Negative Space: history

The other British are coming!: The press has no schema to understand non-establishment politicians.
Across the River and into the Trees: Liquor flowed easily across the border between Canada and Detroit. One way or another the liquor was going to get across, so the police joined in for a piece of the take. Prohibition was a jobs program for criminals, employing tens of thousands of people to bring liquor to Michigan. And in a taste of things to come, free from the law sellers began targeting schoolchildren.
The African Dagga Cultures: If Indian use of an unapproved drug was a problem, there’s no question that Africans would get in trouble from their white masters for using it. White leaders in South Africa forbid the sale of any portion of the hemp plant to “any coolies whatsoever”.
Against the Flowing Tide: Whiskey and Temperance in the Making of Modern Ireland: George Bretherton follows the growth of temperance in Ireland, both among protestants and Catholics.
Alcohol and the State in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945: Hermann Fahrenkrug’s shows that, to the Nazi leadership, it was the civic duty of every German to maintain good health in order to support state power.
Alcohol In Its Cultural Context: Alcohol helps strengthen the societies that use it. It facilitates social interaction, and allows individuals within the group to make observations and perform tasks that they would otherwise be forbidden to do.
Alcoholism and Medicine: World War I helped further understanding that the effects of alcohol depended on how much was consumed, not what kind was consumed: men around the world came under the examination of doctors as they entered the military. This realization didn’t come quickly enough to save absinthe, however, and the drink fell mostly out of use in favor of other spirits.
Amadeus: A man who loves music swears on oath to God to remain celibate if he could create great music... and God sends Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to taunt the man. A great movie, a good DVD flawed by requiring laser-disc style flipping. The acting and music were superb.
America’s Crusade: Subtitled “What is behind the latest war on drugs”, from Time, September 15, 1986, pp. 60-66, 86. The insane rhetoric of the war on drugs ranges from fears of bullet-proof blacks among turn-of-the-century Southern sheriffs to a comparison with foreign invasion by Charles Rangel, still a member of the House as I write this in 2006.
America’s Drug Users: Opium was prohibited because it was used by Orientals and cocaine because it was perceived as a Negro drug. More specifically, racist views of the time saw these peoples as less able to resist the criminalizing effects of drug use. Jazz was similarly stereotyped.
And One More for the Road (A new perspective on drinking and driving): John Tomerlin writes about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of harsh DWI laws. From Road and Track Magazine, February 1983, pp. 108-115.
The Annotated Will Eisner Dreamer: An annotation of the real events portrayed in Will Eisner’s ‘The Dreamer’, a fictional look back at the beginnings of the comic book industry.
The Antiliquor Response: The Origins of the Temperance Movement: It wasn’t long before democratic government attracted “stewards”: politicians who “honestly thought that they knew best how to order the affairs of others”.
Appendix: Apparent Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages: Apparent Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages and Absolute Alcohol in Each Class of Beverage, in U.S. Gallons per Capita of the Drinking-age Population, U.S.A. 1790-1978
Bad Beer and “Hot Waters”: The First American Beverages: As the settlers settled, they turned to local ingredients or planted foreign fruits in order to make applejack, mead, perry, and peach brandies.
Bibliography for the History of Dumas’s Musketeers: Some fascinating books about the period around when the Musketeers stories happen.
Cannabis Britannica: Subtitled “Empire, Trade, and Prohibition”, this is an in-depth history of how prohibition came about in Britain, and ends up describing how marijuana prohibition came to the forefront of international attempts to ban opium.
Cannabis Comes to the New World: As with other countries, Americans had to be nearly forced to grow hemp. Drugs such as tobacco were far more lucrative than rope. War changed that temporarily, and at one point we even used hemp as money.
Cannabis in the Ancient World: Hemp’s place in mythology and ritual is influenced by its use as quality rope. Only in India is there definitive evidence of cannabis use for its psychoactive properties.
Capitalism, Religion, and Reform: The Social History of Temperance in Harvey, Illinois: Ray Hutchison writes about the “conflicts between divergent subcultures in American society” that would eventually result in prohibition. Temperance communities may have been about keeping alcohol out, or they may have been about keeping Eastern Europeans out.
The Cartoon Guide to Recreational Drugs (213.7 KB): The Birds and the Bees do it, Pigs and Porcupines do it. But evidence suggests that humans are champion drug users. We are born with a natural urge to alter our consciousness. Children spin until they drop for the same reason that their parents drink alcohol. Nature requires it.
The Cartoon History of the Universe: Do not pass up these books. The most fun I’ve ever had reading history. Larry Gonick has an eye for the absurd from the beginning of time. But don’t let the funny pictures fool you: this is a real history book.
Ceremonial Chemistry: Thomas Szasz subtitled this “The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers”. It’s a brilliant piece of work drawing on history from as far back as the witch trials and persecution of Jews. His thesis is that mankind requires scapegoats on a ritual scale. While hardly a ground-breaking idea, the depth of his examination is.
The Cheerful Spring: Prohibition is that rare law that benefits those who disobey it. In Detroit, underworld figures were soon able to afford diamond rings and fancy cars. But, after all, such people were merely “aliens of the lowest type.”
The Civil War in Popular Culture: Shelby Foote called the Civil War “The crossroads of our being” as Americans. Cullen writes that “officially, the Civil War ended in 1865, but culturally, it was just beginning.” The war’s meaning was at stake; if history can be said to be written by the victor, outside observers might find it hard to understand that the South lost the war.
Cocaine: A Drug and Its Social Evolution: Lester Grinspoon & James B. Bakalar have written a fascinating book about the history of cocaine use, mostly in the United States.
Cocaine: Its History, Uses and Effects: Richard Ashely surveys the history of cocaine use, from popes to Freud, and up to the consolidation of the coke business into organized crime in the seventies.
Coffee and Coffeehouses: Ralph S. Hattox’s book is subtitled “The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East”. He summarizes the history of coffee’s rise in the Near East, and its growth as a social facilitator much like alcohol elsewhere, with cafés replacing the function of bars.
The Coffeehouse: Social Norms, Social Symbols: That coffee’s use was very similar to wine’s use did not escape the attention of authorities. One of the traditions they seized on was the “passing of the cup”, where coffee drinkers would sit around passing a single cup of coffee from one to the other “in the manner of an intoxicant”.
Colbert: History will tell us, or rather history has told us, of the various events of the following day,- of the splendid fetes given by the superintendent to his sovereign. There was nothing but amusement…
The Comics Link Morgue: Where do links go when they die? Over the last few decades some useful and interesting work has been lost; you can find some of them on the Internet Archive.
Comics Scholarship: Writings, studies, and surveys about comics, the comics community, and comics history.
The Coming of Coffee to the Near East: From its origin among the Sufi of Yemen, coffee spread throughout the Muslim world. It generated controversy as it spread because it was a new thing and religious leaders needed to decide if it was forbidden or not.
Common Sense: The document that started the American Revolution in the minds of the colonists.
Common Sense: Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession: The document that started the American Revolution in the minds of the colonists. Discusses the evils of government by kings.
Common Sense: Origin and Design of Government: Common Sense: On The Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution.
Common Sense: The Present Ability of America: With Some Miscellaneous Reflections: The document that started the American Revolution in the minds of the colonists. Discusses America’s ability to raise a navy.
Common Sense: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs: The document that started the American Revolution in the minds of the colonists. Discusses the irreconcilable differences between England and America.
The Compleat Psilocybin Mushroom Cultivator’s Bible: Psilocin and psilocybin are among the most potent naturally-occuring psychoactive substances and the least toxic.
Consensus: The Anti-Saloon League and the End of Pluralism: Heh. The biggest news story since World War I, and the New York Times didn’t recognize the importance of it.
Control—National: The Harrison Narcotics Act destroyed all of the successes of the only “prohibition” act to ever work successfully—the labeling act of 1906. Instead, opium prohibition ended up with all of the success of alcohol prohibition.
Control—State: The Texas law, on the surface, appears to make some sense: why not reduce the violence of prohibition by making it illegal to carry weapons while dealing in prohibited drugs? But its an example of our inability to back down in the face of bad decisions. One law results in more violence, and rather than repeal that law we add more laws to it, much as if we were addicted to bad laws.
Court cases regarding firearms: Negative Space text archive of files on /pub/Firearms/Government/Courts/
Cultural Histories of the Internet: Influences on the future and the history of cyberspace.
Dealing With Drugs: Consequences of Government Control: Ronald Hamowy edits this collection of articles about the consequences of prohibition on crime levels, racism, and corruption. Arnold S. Trebach describes U.S. drug policy in terms familiar to anyone who has read Animal Farm.
Decay from Within: The Inevitable Doom of the American Saloon: Madelon Powers notes that it was the existing decline of the saloon that may have made prohibition possible.
The Decline of Temperance: Prohibition killed temperance.
Development of the Problem: Patent medicines that were advertised as curing opium addiction might themselves contain opium. Heroin was advertised similarly. And, of course, the Harrison Act bolstered the black market and moved opium both underground and towards heroin.
The Dream Palace of the Arabs: This is a great introduction to the strange factions of the Arab world, the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Orthodox Christians of Lebanon, Saddam Hussein vs. the princes of Kuwait.
Drier and Drier, and Wetter and Wetter: Drinking and the Pluralist Renaissance: Prohibition lobbyists screamed that liberalizing drinking laws would mean blood in the streets; but ending prohibition on alcohol didn’t increase violence or crime any more than liberalized concealed carry has. But fears of angry drunken blacks didn’t stop repeal, and the day after prohibition ended was just another day.
Drinkers and Reformers: The Origins of Postbellum Temperance: When voters start doing things you don’t like, call them unpatriotic and their actions a danger to public morals. Nineteenth-century prohibition advocates sound like Reagan-era prohibition advocates when they argue that people who use recreational drugs responsibly are a danger to the nation: they set a poor example. It’s a circular argument: they set a poor example because drinking is bad; their drinking is bad because it sets a poor example.
Drinkers in Antiquity: Every culture with sugar seems to have developed some kind of alcoholic drink, from honey-mead to fermented grapes and other fruits. Once they develop alcohol, they develop laws to deal with alcohol and drinking.
Drinking Habits: Like sex, social drinking shows signs of being a human need. The local bar fulfills the need that the nightly campfire did in older times.
Drinking in America: A History: Mark Edward Lender & James Kirby Martin. The Free Press, New York, 1982. Seems almost pro-prohibition, and definitely pro-temperance, possibly even pro-legal-system-controlled temperance.
Drinking in Modern America: I wonder how much it would cost nowadays to re-enact and enforce alcohol prohibition? It would, I suspect, dwarf prohibition of little drugs like marijuana and probably even cocaine.
Drinking in the Sober Republic: Did Prohibition Prohibit?: I’m not sure what he’s trying to say here; death rates by cirrhosis make no sense without also knowing how long it takes cirrhosis to develop.
Drinking Patterns and Alcoholism in the Chinese: K. Singer surveys alcohol use and the perception of use in China and Hong Kong during and after World War II. As the center of the illegal opium trade, narcotics were a bigger problem in Hong Kong than alcohol.
Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History: Susanna Barrows and Robin Room edit this 1991 collection of articles on the history of drinking in modern culture.
Drugs and Drug Abuse: James Cassens wrote this for “The Christian Encounters” series. Some interesting information culled from a variety of sources.
Drugs in American Society: Erich Goode writes about how American Society deals with drugs; it is very much a matter of redefining reality. When we realized that recreational drugs such as marijuana were “non-addicting” we couldn’t handle saying so. Thus, we began using a new term for “things people like to do”: dependance.
Drugs in Perspective: From “What It Was Like to be Sick in 1884” to journalists jonesing for a drug-crisis fix, these articles try to put illegal drug effects in perspective compared to legal drug effects and other legal things that we do, such as drive cars.
Drugs, Society and Behavior 87/88: William B. Rucker and Marian E. Rucker have collected a range of articles, essays, and even a satire or two, that shed light on our society’s multiple-personality-like treatment of various drugs.
Dry Debacle: Presaging what was to end national prohibition, state interest in prohibition faded whenever there were real problems to deal with, such as slavery and secession.
The Dry Offensive: The 1870s and 1880s: From its beginnings, state-run public education was used as a means of shaping policy by indoctrinating students towards a particular view.
The End of an Era: I suspect that while the “new” drinks did come with fewer social norms to control their usage, we were also seeing worries about the drugs that other people use, especially those other people who couldn’t afford beer and wine.
Epilogue: The Age of Ambivalence: Following repeal, alcohol sales helped pay our way out of the Great Depression.
Etiology: Where physicians had no particular desire to spread heroin use, addicts apparently did.
Etymologies of Drug Words: Etymologies (Dictionary of Word Origins, Origins, Webster’s Ninth)
The Exceptions: Indians and Blacks: Whites were not allowed to sell liquor to blacks; and Europeans quickly took on an a paternal attitude at best towards the Natives.
Extent: For the most part, only if addicts are using extreme amounts would outsiders recognize that something was wrong, let alone that it was opium addiction.
The Federal Government’s Response to Illicit Drugs, 1969-1978: Peter Goldberg summarizes some of the history of federal laws creating illegal drugs; among the federal actions is the Prettyman Commission, yet another commissioned study that discovered, surprise!, illegal drugs aren’t worth the pain and depredation that the laws against them cause. As usual, its recommendations were ignored.
The Federalist Papers: Negative Space text archive of files on /pub/Politics/United States/Federalist Papers/
A Fifteenth Century Cookry Boke: Review of A Fifteenth Century Cookry Boke, with a recipe for Prymerose.
Firearms Sites: Web pages dealing with firearms and the second amendment.
The First Casualty: This book is a great collection of war reporting anecdotes from the Crimean War up to Vietnam. It also attempts to be an analysis, and pretty much fails to not only come to any conclusion, but to decide what its goals ought to be.
From Fasting to Abstinence: The Origins of the American Temperance Movement: Joel Bernard writes about the “cranky fad” of enforced temperance: how it came to be so popular. Racism, of course, figured strongly.
From Reform to Reaction: The Sober Republic at Bay: What’s fascinating to me is how much we’ve changed since repealing alcohol prohibition: there was once a time when appeal to racism did not suffice to keep bad laws. The calls for killing drug users when the drug was alcohol match almost exactly modern rhetoric. From adding poisons to the drug, to increasing penalties far beyond the bounds of the crime, we’ve seen all this before.
From the Enlightenment to Magnus Huss, 1700-1850: The rise of drinking, especially of distilled liquors, brought with it class concerns: the upper classes thought the lower classes couldn’t hold their drink. Slaves and Indians were forbidden from drinking, though such laws were usually ignored. The deleterious effects of alcohol consumption began to be more fully quantified.
The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition: By Herbert Asbury, this “informal history” of alcohol prohibition is as good an argument against the prohibition of recreational drugs as any written.
Hashish and the Arabs: In Arabia, marijuana may have been the drug of choice of those who could not afford wine. As today, prejudice against marijuana use may have reflected class warfare.
The Hashish Club: In the 1800s the elite began to take notice of this obscure drug. One of the most famous was Dr. Moreau’s Club des Hachichins in France.
Hashish in America: It isn’t surprising that early experimenters might find themselves mildly addicted to marijuana: some samples turned out to have up to 25% opium! Rumors also that the Pentagon is built on a great dope farm.
Hillsboro, Ohio, 1873: Early public protests took forms we recognize today as sit-ins and demonstrations such as those used by anti-war protesters and anti-abortion protesters.
Historical Arms Banned by BATF: When does EXEMPT not mean EXEMPT?; from 7 Dec 1994 16:47:01 -0500
A History of Alcoholism: Jean-Charles Sournia’s book contains the immortal (in my pages, anyway) quote, “It would seem that if alcohol is a vice, then virtue is unattractive, and if drinking is a malady, then good health alone is not enough to satisfy man.”
History of Cannabis: When Congress debated marijuana legislation, the AMA opposed it, and was told to “get out of the way of the Federal Government”. That’s been pretty much the history of marijuana legislation and regulation ever since. Need it to maintain your sight? Go blind. Need it to stay alive? Then die. Get out of the way of the federal government.
The History of Dumas’s Musketeers: The Real History of the Musketeers! Information about some of the historical characters that Dumas used for “The Three Musketeers” and “Le Vicomte de Bragellone”.
History of prohibition archive: A history of food and drug laws, some ceremonial chemistry and good old Coca Cola.
Holy and Unholy Spirits: The Effects of Missionization on Alcohol Use in Eastern Micronesia: Mac Marshall and Leslie B. Marshall note the interplay between alcohol use and traditional kava use on the arrival of European missionaries.
Immigration and Antebellum Drinking: German immigrants adapted their favorite lagers to the needs of native-born Americans, resulting in the “light-bodied, golden brew popular today”.
The Indian Hemp Drug Debate: One of the earliest examples of a commission to determine the ill effects of a drug. The commission was called because of the dire warnings of the governor of India and decided that the governor was overstating the issue. But the real issue, as usual, was not the drug but the people who used it: the real issue was rising Indian nationalism.
Inebriate Reformatories in Scotland: An Institutional History: Patrick M. McLaughlin’s study did not provide anything for my cartoon history, so all I am left with is this tantalizing quote.
The Inebriate, the Expert, and the State: Once we bring state power into temperance, it becomes something wholly different and dangerous.
Intemperance: The Lost War Against Liquor: Larry Englemann’s Intemperance is a great history of prohibition. The bumper sticker “Don’t shoot, I’m not a bootlegger” could just as well be transported to homes today for overeager, paranoid police: “Don’t shoot, I’m not a drug dealer.” Companies such as Ford fired people based on their opposition to prohibition. And people claim heaven if we just step up enforcement.
Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise: Ronald K. Siegal hypothesizes that, along with sex, food, and sleep, that intoxication is a basic, natural need in humans. He makes a strong case that recreational drug use is not just something that people like to do, it is something that humans require to survive.
James Vassilakos List of Gaming Web Sites: Many years ago, Jim Vassilakos compiled several useful things for the role-playing newsgroups. One of them was this list of cool RPG-related web sites. Rather than throw it out, I’m keeping it here for its historical value.
The Jazz Era: During the prohibition era, marijuana use probably increased, and made its way into the culture of the Jazz era. Racist portrayals of the drug’s users spread throughout North America.
The Keeley Cure: Glycerine? Coca? Strychnia? Taken every two hours?
Knee deep in monster frogs: A Judges Guild history: Bill Owen, one of the early members/employees of Judges Guild, has created an amazing color collection of old Judges Guild artifacts: maps, designs, and more from the early days of JG.
Lethargy, Leprosy, and Melancholia: Coffee and Medieval Medicine: The attempts at prohibiting coffee strictly followed the pattern for other drugs: claim outrageous medical problems, and use it to harass unapproved groups.
Magnus Huss and Alcoholism, 1807-1890: Magnus Huss, physician to Swedish kings, first coined the word “alcoholism” as part of a systematic study of the deleterious effects of alcohol. Other scientists reading Huss’s work realized that the same effects could be seen resulting from beer and wine consumption.
The Many Worlds of Drink in Europe and America: Drinking in the western world was heavily influenced by the public house: the bar, tavern, or saloon.
Marihuana Through History: Note that that’s my title, not the author’s; I haven’t kept the title if this section in my notes. As a rope-making plant, hemp has an ancient, well-documented history. It has long been the best known plant for general rope-making, and every culture that uses ropes seems to know this.
Marihuana, The First Twelve Thousand Years: Ernest L. Abel has written a fascinating, if sometimes apocryphal, history of marijuana, gleaned from the archaeological record, myth, and written history.
Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine: Lester Grinspoon & James B. Bakalar write a fascinating combination of medical history and survey on the medical uses of marijuana. The descriptions by patients, especially cancer and glaucoma patients, of what happens when they lose access to marijuana are heart-breaking.
Marijuana and alcohol prohibition: Marijuana was originally seen as a “Mexican” drug.
The Marijuana and Hashish Era: While some researchers noted that marijuana might have intoxicating qualities as early as the sixteenth century, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that scientists started taking its effects seriously. But by then, its inability to be injected meant that use fell after the civil war from already low levels. Its use as an intoxicant, however, began to rise.
Marijuana history: The short history, the legendary Washington hemp story, ancient marijuana use, and more
Marijuana: The New Prohibition: John Kaplan, an internationally recognized expert on drug-abuse, “analyzes the medical and social evidence on America’s third most widely-used drug and discusses the case for legalization.”
Metamorphosis: From “Good Creature” to “Demon Rum,” 1790-1860: Desire for temperance led to desire for the complete abstinence from liquor; from liquor abstinence arose desire for abstinence from any alcoholic beverage. From calls for abstinence there arose calls for discouragement and finally prohibition.
Methods of Tobacco Use in South America: In ritualistic use, tobacco was consumed in quantities large enough to cause hallucinations. The most common method of use was some form of smoking. Among some cultures, tobacco use replaced coca use.
Minor Characters from the History of Dumas’s Musketeers: All of the minor characters who were part of the French government seem to be real.
Modern Alcoholism: Alcohol use has played a significant role in film from its birth. Before prohibition, temperance melodramas showed it as a cause of distress and anguish; later, film noir made both alcohol (and smoking) into on-screen signifiers. Our choice of which drugs to prohibit is often inconsistent: even in its natural form alcohol is more dangerous than the concentrated forms of other, still illegal, drugs.
Mythus-L Logs: Archives of discussions from the Mythus-L mailing list.
Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave: Not only does slavery make life worse for slaves, it doesn’t make life better for slave-owners. And the ultimate freedom is freedom to learn.
A Nation of Drug Takers: When America discovered that there were foreigners in the country, they conveniently forgot how recently they themselves had come over; the drugs those foreigners used became illegal. At first the laws targeted specific races; in time, the laws targeted everyone.
New Comics archive: Negative Space text archive of files on /pub/Comics/New Comics/
The New Society, Booze, and Social Disorder: Like those who promise to leave the country when the other candidate is elected president, Ford did not stop automobile production when repeal ended prohibition.
New Uses for the Old Hemp Plant: Hemp has a history in folk remedies and occult histories, though to what end when combined with such drugs as belladonna it’s hard to imagine, especially when many of these formulas came not from witches but from the fearmongers who railed against them.
Not Quite Dry: Neorepublicans in a Changing America: Prohibition itself stimulated drinking as a status-based consumer activity.
Notes on Drinking in Japan: Bufo Yamamuro writes that Buddhism preached complete abstinence from “strong drink”. Japanese mythology appears to have considered alcohol almost a weapon and they had several abortive bouts with prohibition.
Opiologia: Written by Angelo Sala and translated by Tho. Bretner, M.M., 1618, London.
The Opium Problem: Charles E. Terry and Mildred Pellens. This was originally published in 1928 by the Bureau of Social Hygiene, Inc. shortly after opium became illegal (1914). Before Harrison, most addicts used under the supervision of their physician; after Harrison, most addicts used under the supervision of other addicts. The law appeared to have no effect on the number of addicts, except perhaps to increase them.
Other Items from the History of Dumas’s Musketeers: The Musketeers and its sequels followed the history of France as well as the rumors and fears of French nobles.
Our Right to Drugs: What is it about drugs that make us more scared about them than chainsaws, bleach, and gasoline? Thomas Szasz writes, with a historical and psychiatric perspective, about what can produce a holy utopia where parents will send their children to prison, and children their parents.
Outlawing Marihuana: You can tell who had the power in the Progressive Era: the American Medical Association opposed the tax act but it was enacted nonetheless. But an exception was made for bird fanciers so that hemp seeds could continue to be sold in birdseed.
The Paradox of Temperance: Blacks and the Alcohol Question in Nineteenth-Century America: Denise Herd writes about the “paradox” that the progressive temperance movement was also highly racist. The “negro problem” was was a “central issue” that prohibition was meant to solve.
Perspectives on Drinking and Social History: Despite its obvious silliness, prohibition has at times been, and continues to be, a popular response to recreational drug use. Why, and how?
Plymouth, 1621: Alcoholic beverages were a health necessity to the first European immigrants, who didn’t understand at first that water could also be a beverage.
Politics, Ideology, and Power: Alcohol regulation, social reform, and temperance movements each had their different successes and failures.
Portland, Maine, 1851: Portland’s mayor Neal Dow was among the first to confuse virtue (temperance) with law (prohibition).
Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution: David and Theresa Welsh wrote some of the first great software for the TRS-80, and knew a lot of the other people who were also writing great software. In Priming the Pump, they talk about the history of personal computers and the first non-kit mass-market personal computer, the TRS-80 Model I.
Prohibition in Action: As long as people want to drink, prohibition is unenforceable. And criminals who accumulated money and power from their prohibition earnings were left alone by law enforcement in favor of small-time criminals with less ability to bribe and coerce. They even a form of three-strikes laws that gave life imprisonment for a pint’s worth of alcohol.
Prosperity, Liberty, and Lower Taxes: The Story of Repeal: By 1929, people began to tire of “lawlessness, bootlegging, hijacking, poison-whiskey selling, shooting innocent citizens, gin parties attended by innocent high school girls and boys and rum parties attended by dry agents and other hypocrites, and of huge sums spent futilely in vain attempts to control men’s appetites by legislation.” Democrats sloganed with “Roosevelt and Repeal”.
Public Health, Public Morals, and Public Order: Social Science and Liquor Control in Massachusetts, 1880-1916: Thomas F. Babor and Barbara G. Rosenkrantz note some of the battling studies in the nineteenth century; as usual there was a concentration on what I call the life preserver phenomenon: studies that focus on drownings will show that there is a much higher percentage of life preservers either nearby or in possession of the deceased.
Puritans in Taverns: Law and Popular Culture in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630-1720: David W. Conroy writes about the political influence of the tavern in local politics.
Racism and Gun Control: Minorities and the underclass will always be the first victims of gun control.
Random thoughts on VJ day: What horrors that we face will our children be unable to imagine?
Real Life Gaming Resources: Things on the net that were not designed for gaming, but can be used for gaming, such as museum displays of magic in antiquity, or images of urban ruins.
Redeeming the Lost: Revivalists and Republicans: Prohibition forces were also often anti-immigration forces. Germans and Irish might have been open to calls for moderation, but not to calls for full prohibition.
Reefer Racism: During the great depression, America needed a new scapegoat, and in the southwest that turned out to be the Mexican. One means of oppression was to stereotype them as marijuana users and then claim that marijuana turned them into brutes that only superior firepower could stop, much as law enforcement in the south claimed about Negros and cocaine.
Return of “The Demon”: “The final blow came with the Great Depression.”
The Return of “the Traffic”: Taxes are apparently a good way to deal with the problems of drug use—as long as we’re willing to collect them.
The Rise of “the Demon”: Early Distilling: The lack of good beer turned the colonists more and more to rum, and rum was a gateway drug to whiskey.
The Role of Alcohol among North American Indian Tribes as Reported in The Jesuit Relations: R. C. Dailey writes about Jesuit perceptions of Indian alcohol use, but also notes that these writings were for a European audience and were designed to generate funding.
Role-Playing Defense text archive: Elder role-playing game research, legal information, and rants.
Rope and Riches: Where with alcohol, wartime causes governments to repress it, with hemp, wartime caused them to enforce the growing of it. Part of the reason it had to be forced on farmers is that the rope-making process was time-consuming; hemp fields required more time between crops than other plants.
Search for Consensus: Drinking and the War Against Pluralism, 1860-1920: Home protection was the slogan of the anti-immigration and pro-prohibition forces; on the surface it was about saving homes from the drunken father; but that drunken father was often “a low class of foreigner”.
Social Drinking in Old Regime Paris: Thomas Brennan’s paper mentions the growth of acceptance of public drunkenness in Paris. Wine was an important part of socializing as well as a nourishing food.
Socialism, Alcoholism, and the Russian Working Classes before 1917: George E. Snow, despite mentioning it in the opening paragraphs, has no actual discussion of anti-Semitism as it related to Russian temperance.
Society and Race Under Threat: Mankind always seems to need scapegoats to explain their own failures. In the late nineteenth century alcohol became the primary scapegoat, explaining why men committed crimes. In various ways, alcohol has been blamed for the downfall of kingdoms such as the Roman Empire.
Society and the Social Life of the Coffeehouse: While visiting coffeehouses, people could show hospitality outside of its traditional place in the home: they could even buy rounds for the bar, so to speak, and show hospitality to strangers. The actions described here in coffeehouses strongly resembles what we see men do in bars: talk trash about women, tell tall tales, and listen to music.
Solve the Drug War: On December 5th, 1933, prohibition ended. That day, the drug lords were out of business. Today we have a new drug war, but the solution is the same: take away their profits and put the drug dealers out of business!
Spotlight on Vincent Sullivan: Transcription of a Vince Sullivan interview from the 1993 San Diego Comic Convention.
Strong Drink, Strong Drinkers: High taxes on alcohol first created rebellion; when rebellion ended, the black market began.
Student Drinking in the Third Reich: Academic Tradition and the Nazi Revolution: Geoffrey J. Giles notes that some Nazis believed that since people belonged to the state they had no right to damage their bodies.
The Tavern and Politics in the German Labor Movement, c. 1870-1914: James S. Roberts notes that the tavern was a “vital social center” for the working class in turn of the century Germany.
Taverns without Wine: The Rise of the Coffeehouse: Where alcohol was illegal and restaurants non-existent, coffeehouses presented a compelling attraction for those wishing to socialize.
The Temple of Aphaea at Aegina: On the north coast of Aegina, about 9 miles from the ancient town, there was a sanctuary on a wooded ridge. There, people were by the second millennium already worshipping a nature deity, who in Greek times bore the name Aphaea.
The Timetables of History: Bernard Grun’s book is a massive outline of historical events; it provides little detail, but is invaluable for deciding what details might be interesting to research.
Tobacco: Rulers punished smokers with beheadings, mutliation, and the most painful of deaths. Yet, in the end, tobacco use continued.
Tobacco and Shamanism in South America: Johannes Wilbert summarizes methods of tobacco use in South America, European perception of tobacco use in South America, and likely actual use, from historical documents and modern ethnography.
TSR Legal Debate: A compilation of the debate concerning the rights of fans of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Roleplaying Game System to distribute fan-authored, AD&D-related works free of charge vs. TSR’s rights to safeguard its trademarks and copyrights by controlling all such distribution.
U.S. v. Miller text and commentary: Negative Space text archive of files on /pub/Firearms/Government/Courts/U.S. Supreme Court/Miller/
United States vs. Miller: U.S. v. Miller is often quoted as having upheld gun control but in fact it did no such thing. It’s a short case, and I recommend reading it for yourself.
Virtue in Action: Prohibition, whether of alcohol or any other desired recreational drug, seems doomed not just to failure but to the same kind of failure: massive violence and an increase in the deleterious effects of the prohibited drug. Within the United States, prohibition resulted in a rise in not just violent crime but in organized criminals.
The War Against Demon Rum: Robert Maddox, of Pennsylvania State Unversity, writes this article about the rise of a more forceful persuasion when it became obvious that man could not be persuaded to avoid drink. Temperance became a code-word for prohibition. This article may have previously appeared in American History Illustrated.
Washington Goes to War: The Washington Metropolitan area’s population increased by over 50% between 1930 and 1941. Another 70,000 arrived in 1942, and 5,000 new federal workers were added every month. The reason was war, and the rumor of war. The book covers the period from 1939 to 1945, with much wandering in between. Part of it is from Brinkley’s personal memories of the period, and much more from interviews.
The White House, 1933: The Anti-Saloon League never recovered from getting their desire. The reality of alcohol prohibition showed everything they said to be false; when the last necessary state voted for repeal at 6:32 PM Eastern time, President Roosevelt was ready; he signed the official proclamation at 6:55 PM.
Wine and Eaux-de-vie: The popularity of wine led to the evolution of vineyards and to the distillation of alcohol from wine. One use of the distillation process was the creation of “fortified” wines that travelled better. New sources of sugar, such as the West Indies, led to the massive production of rum.
Wine, Coffee, and the Holy Law: From its introduction to Islamic culture, coffee has been equated with wine, an explicitly forbidden drug. Part of the controversy is the application of traditional but apocryphal sayings of the prophet to this new drink.
Women and Temperance in International Perspective: The World’s WTCU, 1880s-1920s: Ian Tyrrell’s history of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union indicates that they used fear of foreigners—or tried to—to build their organization into an international force.
The World’s Progress: Some information about Coleridge from a 1913 book of history from “The Delphian Society”, that I ran across at a yard sale.
The “Good Creature of God”: Drinking in Early America: Far away from traditional beer and wine sources, the colonies saw a lot of distilled liquor. Being on the rum route probably didn’t help.
“Parliaments of the People”: The Political Culture of Cafés in the Early Third Republic: Susanna Barrows looks at the role of cafés from the “coup de seize mai” to the following elections, when the banished republicans won.
“Pure Water”: Temperance Becomes Total Abstinence: As alcohol became more easily available, people drank less on average. It was no longer a draw for employers to offer alcohol on the job. But nobody stopped drinking, and that bothered prohibition advocates, for whome it was the government’s duty to take care of its citizens by infringing the rights of individuals.
“Their Best Endeavors”: Enforcing the Volstead Act: Enforcement costs for alcohol prohibition resemble the pattern we’ve seen recently for prohibition of other drugs: an initial high price followed by astronomical prices.
“To the Heights of Mount Sinai”: “You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down!”
“Wo to Drunkards”: Early Use and Abuse: Alcoholic beverages were used in political gatherings, social gatherings, and even training gatherings.

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A Final Chat with Lester Bangs: Catholic high school student Jim DeRogatis interviewed Lester Bangs two weeks before Bangs died.
Comic Art Collection: Michigan State University library’s Special Collections division, including a list of the comics in the collection.
Drug Law Studies Over the Years: How many times does science have to say “no problem” before politicians get the picture? A great collection of summaries of major prohibition studies over the years.
Gawk Like an Egyptian: Wonders of the Modern World: “In times of war and political madness, it helps to count one’s blessings. Bill Whittle offers a vision of how a certain institution Americans take for granted would have amazed the ancients.”
Internet Archive: Includes an archive of some great public domain music, as well as an archive of the web back to 1996.
Ira Schnapp: The Visionary: “Ira R. Schnapp was an eyewitness to the first-ever appearance of the Man of Steel. He also saw the debuts of the Caped Crusader, the Scarlet Speedster, the Emerald Gladiator, and the Amazing Amazon... in person. He was there the day Barry Allen raced across the bridge between the earths and became the Flash of Two Worlds. He saw the mightiest heroes of comics’ Golden Age unite for the first time to form the Justice Society of America. And he witnessed the unforgettable first meeting of the JSA and Justice League of America with his own eyes.”
LeftJustified Publiks: On-line documents relating to the history of freedom. “Examining the roots of constitutional government in the United States and around the world.”
Licit & Illicit Drugs^•: You can also purchase a copy used; as one reviewer wrote, “I learned more in one night from this book than I did in 18 years of being a youth in the Drug War.” I can’t stress enough just how amazing this book is.
Priming the Pump: How TRS-80 Enthusiasts Helped Spark the PC Revolution^• (paperback): I’m only twenty-five pages into this book, and I’m already hooked. This is a great book about the early days of the microcomputer industry, the days when the TRS-80 was the only fully off-the-shelf non-kit computer, when Wayne Green was one of the biggest magazine publishers in the United States, and when having a computer meant having friends over to play around at programming. (David Welsh and Theresa Welsh)
The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition^•: Herbert Asbury’s book has to rank as one of the greatest arguments ever written against the drug war; this book about alcohol prohibition chronicles and forecasts all of the problems with modern prohibition as well. If you can find a copy, this is a must-read.
The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and Society^•: There are works that come along once in an age and influence generations. Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetics is one of these works. Listen: “The dissemination of any scientific secret whatever is merely a matter of time. In this game a decade is a long time, and in the long run, there is no distinction between arming ourselves and arming our enemies.” Wiener shows a prophetic understanding of the nature of information, communication, and automated control of our environment. If you want a book that tells you about the future of the Internet, buy the one what was written in 1950.
Treating the Second Amendment as Normal Constitutional Law: “The modern American legal profession has been thoroughly acculturated to Max Weber's conception of the modern state as the monopolist of all legitimate force--a principle in tension with the private keeping of arms for self-defense.”

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Jerry

First, they came for the opium smokers, but the damn Chinks were taking too many jobs as it was. Then, they came for the cocaine users, but who cares about a bunch of niggers? They came for the marijuana users, but there were too many wetbacks coming over the border to worry about that. Finally, they came for the nicotine addicts. What’s a poor white boy to do? — Anonymous

Contents of Negative Space™ as a whole Copyright © 1994-2024 Jerry Stratton. Individual copyrights remain held by their respective authors unless they specify otherwise. Site titles, such as Negative Space, Strange Bedfellows, Biblyon Broadsheet, Highland Games, and FireBlade Coffeehouse are trademarks of Jerry Stratton.

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