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Hemp History Week: Ending the War on George Washington's Favorite Crop

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"The main goal [of Hemp History Week] is to try to bring back hemp farming in the United States again," explains Eric Streenstra, President of the nonprofit advocacy group Vote Hemp.

Once hailed as a "New Billion Dollar Crop" by Poplar Mechanics, hemp farming was effectively shut down in the United States over confusion with its genetic cousin, marijuana. Though hemp carries no psychoactive properties, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act defined hemp a a narcotic and that wording was subsequently adopted into the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Current laws allow the importation of industrial hemp from outside the U.S., leading to an ever expanding list of hemp related products, but denies would be hemp-farmers the ability to grow industrial hemp on American soil.

Steenstra sat down with Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie to discuss the legislative fight to lift the ban on cultivation, hemp's long history in America, and why hemp lube is just one of the many benefits associated with the plant.

Approximately 4.48 minutes.

Camera by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Joshua Swain.

A. Barton Hinkle on hemp.

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Zack Wahls, His Two Moms, & The Future of Same-Sex Marriage

Wed, 30 May 2012 09:00:00 EDT

What's the most persistent myth about being raised by gay parents? "That you are a child abuse victim," says Zach Wahls, author of the new book, My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength and What Makes a Family.

Wahls became an internet sensation after a video of him defending his mothers' same-sex marriage was uploaded to YouTube. His 2011 testimony before the Iowa House Judiciary Committee has racked up over 18 million views and led to appearances on The Daily Show, Letterman, Ellen, and many other places.

Now comes My Two Moms, in which the 20-year-old University of Iowa engineering student explains what it's like to grow up as a child as the child of same-sex parents and uses the lessons he learned as an Eagle Scout to talk about why marriage equality should be the law of the land.

Wahls sat down with Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie to discuss why his childhood was a lot like yours, the mainstreaming of same-sex marriage, and Obama's "evolving" views on the subject.

About 7 minutes.

Interview by Nick Gillespie. Camera by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain; edited by Swain.

For more Reason coverage on LBGT issues, click here.

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Lucy Steigerwald Confiscated Cell Phones at an Obama Donor Dinner with Alyona

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 EDT

Reason Associate Editor Lucy Steigerwald discusses moms spraying Lysol on dancing teens, George Lucas building low income housing, and the Obama campaign confiscating donors' cell phones on the Alyona Show's Happy Hour. Airdate: May 15, 2012.

6.34 minutes.

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Journalist Sam Slovick on Occupy LA: Scenes From a New Revolution

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:00:00 EST

"People say, 'What do these people want?, 'Where is the list of demands?' You know, it's like an embryonic movement," says journalist and filmmaker Sam Slovick. "You can't throw a crayon into daVinci's baby crib and tell him to paint the Mona Lisa, it's not there yet?"

Slovick is the writer and director of the documentary Occupy LA: Scenes from the New Revolution, a five part series produced by Take Part and Slake. He sat down with Reason.com's managing editor, Tim Cavanaugh, to talk about the documentary, how Occupy LA became the largest occupation, and the difference in media coverage between the Occupy movement and the Tea Party.

Approximately 9:36 min.

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MTV's Kurt Loder and Kennedy Talk A Libertarian Year in Review

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST

MTV VJ and Reason Magazine contributor Kurt Loder joined fellow VJ Kennedy and Fox Business' John Stossel to discuss same-sex marriage, medical marijuana, Sesame Street and other libertarian stories from 2011.

Approximately 8 minutes.

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Former MTV VJ and Radio Host Kennedy on Medical Marijuana, The Politics of Alt Rock, and How She Went From Conservative to Libertarian

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EDT

"Social conservatism was really bringing me down," says former MTV VJ and current host of Music in the Morning on 98.7 FM Kennedy. "And I realized, as time went on, that I wasn't a Bush conservative. I was really a libertarian."

Kennedy sat down with Reason.tv's Tim Cavanaugh to discuss efforts by the ATF to prevent gun vendors from selling firearms to medical marijuana users, the strain of right-wing political thinking running throughout alt-rock and punk of the '80s and '90s, what it's like working in Hollywood when you're not a liberal, and her political evolution from conservative to libertarian.

Interview by Tim Cavanaugh. Shot by Zach Weissmueller, Tracy Oppenheimer, and Sharif Matar. Edited by Weissmueller.

About 10 minutes long. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel for automatic notification when new material goes live online.

Remy's Occupy Wall Street Protest Song

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EDT

As the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads like a, well, financial contagion through global markets, intergalactic Internet sensation Remy and Reason.tv give the movement its anthem.

Written and performed by Remy and produced by Meredith Bragg.

About 2.45 minutes. Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get automatic updates when new material goes live.

For Reason's coverage of Occupy Wall Street, including video coverage from lower Manhattan, go here.

Follow Reason on Twitter.

For more Remy & Reason.tv vids, go here.

For even more Remy, go to his YouTube channel.

Lyrics to the "Occupy Wall Street Protest Song"

Come gather round people
come and join your hands
we're taking Wall Street
and we're making demands
and we're heeding the call
and we're crying for help
only 1% of us have wealth

but first we need posters
we need to make signs
but to do so it seems
that we need some supplies

We need poster board
I can't make it myself
but it's 10 cents a sheet
at the store it's on sale
an example of economies of scale
it's so evil

They're saying that freedom
has done little to stop
Corporations from keeping
the wealth at the top
But at what point in history
would a kid and a king
both have clean water to drink?

George Washington was
the richest man of his age
But he lost all his teeth
at a very young age
Because they didn't have Scope
and they all crapped in trays
we're not wealthy?

now there's fountains on streets
from which clean water pours
Four dollar generics
at all big box stores
a sultan and student
both have iPhone 4s
it's not fair

Come gather young people
come on everyone
and I'll tell you a tale
of a fortunate son

He's born in a country
and given vaccine
and rendered immune
to all kinds of disease
the Kardashians are on
all his TVs
it's not perfect

Banks don't need bailouts
on that we agree
so let's start up a group
and let's take to the streets
because if we do that then
you know what that means
we're racist.
[End]

Nick Gillespie: "Enjoy Your Freedoms While You Still Can"

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST

On July 17, 2010, Reason's Nick Gillespie gave the keynote speech at the Independence Institute 's 8th Annual "Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms Party" in Colorado. He was asked to speak on the theme of "enjoying your freedoms while you still can."

The Denver Post's Chuck Plunkett wrote up the event, saying of Gillespie's appearance :

This year’s ATF featured Nick Gillespie, editor of Reason.com and Reason.TV, an urbane sophisticate who, until Saturday, had never fired a gun, and who failed to hit a single flying clay disk in the few rounds he attended before sneaking away to crib out his presentation on a hotel memo pad. (Note to politicians: Real thinkers write their own material.)
Gillespie is a true intellectual, who can, before finishing his lunch, discuss how “The Great Gatsby” might be written today, switch to a riff on free-market reasons for supporting a value-added tax, reference economic studies that detail the “self-correcting” tax distribution in European countries that have applied a VAT, chart from memory the nation’s deficit spending patterns since the Great Depression, and all while handling a pretend-I’m-interested discussion with a political candidate whose conversation is limited to repeating the phrase, “It’ll be a real dog-fight, in every sense of the word.”

Gillespie was introduced by the group's leader, Jon Caldara , who hosts the lively and entertaining public affairs show "The Devil's Advocate" on Colorado Public Television. (Gillespie appeared on the show during his visit. Go here to watch.)

Approximately 20 minutes. Scroll down for downloadable versions. Note: There are wind-related issues with audio throughout.

Young World Revolution! - Youth, Technology and Business with Rob Salkowitz

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 EDT

What can global business leaders learn from a 14-year-old kid in a cyber cafe in Bangalore, India?

Just about everything, says Rob Salkowitz, author of Young World Rising: How Youth, Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing the World from the Bottom Up.

Reason.tv's Dan Hayes sat down to talk with Salkowitz about Suhas Gopinath, an entrepreneur who started a multimillion dollar business out of a cyber cafe in India at age 14. Salkowitz says young, tech-savvy entreprenuers like Gopinath represent a changing dynamic that global business leaders ignore at their own peril. Understanding this "young world" is critical for making money, developing new business models and combating social problems.

Salkowitz says that the lower cost of entry in the tech world provides unprecendented opportunity to young people in emerging markets. "You don't have to work in the t-shirt factory, you don't need to work in the mine. If you can figure this out you can earn a decent living for yourself in diginified working conditions, give employment to other people, and move society forward in better and different ways."

Approximately 9.30 minutes. Shot by Meredith Bragg and Josh Swain. Edited by Swain.

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Boing Boing Founder Mark Frauenfelder on DIY, Mistakes, and Unschooling

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:30:00 EDT

Mark Frauenfelder, is editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine, founder of the collaborative weblog Boing Boing, and author of the book Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World. He sat down with Reason.tv's Ted Balaker to discuss cigar box guitars, the value of mistakes, and what the Do-It-Yourself movement can teach us about education.

Approximately 9 minutes. Shot by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick. Edited by Austin Bragg.

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Feminist Constance Penley on Porn, Obscenity, and John Stagliano

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EDT

Constance Penley is a professor of Film and Media Studies at University of California at Santa Barbara and co-director of the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media. Penley specializes in film history and theory, feminist theory, and cultural studies. She is especially well-known on campus for her controversial classes on pornography, where she analyzes the ways in which blue movies play with moral and social taboos.

Penley was slated to be an expert witness in the obscenity trial of pornographer John Stagliano, who faces up to 32 years in jail and $7 million in fines for distributing three adult movies. The judge in Stagliano's case disallowed Penley and Lawrence Sank from testifying for the defense.

Reason.tv's Hawk Jensen sat down with Penley to discuss the history of pornography, obscenity laws, and the case against John Stagliano, whom Penley has called "the Woody Allen of porn."

Approximately 8 minutes. Produced by Hawk Jensen and filmed by Zach Weissmueller.

For more on Stagliano's prosecution, go here.

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Nick Gillespie Discusses the "Death of Decency" on CNBC's PowerLunch

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:30:00 EDT

Reason.tv 's Nick Gillespie appeared on CNBC's PowerLunch to discuss the "death of decency" and whether television is moving in the right direction, on June 8, 2010.

Approximately 3.25 minutes.

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Buy American Pot: A Special Message From The AMGA

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:17:00 EST

We all know that a lot of people are harmed by prohibition, but who benefits? Strangely enough, some of the biggest beneficiaries are the bootleggers. Sure, they take a big risk, but black marketeers don't have to pay taxes, they're protected from foreign competition, and they benefit from artificially inflated prices. Talk about protectionism.

What kind of message would an honest American Marijuana Growers Association have for us? "Thank you for your support of marijuana prohibition and buy American pot!"

"Buy American Pot" PSA was produced by Paul Feine, Alex Manning, and Hawk Jensen.

The farmer is played by Alexandra Fulton, who also has a pages on Facebook and IMDB.

For downloadable versions and embed codes, scroll down.

Visit Reason.tv's YouTube channel here.

Second Life

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Drew Carey takes us on a guided tour of Second Life (SL), a virtual world with more than 500,000 residents.

But SL isn’t your typical virtual world. Unlike other popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games, like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, there are no defined roles or objectives in SL. Just like in real life, SL residents determine their own goals and decide for themselves how best to achieve them. Moreover, virtually everything in SL was created by the residents themselves using tools provided by Linden Lab, the company that launched SL in 2003.

SL is based on a simple set of institutional arrangements that would make F.A. Hayek proud. In essence, the people who own the property in SL make the rules. The result is a spontaneously ordered world in which residents are free to fly, teleport, build, trade and interact with others without interference from the state.

Recently, Linden Lab—the SL equivalent of a state—has begun acting more and more like a real life government by restricting activities such as gambling. But open source competitors based on the SL platform are currently in development. so better virtual worlds offering even more freedom are just around the corner.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper on the High Costs of the Drug War

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT

Norm Stamper is a cop who saw it all during his 34 years on active duty. As police of Seattle from 1994 through 2000, he was in charge during violent World Trade Organization protests in the Emerald City.

Stamper, who holds a Ph.D. in leadership and human behavior from United States International University, has emerged as one of the most thoughtful and outspoken critics of the war on drugs, which he believes causes untold misery, undermines effective law enforcement, and doesn't begin to pass any sort of cost-benefit analysis. As important, the libertarian Stamper believes that the drug war—and other wars on the behaviors on consenting adults—does great violence to the idea that we own our bodies.

Stamper is the author of the Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing (2005) and now works with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a nonprofit created by former cops to "reduce the multitude of unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition."

For an audio podcast version, go here.

James P. Pinkerton: Libertarianism in 2058

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:55:00 EDT

How the Rand Era gave way to the Surveillance Era—and what we can do about it. A speculative flight into the future.

This approximately seven-minute interview was conducted by reason.tv's Nick Gillespie and Dan Hayes.

Read the accompanying story at Reason Online now.

Drug Education with Ali G

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Before he was Borat, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was Ali G. In this clip, Ali G indulges in a bit of drug education.

Cuban Protest Rap

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:59:00 EDT

"Of course all the hospitals in Cuba are free,
But who do they treat better, the officials or me?"

Merry Christmas To All...

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:09:00 EST

No Christmas is complete without a nod to the (in)famous 1977 Bing Crosby holiday special featuring David Bowie. Their joint rendition of "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" is the stuff of legend and probably did more to close the generation gap than a thousand encounter sessions.

The phony patter ("...I'm sure glad you came by to work on the pianer today...") between Der Bingle and the Androgynous One--then at the height of his Twiggy Stardust look--is priceless and, if I'm remembering correctly from the Gillespie family room, left both my parents and my siblings thinking that the world had indeed gone splendidly mad. Remember folks, this was manna from heaven in the age of Carter, Son of Sam, global cooling, and the inability of the Americans to win the Little League World Series. And that's not even dealing with the omnipresent threat of a conversion to the metric system.

But the real paydirt from the Crosby special, IMO, Bowie's rendition of "Heroes," which makes everyday feel a little more like Christmas.

Kurt Loder on Technology and Freedom

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:04:00 EST

On Friday, October 26, reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie interviewed Kurt Loder for the conference Reason in DC.

A legend for his work in Rolling Stone and at MTV, Loder is an outspoken libertarian--and a harsh critic of the nanny state in all its manifestations.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Loder discusses technology, freedom, the coming collapse of traditional news media (and why that's a good thing), the misguided (and ultimately ineffective) attempt to shut down free expression, and much more.