{"id":406,"date":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hippy.com\/hip\/uncategorized\/woodstock-was-not-stoned-on-starbucks\/"},"modified":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","slug":"woodstock-was-not-stoned-on-starbucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/guest-columns\/woodstock-was-not-stoned-on-starbucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Woodstock Was Not Stoned on Starbucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tTaking a stroll down memory lane I watched the movie, <strong>\u201cWoodstock<\/strong>\u201d<br \/>\nand also \u201c<strong>Taking Woodstock\u201d<\/strong> and <strong>\u201cAcross the Universe\u201d,<\/strong><br \/>\nall of which give a glimpse into the 60\u2019s spirit. The thing that<br \/>\nstrikes me more than anything else is the calmness of the people, all<br \/>\nthree hundred thousand of them. And I can\u2019t help but wonder if not<br \/>\nhaving a coffee craze then wasn\u2019t part of the reason there were so<br \/>\nmany \u2018good vibes\u2019 in the air. Caffeine is a Central Nervous<br \/>\nSystem (CNS) stimulant, causing the body to produce \u2018fight or<br \/>\nflight\u2019 neurotransmitters\u2014basically making the body ready<br \/>\nfor\u2026.action, for battle.<\/p>\n<p>In the 60\u2019s people walked slower and talked slower and, in general,<br \/>\nwere more mellow. Now everyone seems in a hurry, talks fast, is<br \/>\nsuper \u2018focused\u2019 and hyper. <u><strong>Starbucks is the drug of choice now,<\/strong><\/u><br \/>\ngiving a speedy counterweight to the antidepressants being swallowed<br \/>\ndaily. Just like the pot being sold today, today\u2019s coffee is much<br \/>\nhigher in its active ingredient. Which is one reason I won\u2019t smoke<br \/>\npot anymore, as the stuff today is so strong as to be able to sedate<br \/>\nan elephant.<\/p>\n<p>But coffee is another matter. I\u2019m a junkie, I confess. Any cosmic<br \/>\nconsciousness I had coming out of the sixties hs been replace with<br \/>\nhyper alertness and a readiness for\u2026action.<\/p>\n<p>I was Cosmic Man. Now I\u2019m <u><strong>Action Man<\/strong><\/u>, eyes alert, foot tapping,<br \/>\nmind hopping from one thing to the next.<\/p>\n<p>How much is this super-caffeinated \u2018lifestyle\u2019 affecting the body<br \/>\npolitic? There may be no way to quantify it precisely, but examining<br \/>\nthe effects of caffeine on the CNS is helpful.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mayoclinic.com\/health\/drug-information\/DR602089\/DSECTION=side-effects\">http:\/\/www.mayoclinic.com\/health\/drug-information\/DR602089\/DSECTION=side-effects<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCaffeine is the world&#8217;s most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but<br \/>\nunlike many other psychoactive substances it is legal and unregulated<br \/>\nin nearly all jurisdictions.\u201d (Wikipedia)<\/p>\n<p>Caffeine increases attentiveness and alertness but that begs the question:<br \/>\nwhat, exactly, do we have to be increasingly attentive and alert to<br \/>\nthat requires us to risk so much by consuming a psychoactive drug in<br \/>\never-increasing amounts? What, exactly, are we \u2018fighting and<br \/>\nflighting\u2019 from?<\/p>\n<p>Starbucks surely must rank high on the list of all time great drug pushers.<br \/>\nStarbucks sells its own drug\u2014caffeine\u2014and helps Big Pharma sell<br \/>\nbillions more in drugs to calm us down from all the caffeine<br \/>\nStarbucks sells.<\/p>\n<p>Posted by: Harrell Graham<br \/>\nViews: 8093<br \/>\nTopic:10\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking a stroll down memory lane I watched the movie, \u201cWoodstock\u201d and also \u201cTaking Woodstock\u201d and \u201cAcross the Universe\u201d, all of which give a glimpse into the 60\u2019s spirit. The thing that strikes me more than anything else is the calmness of the people, all three hundred thousand of them. And I can\u2019t help but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}