Prohibition Repeal: The Answer To Our Economic Crisis?

Uncle Sam, fighting the good fight for all of us.

The current economic crisis can not be denied. It’s in every newspaper, every news broadcast and on everyone’s lips. It’s getting plenty of coverage.

But in this unsure time, when money is short and futures uncertain, one issue that’s not getting so much coverage is America’s “drug war” and it’s costly and continued failure.

In a recent article in the Huffington Post, Norm Stamper, a retired Seattle police officer and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, argues that America has spent $1 trillion on this fruitless pursuit since 1971.

We’ve arrested tens of millions of Americans for nonviolent drug offenses, most for simple possession of marijuana,” Stamper says. “We’ve damaged or ruined the lives of countless citizens who’ve lost school loans, publicly subsidized housing, and jobs. And yet, drugs are more readily available.

And amid all this, drug use has never waned – especially marijuana use. A 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse showed that 83 million Americans aged 12 or over had tried marijuana at least once. The same study stated that among 10^th graders, 40 percent had tried the drug and nearly 20 percent were current users. And yet the “war” rages on, wasting dollars that could be spent to much better purpose in other areas.

Obama’s Plan Still Lacking Details

Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, once said, “You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.”

With these words in mind, I settled down to listen to President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.

Only 44 percent of Americans anticipated President Obama’s speech to be “good,” according to CNN Opinion Research Corporation survey conducted on the eve of the occasion.

However, in another CNN ORC poll taken just minutes after Tuesday night’s speech, nearly 85 percent of viewers felt “more optimistic about the direction of the country.”

The question remains, though: did our new president say enough?

a picture is worth a thousand disputable words

A clever cartoon could make this the perfect protest sign. That, and some proper grammar.

Dr. Seuss, the beloved children’s book writer, once said, “be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

These are words that Sean Delonas might need to hear these days.

On February 18, the New York Post ran a cartoon by Delonas which has since caused much uproar all over the Interwebs and, indeed, the country.  In the single-cell cartoon, Delonas depicts two officers standing before a bullet-ridden monkey lying in a pool of blood.  One of the officers, his pistol still smoking, listens on as the other officer remarks, “they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

Perhaps a little background information is needed.

monkey business – medieval style

"You talkin' to me?"

STAMFORD, Connecticut – In another case of the jungle usurping humankind’s role as king of the animals, a chimpanzee has accosted a woman, putting her in the hospital with injuries to her face, neck and hands.  Tarzan, no doubt, is shaking his unkempt head in disgust.

The woman, Charla Nash, was only trying to help out a friend when Travis, the most unfriendly chimp in the world, attacked her.

Authorities contend that the attack was unprovoked and that Nash was only present to put the primate back in his cage.  It seems that the crafty monkey had somehow found a key and released himself from not only his cage, but from the house entirely.  Travis’ owner, Sandra Herold, enlisted her friend to wrangle the animal back into confinement.

Sounds innocent enough, right?

Wrong.

Before the night was over, a woman was in the hospital and a chimpanzee had been stabbed with a butcher knife.

That’s right.  A butcher knife.

UofH’s Daily Cougar: The New Fox News?

On Monday, 2/9, the University of Houston’s campus newspaper, The Daily Cougar, ran a front page story detailing the slaying of a man at a bus stop outside of Hofheinz Pavilion.  The man was homeless and reported to be in his 40s or 50s with “unkempt hair and a weathered look”.  According to police, the man was “sleeping on the bus stop bench before being shot once in the head.”

The University was quick to respond,

“With more than 60,000 individuals on our campus at any given time, and an area that encompasses nearly 600 acres, UH is the size of a small city.  As such, we’re subject to the same amount of crime and violence any community faces,” [UH System vice President and vice Chancellor for Administration & Finance Carl] Carlucci said in his statement.

and

“Statistically speaking, the university remains as safe and secure as most areas of Houston and safer than many.”

This is all good and well.  The story is gruesome, but this is what newspaper’s were created for.  Some stories need to be told, deserve to see the light of day, no matter how mature the content.  Some stories need to be shouted and sometimes words need to bite.  Sometimes there are things better left unsaid.  Either way, good or bad, someone needs to be there, willing to transcribe everything.  Even when that everything is less than pretty, less than comprehensible.

I get that and I agree with that.

What I can not agree with, however, is the picture that the Cougar editors decided to include with the story.

Ringing In The New President

Definitely NOT Fred Armisen

When you answer phones for a living, you begin to base your work day on silences.  If there are none, which is often the case, it is a rough day.  If there are too many, it could also be a bad shift, as there are only so many sites on the Internet.  And last Tuesday, I was worried about my work load.

My company had set aside the hours of 10:00 a.m. and noon for all employees to watch newly elected President Obama’s inauguration speech.  The large, flat-screen television in our lobby was tuned to CNN and our largest conference room had the channel projected onto the far wall.  My company, an architecture firm, is a pretty laid back environment on a typical day.  For those two hours on Tuesday, there wasn’t a single person at their desk and thus, no one to transfer my flood of calls to.  And the phones kept ringing.

By 9:30, people had begun taking their seats on the couches in front of the lobby’s flat-screen.  By 9:45 they were rolling their chairs from their desks, filling every available space within view of the screen.  I could hear them between the constant rings of the phone.

One of my coworkers was already crying as he positioned his chair between the stairs and a credenza.

“My mother passed in December, and I just wish she could’ve seen this,” he said, “This would have meant the world to her.”

I began to realize this was less an inauguration and more an event.

As the proceedings began, and the swearings-in had started, I struggled to listen to the television, which was out of my view.  The phone was typically busy, with calls coming in every 15 seconds or so.  But in the rare silences, I heard words like “momentous”, “emotional” and “life-changing”.  I saw women clutching Kleenex and men looking stoic, poker-faced.  For the first time in my life, I wanted to hear a new president speak to his nation.

I felt for the first time that this man deserved to be listened to, that a man who had this type of power with words deserved a moment of silence.  But the phones just kept ringing.  One caller even said to me that he and his problems were “more important than anything that man has to say.”  I abruptly “lost” the call.

But just as the newly sworn-in president began his speech, the phones went eerily silent.  Not one call came in during the entire address.  I heard the whole thing, accented by the sniffles and applause of my coworkers.

Immediately after the speech, my phone lit up with four incoming calls and it was business as usual.  But during that speech, President Obama got the respect that he deserved.  He got his moment of silence.  In fact, he got 19.