Len Bias is drugs
If Len Bias were still alive, he would be turning 50 years old this year. Hard to believe, but it's been 27 years since the college basketball standout died of cardiac arrhythmia brought on by an overdose of cocaine. He's died a million times again as the national poster boy for the dangers of drug use, and anti-drug warriors are battling to keep him that ever longer, recently staving off a legislative effort in his home town in Maryland to erect a statue of him. The warriors' mission, it seems, is to make sure that the man never be remembered for anything other than his drug use.The legacy of Bias is a sad one, and it's not just his death. It's the life of the anti-drug hysteria that grew up in its wake-- mandatory prison sentences for recreational use, the institutional re-enslavement of African-American males via the national penal system, the epic failure of the national D.A.R.E. program (founded, lest we forget, by paramilitary thug Daryl Gates of the Los Angeles Police Department), the loss of all perspective on performance-enhancing and performance-altering drugs in the sports world and beyond. Author Dan Baum called Bias "the Archduke Ferdinand of the Total War on Drugs." It's been a wild 27 years, ain't it?
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Frasier Crane enjoyed life on television for two decades. As a breakout character on the long-running, wildly-popular Cheers, he moved into an 11-year run at the head of his own series. But was his really a success story? Stephen Winchell of Splitsider argues that it wasn't, but instead a case of epic personal regression. Some people are healthier belly-up to the bar.
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Frasier Crane enjoyed life on television for two decades. As a breakout character on the long-running, wildly-popular Cheers, he moved into an 11-year run at the head of his own series. But was his really a success story? Stephen Winchell of Splitsider argues that it wasn't, but instead a case of epic personal regression. Some people are healthier belly-up to the bar.
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Quote of the day: Jack Donaghy, on 30 Rock, "I remember when Bravo used to air operas."
posted by CM @ 7:22 PM
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