The Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird
He said what he said and he meant what he said or something like it
Links are footnoted at the end of the post.
A confession: sometimes, sitting down to digitally pen one of these missives, yr. editors will thumb through the digital contact sheets seeking inspiration. This photo reminded us of the time George H.W. Bush got trapped in a brief drug-induced feedback loop whilst campaigning in New Hampshire,1 and then of a later instance in which Colin Powell touted the benefits of Ambien.
"The guy over there at Pease - a woman actually - she said something about a country-western song about the train, a light at the end of the tunnel... I only hope it's not a train coming the other way. Well, I said to her, well, I'm a country music fan. I love it, always have. Doesn't fit the mold of some of the columnists, I might add, but nevertheless - of what they think I ought to fit in, but I love it. You should have been with me at the c.m.a. awards at Nashville. But nevertheless, I said to them there's another one that the Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird - and it says if you want to see a rainbow you've got to stand a little rain. We've had a little rain. New Hampshire has had too much rain."
Bush was the most famous habitué of a sleeping pill called Halcion,2 which at the time he was using it had been banned or restricted in a number of countries. Halcion is in the same family of drugs as valium and xanax, and it was popular with people who were in the air a lot and had to catch their sleep where it could be found. This included presidents and other people with important jobs, such as diplomats and military people.
Critics say Halcion's most dramatic side effects are paranoia and hallucinations. Less evident but far more common, Kales said, are effects that typically appear the day after taking a dose -- memory loss, jitteriness or "hyperexcitability," and worse problems trying to sleep.
(Pfizer, the current owner and manufacturer of the drug, says it carries the “potential” for abuse and addiction.3)
We give you, dear reader, the Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird.4
A case can perhaps be made that some of the problems we face as a nation are the result of some significant number of high government officials getting high when they travel. That case is even stronger with the second Bush presidency.
SECRETARY POWELL: -- from Panama to Nicaragua, from Nicaragua to Honduras, and that's our air base in Honduras, Soto Cono.
So in a helicopter it's Tegucigalpa, then back out to the -- Tegucigalpa to Soto Cono, then Soto Cono to College Station last night, then I had to change all of my software and take out all of the Central American software and put in the Chinese software to give a speech this morning in Texas.
QUESTION: So do you use sleeping tablets to organize yourself?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. Well, I wouldn't call them that. They're a wonderful medication -- not medication. How would you call it? They're called ambien, which is very good. You don't use ambien? Everybody here uses ambien.
QUESTION: I use it when I go on trip and long distance travel.
SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah. I didn't need it this time because I was in the same time zone.
QUESTION: I see.
SECRETARY POWELL: It's when I go to your part of the world. I need to get my rest.5
Emphasis ours. That’s Colin Powell, a stalwart of the administration which made the most demented, most poorly supported foreign policy/military decision since Truman nuked all those civilians, waxing rhapsodic about Ambien.
[S]ome people who take zolpidem or similar medications, such as eszopiclone (Lunesta), do things while asleep that they don't remember — such as driving, or preparing and eating food. Because you're not awake, these are dangerous behaviors.6
Such as cooking, or deciding to start or support an untenable, generations-long conflict.
Trump is thought not to do drugs but 100% guaranteed a lot of his hires either came into government doing them or picked up a habit after the fact.7
Ronny Jackson, the White House physician who is battling to save his nomination to be the secretary of veterans affairs, regularly handed out the sleep drug Ambien and the alertness drug Provigil to West Wing officials traveling on overseas flights.
…
But nearly a dozen current and former officials — including some who were treated by Jackson while working in the Obama White House — say Jackson is being unfairly labeled as a “candy man” and that casual use of some prescription drugs is an established fact of life at the highest echelons of government.
No word on the casual use of which particular prescription drugs inspired Obama’s and Clinton’s Big Libyan Adventure.
That’s a cop-out, of course: U.S. governments routinely do awful things without the impetus of a drug habit, so far as we know. The temptation to blame some of these decisions on widespread cabinet- and presidential-level use of drugs with known deleterious side effects is strong, though. Confused by what seems to be an administration playing 11th-dimensional chess? It’s not you: they’re just fucking high.
Broken Social Scene is either new to us or we just don’t remember it, which can happen; we’ve never started a war, though. “Let’s Try the After” Vols. I & II were the morning’s first thing, followed by their 2017 release, “Hug of Thunder.”
That, comrades, is all we got. Take care, be well.
My former spouse took Halcion for awhile--it took such a catastrophic toll on her mental health I took her prescriber to task on it. Shortest half-life of any of the benzos, which means that if you're prone to rebound effects, you'll be rebounding on waking. You know who I think is prone to rebound? People who drink consistently . . . which would be most of the professional government folks in Washington, I think.
I'm behind on your entries--sorry about that. The thing about your writing is that it forces me to think. The reason I sometimes put them off is, they force me to think.
It's just that I'm too busy, but I appreciate this very much.