2 IN TIME OF PEACE 2 IN TIME OF WAR

Marijuana in California: An altered state – The Economist

I wanted to vote today, I did, but, it started raining all of a sudden just as I was getting ready to step outside. I really did want to vote. I mean, it’s legalizing marijuana right? The ol’ ganja, sweet Mary Jane, aunt Mary, the sinsemilla, the bambalacha. But yeah, I mean, my mom has the car and I would have to take two buses just to make it to the polling place, and by that time the line will probably be gigantic, and this Seinfeld marathon is keeping me glued to the couch, granted I have every season on DVD but it’s still pretty cool to be able to watch episode after episode without having to hit ‘next’ on the remote. So yeah, it’s a whirlwind of conflicting circumstances that has led me to being unable to vote today, even though I really wanted to. Although, I hope this doesn’t mean everyone from your waiter to your tax attorney is going to be baked. I would think if everyone were to be high it would slow the wheels of industry considerably. Maybe everyone already is. Or maybe that’s the point. Whoever is smoking will continue doing so as long as they want to anyway, so maybe legalizing it will just make the whole process of buying and selling much safer. But now that I think of it, I kind of like Tommy. I hope this wouldn’t mean he’s out of a job. He always brings the stuff to my place, always on time, always polite to my parents. Would this mean I’d actually have to go out and buy it? Maybe I could hire him or something. Must be hard labor now that I think about it. Going to and fro’, dealing with people who never want to lift a finger to buy your product even though they’ll harass you all day long until you actually pick up the phone. Maybe he would just sell something stronger. Wait does this mean they’ll be selling it in packs? Like cigarettes? And coming up with gimmicky names like ‘Jamaican Gold’ and ‘Kentucky Blue’? I wonder how they would roll them. Would they have a whole lot of people in some warehouse just rolling the day away? That could help unemployment actually. Or maybe they would invent some robot that just shoots them out like those tennis ball machines. I’d like one of those. Probably be expensive though. And what about the alcohol industry? They won’t have the monopoly over getting trashed anymore. Serves them right. They’ve been making way too much money over random hook-ups and late-night hospital visits. Time for the narcotics industry to get a piece of the pie with video game hypnosis and late night YouTube video surfing. I hear that they’re going to tax it even more than tobacco because people are used to forking up a lot of money for it anyway. I should look to get my foot in the door of this untapped corner of the market. I think there are other reasons to vote ‘yes’ to ‘ Prop 19’, other than ‘Schwarzenegger’ being against it. In the Netherlands, the legal status of weed has made it into a commonplace product no more influential than a six-pack, which also means that kids often don’t even bother to seek it out. I guess it’s also about being free, right? I mean, it’s not like alcohol is any better than pot, is it? Quite the contrary I would say. I’d wager good money on alcoholic wife-beaters heavily outnumbering the spouse-slapping potheads. Of course many could overlap. Anyway, whatever helps the Golden State out of the financial gutter is fine by me. I wish I had time to vote…

HAHA George always drops the ball.

Note-worthy: “The proposition has a chance of winning mainly because Californians have become rather relaxed about weed.”

"Just Vote No"

 

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?

The Education of President Obama – NYTimes

It was a chilly autumn night and all smiles shined bright, for tonight black and white exercised their voting right to choose who would fight America’s blight. For who of all people was to assure the sequel but one of their equals, granted a suit like the former but not quite so evil. Not one could surmise or believe their eyes, between sobs and cries some looked to the skies. As everyone beamed at their TV screens, what Dr. King had foreseen was no longer a dream. And as that powerful black man waved to his fans they stood hand in hand clamoring ‘yes we can’.

One could still hear them chanting, from Middle-earth to Who-ville, the three simplest of words that would prove the most popular of slogans since “Beanz Meanz Heinz“. ‘Hope’ was no longer but a tag line or an abstract notion bearing a clichéd if not comical undertone but a feasible reality that one could witness for themselves in neighborhood bars, corner shops, restaurants, subway stops, as the fruits of an admittedly passive labor for most were finally tangible. Around the world, the mention of the United States solicited a friendly “Obama” affiliated with a thumbs-up, finally replacing the word “Bush” juxtaposed with a thumbs-down or even the occasional proverbial finger. The notion of high anticipation for a presidential election being paradoxical had proven to be only half-true, but by the time paper ballots had already been removed from their electoral urns, Mr. Obama had unfortunately already done so much for the nation that it would prove difficult for him to accomplish more during his actual tenure.

Something happened between “my fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us” and the upcoming midterm elections. Apparently, it’s only fun to cheer for ‘Baracky‘ when he’s fighting the odds. There is no going back to the mean streets of Philly/Kenya once you’re champion. Perhaps it was the novelty of a black president which faded, but as his supporters, suddenly bored with his vibrant eloquence, saw him as just another politician in a suit who had not fulfilled his promises even though most at the outset agreed that the dire economic wounds ailing the country could not be mended so quickly, his critics, mostly over-eager Republican pundits, seized their chance to paint him as the illegitimate, black supremacist president hell-bent on spreading his brand of Marxism to a country he secretly hated, all the while conducting Islamist jihad. It is however essential to disassociate radicals, who hopefully represent a minority, from the conservative opposition as a whole. Whatever the agenda though, Republicans have suckered even a politician highly disillusioned with Washington stratagems into playing a game of “wabbit season, duck season” with them.

The first half of Obama’s term is of a discouraging nature as it demonstrates that, as willing as one may be to forgo the machinations of Washington which, by all accounts, end up hindering positive agenda rather than animating constructive debate, any member of the political elite will have to corrupt their own sense of purpose, perhaps tweak it, if they hope to remain relevant in the realm of the politically attainable. The Obama administration has been active, and results are manifest (a health care reform, cutting in half the number of wars the country is invested in, and a stimulus bill that showed ambition, if not actual results, are nothing to scoff at), and yet, whether by impatience or defiance, the horizon signals a loss of Democrat control in Congress, inexplicably making it that much harder for Obama to fulfill his agenda, one that keeps growing in scope and attracting critics’ wrath in its failures concurrently. This is also Obama’s doing though. His deadline for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement will only fan the flames when Israelis are still using their territorial counterparts as cannon fodder a year from now. As well-intentioned as it may be, he is more often than not these days the victim of his own progressive ideology.

The midterm elections will indeed change the tone in Washington, whatever the results may be, whatever roles grizzly bears and auto-eroticism opponents may play. Supporters who remained celebrating until dawn back in November of 2008 should stick around. Rocky III-VI had their high points.

Note-worthy: “Some White House aides who were ready to carve a new spot on Mount Rushmore for their boss two years ago privately concede now that he cannot be another Abraham Lincoln after all. In this environment, they have increasingly concluded, it may be that every modern president is going to be, at best, average.”