What the US government has to say about alcohol

What We Have to Say About Legalizing Alcohol

By: Gil Kerlikowske

When the President took office, he directed all of his policymakers to develop policies based on science and research, not ideology or politics. So our concern about alcohol is based on what the science tells us about the drug's effects.

According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world's largest source of drug abuse research - alcohol use is associated with addiction, sleep disorders, increased risk for cancer, and motor vehicle accidents. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that alcohol use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that binge drinking alcohol remains common on college campuses, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health – especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20's. Simply put, it is not a benign drug.

Like many, we are interested in the potential alcohol may have in lowering the risk of coronary heart disease for individuals. That is why we ardently support ongoing research into determining what components of alcohol can be used as medicine. To date, however, neither the FDA nor the Institute of Medicine have found alcohol consumption to meet the modern standard for safe or effective medicine for any condition.

As a former police chief, I recognize we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem. We also recognize that legalizing alcohol would not provide the answer to any of the health, social, youth education, criminal justice, and community quality of life challenges associated with drug use.

That is why the President's National Drug Control Strategy is balanced and comprehensive, emphasizing prevention and treatment while at the same time supporting innovative law enforcement efforts that protect public safety and disrupt the supply of drugs entering our communities. Preventing drug use is the most cost-effective way to reduce drug use and its consequences in America. And, as we've seen in our work through community coalitions across the country, this approach works in making communities healthier and safer. We're also focused on expanding access to drug treatment for addicts. Treatment works. In fact, millions of Americans are in successful recovery for drug and alcoholism today. And through our work with innovative drug courts across the Nation, we are improving our criminal justice system to divert non-violent offenders into treatment.

Our commitment to a balanced approach to drug control is real. This last fiscal year alone, the Federal Government spent over $10 billion on drug education and treatment programs compared to just over $9 billion on drug related law enforcement in the U.S.

Thank you for making your voice heard. I encourage you to take a moment to read about the President's approach to drug control to learn more. source

 48 hour film II

We'd made a movie and even won, but we weren't terribly happy with the final result, so we had to do it again and more importantly, we had to do it again on a weekend which we both had free. This time we felt like we had a grasp on what we were doing. We had all the equipment we needed to make a good movie, we had no shortage of ideas and we had some more people interested (almost all of them ended up canceling). About the only thing we had planned was that I wanted to do something with split screen, since A. I had written a plugin in Blender which does it and B. I remain deeply enamored with the opening of grifters.

The subject was love, the only actor we knew we had was Marek and so within 5 minutes both Shanti and I had the exact same idea for a movie. This time we actually needed a script including an over the top monologue about love which took us several hours and some Scotch to finish.

There were three roles to play and we were prepared to step in and play them ourselves but fortunately at the last minute we were able to get Kaya and Lena and Jonas, who didn't appear but who became our one man production team and helped us a lot.

We had a long shot list but no real idea where to shoot them all, so we did a lot of excessive running around and every once in a while I'd yell stop and make Marek walk back and forth in front of the camera in different costumes. Fortunately Shanti kept a list so that we knew when we had enough material. We ended up shooting waaaaaay long, but at least we finished with enough shots to cut the movie together.

I think the idea we had was good and the movie works, but unfortunately we delivered it too late to be considered in the competition. So where did we go wrong? Let me count the ways: First, we shot in too many bloody locations. When you only have 48 hours to shoot, you either need to know exactly where you're shooting and what, or you need to scale back. One of the contest rules was that the piece has to unquestionably take place in the district of Berlin they specify, but we went a little overboard shooting all over the bloody place. As a result we didn't even have all the material on the computer until close to midnight. Second, we didn't think out our setups very well. Our actors were basically improving their lines based on directions we gave them, so to make it match we shot with two cameras. The cameras didn't match very well and we forgot to sync at the beginning which became a headache in post. Third, we didn't give enough instruction. I basically just let out actors read through our script, improv their own words and shot the result, only stopping them if they did something really wrong. I think they did a great job, but we ended up capturing their practice and several takes, all with slightly different dialog. This made editing a nightmare. Sometimes more is not better, especially when you have a tight deadline. Fourth, I messed up the settings. I tried to export at full HD in H.264. With all the effects and corrections I added, even for a short movie it took close to 2 hours to render.

So, the movie was shown out of contention, but I'm at least happy with the result. We still hope to clean it up, add music and hopefully it will become something quite good. At the very least though, I learned a lot from this film. I learned a lesson in organization and I also learned a lot about direction (mostly in the direction of "what I should have done differently"). Because we're still learning the process of making the film in the first place, we couldn't take as much time as we should have for our actors. We were fortunate that we ended up with some very naturally talented actors who were very patient with us.

Anyway, the final film as it was delivered (40 minutes late) can be downloaded here (1920x1080 305MB)

 My mic pole

As I write this we've competed in the 48 hour film contest 3 times. Basically, I'm using it as my film school, so each time I try to focus on something different. The first time we were just trying to make a film, any film. For the next film I wanted to focus on sound a little more. On our first movie we just wired Shanti with a lapel mic. Since the genre was documentary that worked just fine, but now needed a mic pole. What is a mic pole you ask? Well it's litterally a pole with a shock mount on the end of it used to hold a microphone. You use it to hold the microphone over your actors, as close to their mouths as possible to get the best sound. They're expensive to buy, but do a quick google search and you'll find dozens of diy projects. This is how I made mine.

I think the pictures speak for themselves so I'll keep my descriptions brief.
The raw materials: a screw, some pvc pipe, four o-rings and an expandable painter's pole.
Total cost: about 9 Euros.
I marked everything with a permanent marker and drilled the corners so I could get the saw in place. I just guessed on the ring width. On the final version I ended up with 2cm even, any less and it might not be stable enough but I wanted to make them as small as possible to avoid echo. I kept the detachable paintroller and just muscled off the handle. This means that the shock mount is detachable which means it can be used hand held which is great when we're getting background audio. The shock mount is fastened to the handle with the bolt and by good luck they're a pretty good fit.

Conclusion: I've used this quite a bit and so far it's served me well. It dampens handling noise very well, but the o-rings are a little tight so that if it's shaken too much, a slight twang can be heard on the mic. However, in practice this has never made it's way onto the recording.

 48 hour film I

Hello to all my loyal readers (all 3 of you). As anyone who sees me semi-regularly knows, my latest obsession hobby is film making.

Before I left on my trip around the world last year I acquired a fair amount of pretty nice film equipment. We did try to film the trip, but not with any great success (a video of the trip is in the works, but don't hold your breath). Still, what's the point of having the gear if you're not going to use it? So, I entered in a 48 hour film contest. On Friday night they tell you the genre and then on Sunday night all the films premier. Trying to do this even a few years ago would have been a challenge (not that it's easy), but the cost of entry has gone down so much that most of the films are actually surprisingly good. You can check out some of the past videos on the website: shoot and run

I've done two now, so I'm a little late writing about it. I found out about the contest on a Tuesday while looking for a new flat, decided to do it even though I didn't have the time and tried to sucker as many friends as possible into joining. In the end thought, although making a 5 minute film in 48 hours is hard enough, Shanti could only join Friday night and most of Saturday, Anne and Mario helped for a few hours on Saturday and I had to leave to see places on Saturday and Sunday (I was still frantically looking for a new place to live after all.)

Our goal was to make a film at all. We had a vague idea of what we were doing, sort of a list of scenes and a motto that "we have the take!" which led to several scenes with no audio. a couple more with no sync and several where the camera was never actually turned on. The result is a deeply silly film which I'd like to share with you now. The finished film, as shown on Sunday 20 March can be seen here [1280x720 229MB].

And the contest you ask? Well, somehow we won the jury prize, mostly by default. There were two other films which I thought were actually better, but we happened to be the only team which followed the rules. The jury just about apologized for giving us first, also I think they were on drugs. But whatever the reason, they can't take it away now. Anyway, enjoy, the next one's better.

 Das war's