Power To The People

I believe the rebirth of class consciousness in the United States -- and across the world -- is one of the most important political events of my life.

I believe that this new dawning of economic awareness will inevitably lead to empowerment of those who, heretofore, have been largely shut out of the rewards system due to oligarchic greed on the part of our right-wing corporate masters, the 1%.

And I believe that part of this new dawning of consciousness will be the realization -- on the part of the working class -- that they have been egregiously and cynically betrayed by Fox News, a tool of the corporate oligarchs who, until now, have been able to hold the masses in subjugation through exploiting fear, prejudice, and hatred.

If you are part of the 1% which controls the agenda of Fox News, your days are numbered. Change soon come.

Seems Legit

Alrighty then!

Here's the brief story of how this blog, Reality Catcher, led to my gig with Village Voice Media, first with SF Weekly, then Toke of the Town and Seattle Weekly.

Teabaggers Have A Short Memory

 Visit Seattle PI cartoonist David Horsey's site

Here's What The Tea Party Is REALLY Saying

"Don't Tread On Me."

Instead, tread on: the poor, the unemployed, the uninsured, the gays, the Muslims, the Hispanics, the lower/working classes, the liberals and progressives, basically, everybody but us, because we're rich and white.

We Are The 99%

http://www.occupywallst.org/

http://www.occupytogether.org

It's time.

Hurricane Irene, Meet Biological Weapons Facility.

There are some very good reasons to hope the current predictions of Hurricane Irene weakening are true.

One of these is the fact that a U.S. government biological weapons facility, Plum Island, is in the direct path of the storm.

Note that this disquieting fact has so far escaped the attention of our mainstream media.

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-02/entertainment/lab.257_1_plum-island-lab-germ-warfare?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ

Washington Farmer's Market: Power To The Patients

Photo by Tony Wells

I'm convinced this is the future of medical marijuana access.

I love the Washington Farmer's Market, and what a beautiful place to hold it on the day this was filmed -- Hoodsport is a gorgeous little town.

The type of patient empowerment represented by farmer's markets like this is a beautiful thing.

Big kudos to the incredible Sarena Haskins for bringing safe access to patients who would otherwise suffer. Thanks to the rockin' Tony Wells for the video!

Forty Seconds of My Hempfest Speech

SAM_0507 a video by finkmoney on Flickr.

Thanks to finkmonkey for the footage!

OK, Now I'm Impressed.

Michele Bachmann eats a foot-long corn dog at the Iowa State Fair... her masterful technique is undeniably a thing of terrible beauty.

Let's take a moment, shall we?

(Photo: Tony Harnden)

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100100848/fried-food-and-retail-politics-at-the-iowa-state-fair/

This Bong Hit's For You, China.

The People's Republic of China had never really done anything for me until this week.

But then, man oh man, did they make up for lost time!

They refused to do the binding on my upcoming cannabis book, The Little Black Book of Marijuana, thus starting a tsunami of publicity that money couldn't have bought for the tome.

Thank you, China!

The Atlantic Wire: Chinese Censors Prohibit Printing of U.S. Pot Writer's Book

Seattle Weekly: China Censors Seattle Weekly Columnist Steve Elliott's New Book, Throwing Off Worldwide Distribution By Weeks

The Weed Blog: China Censors The Printing Of Marijuana Activist Steve Elliott's New Book

Little Black Book of Marijuana Rises 600,000 Spots Overnight At Amazon

I'll take it as a good sign that my book The Little Black Book of Marijuana: The Essential Guide to Cannabis, which prints Monday, August 1, 2011, rose 649,000 spots on Amazon's rankings overnight.

(First screen shot above, taken the night of July 30; second screen shot taken the morning of July 31.)

The book ranked #692,613 on July 30, and had risen to #43,694 on July 31.

Grab it at Amazon, at BarnesandNoble.com, or at your favorite local independent bookstore -- it's available worldwide. If they don't have it, they can get it!

Y'all Gotta See My New Checks

I'm not a check-using person. Normally, I conduct all my banking online. But since the IRS isn't into that type of thing, I was forced to cough up 40 bucks or so to buy a batch of the old-fashioned, paper kind.

So, I think, "Hell. Might as well get some cool ones."

Oh, about that "So many weeds, so little time" slogan. They offered a whole slew of slogans to choose from, divided up into categories. So I went straight (OK, I went stoned) to the "Gardening" section and found that one, supposedly intended for the "pulling weeds OUT of my garden" variety of gardener instead of the "planting weed IN my garden" variety...

Six Weeks Until 'The Little Black Book of Marijuana'

My book, The Little Black Book of Marijuana: The Essential Guide to the World of Cannabis is coming out in August.

As listed in the current catalog of Peter Pauper Press:

This concise guide to cannabis provides the essentials of cultivating, using, and cooking with weed; identifying the many varieties of pot; and understanding legal and health issues. This Little Black Book also delves into pot culture and history, from Herodotus to the hippies, from the rise of the medical marijuana movement to decriminalization. Includes full-color photographs of marijuana varieties. Steve Elliott is a journalist and editor of the Village Voice Media blog Toke of the Town: Cannabis Culture News and Views.

What I have to add to that is that, given the size constraint of 20,000 words, I packed in as much cannabis lore as I possibly could! And had a great time doing it.

You can pre-order The Little Black Book of Marijuana at Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and just about every major retailer, as well as at your local independent bookstore.