billion of the pension’s total fund that’s currently at $87 billion.