Ep. 113 Britney Griner; Psychiatric Psychedelics; to what Subculture do you subscribe?

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Modern Moron…

I did say I have an episode coming with a seminarian in the Catholic church, and I do.  This episode is the last half of my previous conversation with the Senator when I dropped out of it because I felt the need to address some science issues that we seem to be ignoring right now that place the economy as more important that the planet we live on and the resources that are becoming more rapidly scarce, namely water and oxygen.  

This conversation contains the beautiful faux paux from the Senator when he cannot remember the name of Brittney Griner, the WNBA player who is currently sentenced to 9 years in a  Russian prison for possession of  vaporizer cartridges containing less than a gram of hash oil.  She had been prescribed medicinal cannabis in Arizona, and it is illegal in Russia.

The Senator’s take is that if you’re going to travel, know the rules.  Also, he’s never heard of Brittney Griner and who cares about her and we shouldn’t be trading a no name for an apparently notorious arms dealer.   That’s a valid point I think.

But to say Brittney Griner is a no name just because I’ve never heard of her doesn’t make her a no name.  Between Brittney Griner and me, I think I qualify as the no name.  But i think it does speak to the subculture we live in, and there are many.  What is your subculture?  Do you even think about it?  Or do we think of it as a mainstream culture?  My subculture is that I’m an aging white male… hell that’s not a subculture!  That’s as mainstream culture as you can get!  But I also live in a subculture of music as I was in the music entertainment business as a “DJ” for a stretch of time, so names that are familiar to me may not be familiar to you unless we share that subculture.  And if you’re in it, you don’t think of it as a subculture.  If I say I’m a big fan of John Paul Jones, you may think I’m a history buff.  But I’m referring to the legendary bassist… and keyboardist… of Led Zeppelin.  And I consider him, Jack Bruce, Getty Lee to have transcended the traditional roles of their instruments.  What instrument?  A scalpel?  Are they famous surgeons?  Let’s throw in Paul McCartney.  Okay, there’s a point of reference we can all sink our teeth into.

So Brittney Griner is not a household name, depending on the subcultures we subscribe to.  And I would say if you are in the huge College Sports Industry, even on an administrative level, you know who Britney Griner is.  I don’t, but she is legendary in her profession.  Unfortunately, her profession doesn’t put as many asses in the seats as it would if she were male, where she would command a higher… salary.  Back to money again.

I could go on and on about her accomplishments on the court.  She’s a phenomenal women’s basketball player.  But what I think makes her such a high value trade for the Russians is that she checks a lot of boxes that are very sensitive in American culture today and there are a lot of boxes these days.  Among those boxes: she’s a woman, she’s a woman of color and she is among the LGBTQ community.  Those are all high profile, high sensitivity issues… if you’re a democrat or a liberal.  But if you’re a tried and true conservative… do you honestly care about any of those?  I mean behind closed doors.  Of course publicly you’d give lip services to them but c’mon, just between you and me… do you give a rat’s ass about any of that stuff?

Final note on Britney Griner… she does have someone in her corner that is going over to Russia to advocate for her release and he’s no stranger to snuggling up to communist leaders.  That’s right folks, NBA Hall of Famer, reality TV star, and body piercing world champion Dennis Rodman has received permission to travel to Russia to help seek Griner’s release.  "I got permission to go to Russia to help that girl," said Rodman.  I don’t understand the  “permission” part of it as he doesn’t need special permission from the U.S. to enter Russia — just a visa from Moscow.  You may remember Rodman’s trips to North Korea to meet with leader, dictator and local sycophant, Kim Jung Un just to hang out, maybe shoot some hoops.

And that’s as cutting edge topical as this podcast gets.  

We also talk about mushrooms!  And not the kind you saute and put on a steak.  I’m talking about yummy for your brain psychedelic mushrooms and their legitimate use in clinical trial programs to treat every kind of PTSD, depression, anxiety, cancer, addiction… the list goes on as to the medicinal benefits of psilocybin, the active molecule in these mushrooms.

And in these trials they are measuring the presence of conditions not normally measured or considered with other types of medicine.  There was, and perhaps still is, a clinical study at Johns Hopkins University Hospital using psilocybin where they have a questionnaire that can determine if a patient had what is termed a “mystical experience”.  Questions like the following:

1. During your experience did you feel: 
2. 1. An experience of amazement
   2. Feelings of tenderness and gentleness
   3. Feelings of peace and tranquility
   4. Experience of ecstasy 
   1. Freedom from the feelings of personal self 
   2. A sense of unity or one-ness of all things
   3. Pure being and pure awareness
   4. The fusion of your personal self with a larger whole
   5. A feeling that you experienced something profoundly sacred
3. From a mystical sense did you experience:

Before you call me a hippy tree hugging liberal… I want to suggest a fascinating limited series on Netflix which is based on a book called “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence” by author and host of the show Michael Pollan.

I want to play you a short excerpt from the 2nd episode on psilocybin, where Pollan asks a patient, who I bring up later in this episodes, some of the questions on a mystical experience I mentioned .  The patient is right in our demographic and she is dealing with cancer.  She is a devout catholic and you will hear her mention Mary in this clip.  She is referring to the virgin Mary:

Earlier in her life, this woman  experienced a miscarriage which affected her deeply.  She worked through it and hadn’t thought about it for decades.  And in her psilocybin experience, she said she had an encounter with Mary who told her not to worry because she- the Virgin Mary-  had that child the whole time.  Pretty profound… if that testimonial doesn’t make you curious enough to watch the episode regardless of your faith practice, I don’t know what will… other than my enlightened endorsement of course.  

You obviously shouldn’t take my word for it on this and the host, Michael Pollan, doesn’t want you to take his word for it either.  Professor Robin Carhart-Harris is a neuro-psycho-pharmacologist… let’s hear the Senator pronounce that.  And he looks at and measures the effects of psychedelics on the brain and can they be useful… 

There is also reference to The default mode network of the brain, which I had to look up.  This part of the brain is potentially the neurological basis for the self, meaning:

• Autobiographical information or Memories of events and facts about your self
• Self-reference: Referring to traits and descriptions of yourself
• Emotion of one's self: Reflecting about your own emotional state

The default mode network is also involved in how you Think about others or:

• Thinking about the thoughts you have of others and what they might or might not know
• Understanding the emotions of other people and empathizing with their feelings
• Moral reasoning: Determining a just and an unjust result of an action
• Social evaluations: Good-bad attitude judgments about social concepts

Obviously this is a gaping rabbit hole and I hope you find it interesting and will watch “How to Change Your Mind” on Netflix.

We pick up our conversation with the Britney Griner conversation and The Senator’s mis-recollection of her name.  Thanks for listening to another episode of the Modern Moron!

CLOSE -  Okay, there will be a new segment on this show for a while… we’ll call it Moron Chaplaincy.  

 “But for the grace of God, go I”, the phrase can be traced back to a mid-sixteenth-century statement by John Bradford, "There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford", in reference to a group of prisoners being led to execution.  Bradford was an English Reformer in the 1500’s and you can look him up if you want beyond that.

I guess I failed to mention in the opening that we had a little reference to Caitlin Jenner, when we were talking about Britney Griner.  It’s difficult to keep track of all the stupid things we say.  And how about Wayne Gretzky as a hockey reference?  He hasn’t played hockey since 1999.  Both a tribute to Gretzky’s greatness and to our stupidity. 

Thank you to the Senator for being one of the pillars of the Moron Empire, best of luck to Dennis Rodman in Russia, and good luck to all of us in our search for enlightenment.  See you next time.

"How To  Change Your Mind" Ep. 2: Psilocybin - Netflix 

Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance - Johns Hopkins Hospital

Default mode network of the brain - Wikipedia