It’s hard to believe, but an entire year has passed since we relaunched Points.
In that time, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve welcomed wonderful new writers to our staff of contributing editors (including Bob Beach, Nick Johnson, Matt June, Gabriel Roberts, and Sarah Brady Siff). We’ve featured twenty interviews with authors of exciting new books. We’ve had guest posts from Kim Sue, Heather Sophia Lee, Lucas Richert and Erica Dyck, Camille Higham, Suzanna Reiss, Jessica Diller Kovler, Ingrid Walker, Justin Martin and Bradley J. Bourougerdi, among others. And we’ve featured tributes to some of those we’ve lost over the past twelve months, including Sasha Shulgin, Joseph R. Gusfield, and Ernie Kurtz.
We’ve also covered some amazing topics. Points is clearly guaranteed to never bore! We’ve dug into the archives (especially Harry Anslinger’s “gore file”); we’ve discussed silencing and substance abuse; we’ve hosted a roundtable on Mad Men (with another to come); we’ve featured reports from conferences and dissertation abstracts; we’ve discussed “Teaching Points,” a guide to bringing debates over drug and alcohol use into the classroom; we’ve examined the role alcohol plays in the lives of women and explored the term “damp feminism”; we’ve explored why marijuana is illegal; we’ve looked at the role drugs play on television and even offered our favorite media recommendations for the holiday season; we wrote 100 words to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Harrison Act; we featured a series on cannabis and heroin in modern Atlantic history, and the roles of drug use in Weimar Germany and in World War I; we explored the intricacies of the year 1976, hoarding, the events in Ferguson, Mo., substance abuse and movie ratings, and the La Leche League and Alcoholics Anonymous as lay health movements.
There’s probably not much that we didn’t cover.
But we couldn’t have done it without you. We’re so thankful that you’ve continued to support Points as we move into our second year of relaunched, re-inspired, re-purposed action. As always, let us know if there’s something you want to see but haven’t, if you have any questions, and if you want to suggest a topic or pitch an idea. We’d love to hear from you.
Happy Cinco de Mayo (a holiday that probably deserves its own post-length analysis here), and happy birthday to the relaunched Points!
Just became aware of y’all in the last couple of months, via the Ernie Kurtz paper on the presence of the “disease” label/construct over the coarse of AA’s history. I like your spirit, a lot. Here (below) is a glimpse of my perspective, fyi. (I had a phone chat with Ernie some years ago about my orientation, after he’d read some of my stuff — i think my “Earth as an Alcoholic” paper; he was respectful, but soundly committed to the proposition that alcoholism is, to use his term, “sui generis.” As you can see, I am much of the persuasion that what all addictions have in common is more essential – more “of the essence” – that whatever particular features, no matter how dramatic, may distinguish them from one another.)
Glad I found you; Happy Re-birth Day!
http://www.rogetlockard.com/overview.php
PS – I’m pretty sure I’m already on your list to receive notice of new posts, buy I’m checking the box below just to be sure.