Jack was my partner in publishing Zenger, "The Nation's Underground Newspaper" from 1987 to 1993, and the Iowa City node when we invented activism on the 'Net during anti-apartheid occupations on campuses in 1985. 

Short but ugly fight with nasal cancer.

Longer piece coming...

Hosted By: Madison Hempfest
When: Friday Oct 03, 2008
at 5:00 PM
Where Library Mall - State Capitol
Downtown
Madison, Wisconsin|50 53703
United States
Description:
Madison Hempfest

Click Here To View Event

Print the thing out, all 114 pages http://../56332p (pdf) and physically hand it to your Senators. Also print out Senator Feingold's list of Amendments http://feingold.senate.gov/issues_fisaamendments.html .

Best if you can say "I've read it, I expect you to take the time to do so yourself." For extra credit, take a highlighter to the printout and mark up the sections you consider problematic.

Bring an accomplice with a vidcam. An admission that they haven't and won't read the bill makes nice youtube, come re-election time.

How to find them? Start with their Senate and Campaign websites, and your Statye democratic party's site. Next, search Google News for "YourSenator'sname Parade" "YourSenator's name Barbeque" "YourSenator'sname Picnic" "YourSenator'sname fundraiser" If you don't get hits, make a Google Alert.

If you find a scheduled appearance, post in comments or message me.

There's a fastgrowing group on Senator obama's site, http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA

On Facebook, go to "Senator Obama - Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17961184023

Hosted By: Madison NORML and Is My Medicine Legal YET?
When: Thursday Mar 13, 2008
at 7:00 PM
Where: Glass Nickel Pizza (downstairs)
2916 Atwood Ave.
Madison, WI 53704
United States
Description:
Madison NORML and Is My Medicine Legal YET?

Click Here To View Event


Music Dank Midnights

Full column by Susan Lampert Smith: Time passing by Clinton generation

Finally, Clinton took the stage. I nudged her.

He 's cute, isn 't he?

She was diplomatic: He 's a very nice-looking older man...

Out on the sidewalk was someone else who remembered.

It was another graying Madison icon, marijuana activist Ben Masel, who was sandwiched by Secret Service guys in their sharp suits. Masel was holding up a sign that said, "Where 's Jacki 's medicine? "

The way Masel tells it, Jacki Rickert, who suffers from a painful connective tissue disorder, met Clinton on his 1992 bus trip through Wisconsin, and asked him to legalize marijuana for medical use. Clinton told her, in his husky drawl, I feel your pain.

But when he got into office, the president who didn 't inhale didn 't legalize medical marijuana. Jacki didn 't get her medicine. The rest of us who voted for him didn 't get our health-care reform.

How will the future play out for today 's Obama girls?

I do know this: After two hours on the cold concrete steps of the Stock Pavilion, I felt my own pain.

Where 's my medicine?

Just back from Bill Clinton's appearance at the historic Stock Pavilion on the University of Wisconsin Campus. When Gary Storck and I approached, we were directed across the street by the most polite pair of Secret Service agents i've ever dealt with, but, as it's a narrow street, not an unreasonable "Free Speech Zone."

Our signs referred to Bill's encounter, as a Candidate, with Jacki Rickert of Mondovi, Wisconsin in 1992. Jacki had been approved for the federal medical marijuana program, but not yet admitted when Bush I closed the program to new admissions in 1989. She caught up with Bill in Osseo on his post-Convention Mississippi River bus tour. After she explained her odyssey through the federal bureaucracy, Bill "I feel your pain" promised "When I'm President, you'll get your medicine."

Come the Inaugural, Jacki sent letters, made calls seeking fulfillment of that commitment, but got back only form letters. "if drugs were legal, my brother Roger would be dead."

Delivering on this promise would not have required action by the Congress, as the Controlled Substances Act does not prohibit medical use of Cannabis, rather, it requires a permit, issued at the discretion of the Secretary of HHS. At the time Jacki was blocked, there were 14 patients receiving medical marijuana from the government's pot farm in Mississippi. They were grandfathered in. 4 survive, and get monthly deliveries.

As Bill disembarked today, we caught his eye, and I was close enough to shout, "You promised Jacki Rickert you'd get her Medical Marijuana in 1992."

If I'm correctly reading body language, he turned to State Democratic Chair Joe Wineke, asking "what's that about?" Joe knows Jacki's story, he was around for the ceremony last fall on the introduction in the Wisconsin Assembly of the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act.

Gary's got photos at the Wisconsin NORML Blog

Please Help!

State Representatives Frank Boyle (D-Superior) and Mark Pocan (D-Madison) have announced plans to formally introduce the "Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act" seeking to protect Wisconsin Medical Marijuana patients from State prosecution. It is now being circulated for cosponsors which will be formally introduced and given a bill number in early October.

Ten years ago in September 1997, Rickert led 15 medical marijuana patients on a 210-mile wheelchair "Journey for Justice" from Mondovi to Madison, which reached the Capitol on Sept. 18, 1997. The 1997 Journey for Justice was dedicated to the memory of Jacki's late physician, William E. Wright, of Mondovi, who gained approval for her participation in a federal medical marijuana program only to see George Bush the elder close it to new patients in 1992.

Contact your Assembly Representative and State Senator, and ask them to sign on as co-sponsors by October 9th. During the week call the State Legislative Hotline Toll-free at: 1-800-362-9472, and they'll direct you to the appropriate offine, or you can send a pre-written letter via this link, but personal letters or phone calls are better. vote-smart.org is a nifty tool for identifying your legislators by zipcode.

Read more about the bill and last week's press conference at Wisconsin Radio Network.

Attorney General: (Statewide) Peg Lautenschlager, for pulling Wisconsin out of the MATRIX program, a multistate datamining operation run by Florida's Governor, Jeb Bush. Her opponent, Dane county Executive Kathleen Falk, lost points with me by banning electronic music from the Expo Center, buying into the Republicans' Ecstacy scares.

8th Congressional District (NE Wisconsin)map: I find things to like about all 3 Candidates in the Democratic Primary. The nod goes to "The Doctor," Steve Kagen. "Nobody should go to prison for marijuana." Kagen's also considered to have the best chance to keep current assembly Speaker John Gard out of the US Congress.

State Senate, District 31 Map(pdf)
Chris Danou faces off with Kathleen Vinehout in this West Central district for a chance to unseat Ron Brown in November. When wheelchair bound medical marijuana patient Jacki Rickert asked Vinehout how she'd vote on Medical Marijuana legislation, Vinehout launched into Jacki accusing her of being a Republican plant. Vote for Danou.

State Assembly District 73 (Douglas, Burnette, and northern Washburn Counties) map(pdf) Frank Boyle Frank's the only member of the Legislature brave enough to sign my nomination papers. Past sponsor of medical marijuana legislation.

89th Assembly District map Randy Koehn his Myspaceand email randy@votekoehn.com

Milwaukee County Sheriff: Incumbent David Clark is just plain nasty. I don't know much about challenger Vince Bobot, but he's got to be an improvement.

Get to the polls by 8:00, or you don't get to vote.

Wisconsin allows registration at the polls, bring along photo ID, and if your ID's not from your current (local) address, something else (lease, utility bill, dates snailmail) to prove you've been in the State for 10 days.

We don't have registation by Party, you can vote in any Party's Primary, but can only select candidates for all offices within one Party.

To find your polling place, call the City clerk, or check a local newspaper.

Felons get their voting rights back in Wisconsin automatically, upon completion of any probation, parole, or extended supervision.

Homeless folks have a right to vote. Use any address at which you can receive mail.

Second WPR Interview podcast Joy Cardin from August 30th, 7:00am. 1/2 hour

Weedstock organizer ignores long odds in bid to unseat Kohl by DINESH RAMDE Associated Press.

...Despite the long odds, Masel said he felt compelled to run after more electable Democrats failed to challenge the multimillionaire Kohl and "his bottomless treasury."

"I have more of a chance to win than someone who's not on the ballot," he said...

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