Hmmm, this sounds a little suspicious:

Several search-and-rescue groups collaborated today to rescue 10 sheriff's deputies stranded in the Skamania County wilderness Saturday night.

Skamania County Sheriff's deputies and Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force officers had removed more than 3,000 marijuana plants on the east side of Dog Mountain Saturday.

With some of them exhausted and dehydrated, the group decided to spend the night in the wilderness rather than hike out of the narrow gorge, said Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox. All but one of the 10 sheriff's deputies had been rescued by early this afternoon.

Yes, it's hard to imagine what ten deputies and 3,000 marijuana plants were doing all night out in the wilderness...

It seemed inevitable, didn't it? And, I suppose this is good news, at least according to hecklerspray.com:

Thank God for that - Amy Winehouse is finally in rehab. Don't get us wrong, we're not so personally invested in Amy Winehouse's private life that news of her rehab trip has left us overjoyed, but at least now she's bitten the bullet all the headline writers in the world can roll out those inevitable 'Amy Winehouse In Rehab: Yes, Yes, Yes' headlines that they've been keeping on hold since Amy Winehouse had a drug overdose last week. Seriously, this is like Christmas for those chaps.

But on a more serious note, it seems to me that there is a larger celebrity trend emerging here. In the past we were content to let our troubled celebrities drive themselves to early graves with over-the-top debauchery. But now if a celeb gets one little DUI or drug-binge stomach pump or racially insensitive druken rant, they have to go to rehab. The upside of this is that fewer celebrities will die of overdoses, sparing us the lukewarm sentiments reserved for recent famous flame-outs like Chris Farley or Lane Staley. Looking back, it's been over a decade since River Phoenix went down outside the Viper room, and celebrities seem to have wised up a little since then. The result: it's not better to burn out than fade away; go to rehab now and live to party another day...

Hijinks ensue when James Kent and the staff of Trip magazine get tired of the publishing racket, and decide to put on a psychedelic musical. (Watch for a cameo by NYC art star Reverend Jen!) From the drug comedy DVD Tales From The Tripside.

Starting in mid-September, Erik Davis is teaching an online course via the Maybe Logic Academy. Entitled "The Crazy Wisdom of Philip K. Dick," the course does not look to be your typical dry literary analysis:

Once a purely cult figure, Philip K. Dick ( 1928-1982) is now widely recognized as a pulp visionary of the highest order. This course will approach his work not so much as science fiction but as crazy wisdom. We’ll explore how his texts seem designed to illuminate our posthuman problems and our most ancient philosophical questions — and to then scramble those insights with a cheap ray gun. We will read two of Dick’s major novels, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and VALIS, both chosen for their heavy gnostic themes. We will discuss drugs and archons and machines that break down, including, possibly, yourself. We will also explore the two greatest examples of the many PKD movies to date, the "new" Blade Runner version and A Scanner Darkly — further evidence that Dick’s spirit will only continue to permeate the culture at large.

If you happen to find yourself in or near Eugene, Oregon, before the end of August, you might want to wander over to the Fenario Gallery, to check out a show by psychedelic painter Robert Venosa:

It is the revelatory quality in Venosa's painting that one finds so intriguing. His world is a world of mysteries and secrets - but we have the sense that in some elusive way the artist is sharing these secrets with us, even if we are unable to fully grasp the portents he is presenting. Venosa paints the astral imagery of inner space. His crystalline goddesses, effulgent landscapes and liquid skies strike a deep chord because they seem to resonate with our yearning for dreams, visions and sacred knowledge. And Venosa's art also reveals an astonishing affinity with sensory textures and translucent forms - his imagery literally enfolds you with its magical power. It seems to me that Venosa has his own unique style - his paintings are immediately recognizable. They speak to us in a special way, and they take us somewhere that we have perchance forgotten: to a domain inhabited by spirits, gods and elementals. A cosmic terrain which lives on in the language of our dreams.

If you can't make it to Eugene, the Fenario Gallery's web site offers an online version of the show. And if that's not enough, Venosa's personal web site is worth a tour as well, which I enjoyed especially for his reminiscences of time spent with Salvador Dali.

Hey, in case you were curious, here's a nice tidbit about why those cigarettes feel so damn good going in, even if they wreak havoc later on. You may remember it's not just tobacco that goes into those slender little cancer sticks. No sir, and in fact, a recent study takes a look at how cigarette additives are adding to the addictive potential and disguising the damage:

Researchers investigated tobacco industry documents and other sources for evidence of possible pharmacological and chemical effects of tobacco additives. The study found that 100 of the 599 documented cigarette additives had pharmacological actions that camouflage the negative impact of smoke in the environment by masking odor, visibility and irritation (without equivalent efforts to decrease the harmful effects of second-hand smoke); enhance or maintain nicotine delivery; and mask symptoms and illnesses associated with smoking behaviors (many botanical and other additives have anesthetic, antibacterial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antifungal and antiviral properties).

When I first read this, my initial reaction was, "Duh," but I guess it's nice to see it totally spelled out by the efforts of science.

The Toronto Star recently ran a sidebar on a Bergman/Antonioni retrospective, showcasing long-lived figures in the arts. The first nine artists cover a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds: 92-year-old Les Paul, who "pioneered the solid-body electric guitar" that rock music depended on for years; 91-year-old actress Olivia de Havilland, who's been in show business since 1935; 93-year-old screenwriter Budd Schulberg, who won an Oscar for On The Waterfront; etc. But who should top off this already excellent list?

Albert Hofman [sic], 101. Not strictly an artist, but this European scientist's creation of LSD in 1938 made acid rock, Robert Crumb and other '60s innovations possible. Here's a one-hour NFB documentary on him.

We'll forgive the misspelling of Hofmann's name for the insight to include him on this list in the first place. It's hardly an understatement to credit Hofmann's influence on several generations of artists across multiple disciplines, thanks to his precipitous discovery of LSD. I realize this is not the place for another one of my "LSD is a performance-enhancing substance!" rants, but... well, those rants continue to lurk just around the corner, and for good reason. Aaaaanyway...

This documentary clip highlights Richard Alpert's philosophy about the intricacies of the psychedelic experience. He's so articulate and so thoughtful that it's a shame he wasn't more of a spokesperson for the movement, although it's understandable that his ideas aren't as easily reduced to pop slogans. It's also clear that he is already well on the way to his transformation into Ram Dass, even if he himself isn't yet aware of it.

Oh sure, everyone knows that the rich live on a totally different plane of existence. But every now and then, it's just dandy to get a tangible, solid reminder of what life is like for those with far too much money on their hands. Witness the tale of "a Middle Eastern businessman" on a rampage: you could argue the guy might have been on an expense account, but really, I'm having a hard time imagining turning in these receipts.

The unnamed big spender entered Crystal [a London club] at midnight on Saturday with friends -- nine women and eight men -- and ordered a $50 (24 pound) bottle of white wine, a spokesman for the club said.

But before long he was ordering magnums of Dom Perignon at $1,400 each and then called for a Methuselah -- eight bottles in one -- of Cristal Champagne at $60,000 and the party spread.

The festivities ended with a "night cap" consisting of a Methuselah of Belvedere vodka, which cost $2,800. "He basically just said, 'keep the drinks flowing,'" the club spokesman said.

When the party left at 5 a.m., the bill was 81,471.50 pounds, which with tax and service added amounted to 105,805.28 pounds [$213,800]. It included the cost of six Coca-Colas.

If you're a smoker, apparently you don't even have to try a "smoking cessation product" to get some positive health benefits. A recent study demonstrated that merely being exposed to advertisements for smoking cessation products had "spillover effects" that led to an increased likelihood of quitting smoking.

Using databases on the consumer behavior and magazine-reading habits of 28,303 current or former smokers and advertising data in 26 consumer magazines, Mathios and three Cornell colleagues explored the impact of advertising of smoking-cessation products on quitting decisions. They found that although some of the increased quitting behavior involves buying smoking-cessation products, just seeing the ads make it more likely that smokers will try to quit. "Thus, the public health returns to smoking-cessation product advertisements exceed the private returns to the manufacturers," write the researchers.

Independent of the impact of advertising, smokers who do not read any magazines are less likely to try to quit, while smokers who read magazines that refuse cigarette ads or who read specialty magazines related to parenting or health are more likely to attempt to quit, the researchers reported.

They also calculated that if the smoking-cessation product industry increased its average annual spending on magazine advertising by about $2.6 million or 10 percent, the average smoker would see 2.1 more ads each year; according to their calculations, this would translate to about 80,000 additional quits each year. About 45 million people in the United States now smoke.

And of course, if the smoking-cessation product industry increased its average annual spending by about $400 zillion, the whole planet will become a healthy utopian paradise of love and delight... because what any industry wants to do is spend money on advertising that doesn't even require consumers to try the product to get a benefit. Ah well; the good news is, it isn't just smokers who stand to benefit:

Mathios noted that the results of this study may also apply to other types of pharmaceutical advertising. For example, when patients discuss with their physicians an advertised drug that lowers cholesterol, physicians will often recommend such health behavior changes as diet and exercise, creating a positive spillover effect from the advertising.

This whole scenario is just so weird. I thought the only thing that could change the behavior of the average American is a hurricane or a flood. Who knew!