i really need to stop reading the washington post in the morning. every time i do, it seems i find reason to blog.

take this report being released today by the ondcp, finding that “teenagers who smoke marijuana put themselves at risk for future mental illness and higher rates of depression.” sounds scary! but the report also states that “too often teens do not seek treatment for their depression, choosing instead to seek relief by smoking marijuana. they do not realize that pot can make their problems worse and can set them up for serious health consequences.”

that’s right. the white house report says that depressed teenagers who don’t get treated have a higher likelihood of growing up to be depressed adults. i call that one for the file marked “duh.”

or take this gem:

The report also found that teenagers who smoke marijuana at least once a month are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than non-users. It said that even though the percentage of teens who are depressed is equal to the percentage of adults who say they are depressed, teenagers are more likely to seek solace in marijuana or other illicit drugs.

add that to the previous information and what you have is the following: teens who aren’t treated for depression are likely to have suicidal thoughts. the causality of marijuana just isn’t borne out in the analysis presented in the washington post article. by their logic, i can safely assert that home schooling leads to smoking pot from corpses’ heads. (and thanks, james, for that link. i was eating lunch.)

*sigh*

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in other news, also reported by the wapo, it seems the u.s. commission of fine arts has its nose out of joint because the working model of the new mlk jr. memorial features “a stiffly frontal image, static in pose, confrontational in character.”

heaven forbid a man who led marches, who packed the mall, and who - yes - confronted the racism in america be depicted in full frontal suitedness, arms crossed.

but what the commission is really bent about, apparently, is the artistic style of the proposed piece: the commission sec’y, thomas leubke, wrote that “the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries.”

call me crazy, but i don’t think the sculptures to which he’s referring (saddam, anyone?) were removed out of aesthetic concerns. and in demanding that the dr. king sculpture be altered to evoke the “works of sculptors such as michelangelo and rodin,” leubke is completely missing the appropriateness of depicting dr. king in the social realist style: art that “belongs to the people and to the land and not to the exclusionary cliques of art world elites.” it almost seems that despite being sec’y of the fine arts commission, leubke is unfamiliar with the wpa.

ed dwight, a denver sculptor, has said the sculpture doesn’t look like dr. king. now that seems to be a more valid criticism.