More and more people are getting on board with the legalization of marijuana, which is certainly a positive development. There was a time not too long ago when the legality of pot was a marginal issue at best, supported only by neo-hippies and Dennis Kucinich. In the 1990’s, my hometown of Ann Arbor, MI was filled to the brim with Phish enthusiasts, lackadaisically asking University of Michigan students to sign petitions to be sent to some unreceptive senator or whatever. No one took them seriously, in part because it’s always best to ignore strangers holding clipboards, but also because they couldn’t have chosen a worse city in which to fight for their cause. The penalty for marijuana possession in Ann Arbor is a $25.00 fine; when I was a kid, it was $5.00, but inflation’s a bitch. In any case, it’s still cheaper to be caught with an ounce of weed, a bong, and some rolling papers than to get ticketed for parking your car in a lot without the appropriate sticker, and a stoner facing essentially no penalty is not going to take time out of his busy schedule (I use the term loosely) to sign your fucking petition. He wants a donut and he wants it now.
Then we all went broke, and being poor changes everything. Suddenly average people realized they were financing the war on drugs, and given that we were all unemployed it began to seem like a waste of precious resources. After all, everyone who’s been to college has smoked pot, and very few of us are hanging out in alleys, doling out hand jobs in exchange for heroin. For the most part, whatever fun we had as young adults in no way impeded our path to gainful employment, homes, partners, and children. So why are we paying a bazillion dollars a day to punish kids? No one seems to know. Here’s a list of reasons to legalize marijuana.
1. It’s fun, a fact we’re all aware of because almost everyone has done it. If your parents attended high school or college after 1966, and claim to have never smoked, their pants are on fire.
2. It’s waaaaaaay less harmful than alcohol. Alcohol is poison. It may be safe in moderation, but there’s no doubt it’s a toxic substance. A 50-year old alcoholic looks like he’s about to keel over and die. A 50-year old pothead looks like he could have done a little more with his life had he not followed the Dead for 30 years.
3. It’s waaaaaaay less harmful than cigarettes. Did you know there’s never been a single recorded case of lung cancer attributed to pot-smoking? Just a little tidbit from me to you.
4. If it’s legalized, it can be taxed. We need money. We need money real bad, and this is a cash cow waiting to happen. A 10% tax on pot sold at the pot store would bring in an almost unbelievable amount of revenue, and potheads would be more than willing to pay the premium for the convenience of being able to drop by the corner store to pick up an eighth.
5. If it’s legalized, it can be regulated. I don’t necessarily think it’s important to regulate it, but I’m sure that’s an appealing notion to some.
6. Legalization would make the world a safer place for your kids. As it is, your friendly neighborhood pot dealer could very well be peddling coke and Oxycontin on the side. You don’t want your otherwise well-adjusted kid getting mixed up with unsavory characters just because he wants to smoke a little dope. If weed were legal your kid could just pay a homeless guy outside 7/11 to go in and get it for him, no exposure to hard drugs necessary. This strategy has always worked for beer, and it will work for pot.
7. This is related to reason 6, and it’s something I never hear people mention, but I think it’s vitally important. Lumping pot together with other drugs gives the false impression that all drugs are created equal. Once you’ve smoked pot, why not eat 60 mushrooms and trip at Disneyland? They’re both illegal. And once you’ve eaten 60 mushrooms and somehow managed not to be institutionalized, why not try a line of coke? I’m of the mind that the legalization of marijuana would put it in a different category, and make your kid less likely to experiment with other drugs.
Lastly, I would like to say fuck medical marijuana. It’s a stupid joke. This is not a drug with tremendous therapeutic value, and we should stop being so disingenuous as to claim it is. Sure, it will make sick people who’ve lost their appetites hungry, and it might make you care less that you’re at death’s door, but it’s not going to do much else. Let’s call a spade a spade. Pot is a drug that people enjoy using. Its harmful effects are negligent, and adults can and should be trusted to decide for themselves whether or not to use it.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Mary Poppins, where are you when we need you?
Earlier today, a friend of mine emailed me a link to a website, promising laughter and gaiety. Before getting into the horrors this website revealed, I should point out that, although my friend has lived the majority of her life in the United States, she was born and presently resides in Europe, conferring upon her a certain detachment when it comes to all things American. In short, whatever makes me ashamed to be an American makes her proud to be an American who emigrated.
The portion of the website of particular interest to my friend, and by proxy to me, was a gallery of photos taken at Wal-Marts across the U.S. I’ll level with you, and cop to not knowing a much about Wal-Mart. As the scion of a bleeding-heart, upper-middle-class family, odds are I’ve never set foot in one, which is probably for the best since all of their products have been crafted by Laotian infants, who, let’s face it, are useless when it comes to making sneakers. If the Laotian infant thing has been the prime factor keeping me out of Wal-Mart for 28 years, it’s been supplanted by a horror which defies reason: back tits.
Back fat is something we’ve all seen, and something many of us have experienced first hand. I for one am always concerned about arching my back in such a way as to create rolls, because back fat is, and I think there’s a general consensus on this, gross. Excess fat on the arms, legs, and even stomach is obviously not desirable, but it’s socially acceptable to a point, and there are enough excess butt fat enthusiasts that it doesn’t even deserve a mention. But back fat is just plain icky, and as icky as back fat is, back tits are so much worse. You may never have seen back tits. I’ve never seen them up close and personal, but this website displays a photo of some poor, unsuspecting Wal-Mart shopper, who had just stopped in looking for bargains on Twinkies and lard, sporting full-on back tits. I’m not super busty, but I am something of a fat person, and this lady’s back tits were at least twice as big as my front tits. No joke.
Now I’m sure someone who’s never seen me has no idea what it means when I say I’m something of a fat person. This is because over the past couple of decades, our notions of fatness have become demented. Back in the old days, fat people were extraordinary. These days, not so much. My BMI indicates that I’m borderline obese, but when I tell people that they’re shocked, not because I carry the weight well (I don’t) or know how to dress for my size (I can’t dress for any size) but because we’ve redefined the word “fat.” For the most part, if you’re below 200 lbs, you’re thin enough. You won’t break into showbiz, an industry in which everyone appears to summer in Ethiopia, but in regular life no one will give your weight a second thought. Not when you’re walking next to a 35-year olds who has to use a cane because his legs alone can’t support the 400 lbs he’s hauling around.
So what do we do? Well, first we should remove Laotian babies from factories and put in some 8 year olds or something. Second, we need a nanny state. Conservatives don’t like that idea, except as it applies to drugs or abortion, and that makes it by definition the way to go. Someone from above has to bar restaurants from serving appetizers that contain an entire day’s worth of calories. Someone has to outlaw the deep-frying of macaroni and cheese. Someone has to ban junk food advertisements, particularly those aimed at children. Someone has to save us from ourselves.
Here in New York, the government has tried to take some steps in the right direction. The estimated calorie counts of menu items in chain restaurants must be displayed, but your neighborhood mom and pop ice cream store, the one that’s busily serving you those delicious cones of diabetes, is exempt. Governor Paterson proposed a tax on all non-diet sodas, a good idea if I ever heard one, but the beverage lobbyists lost their shit and started airing commercials arguing that such a tax would put an undue burden on working families. I have yet to see a follow-up commercial reminding everyone that soda, being nothing but sugar water, is hardly a necessary component of the human diet, and stating in no uncertain terms that if an extra 10 cents puts Pepsi out of your price range, you have more important things to worry about. Having been on a personal mission to lose weight over the past 6 months, I’m now interested in forming a “Let’s stop being so fucking morbidly obese” lobby. I’m accepting applications.
The portion of the website of particular interest to my friend, and by proxy to me, was a gallery of photos taken at Wal-Marts across the U.S. I’ll level with you, and cop to not knowing a much about Wal-Mart. As the scion of a bleeding-heart, upper-middle-class family, odds are I’ve never set foot in one, which is probably for the best since all of their products have been crafted by Laotian infants, who, let’s face it, are useless when it comes to making sneakers. If the Laotian infant thing has been the prime factor keeping me out of Wal-Mart for 28 years, it’s been supplanted by a horror which defies reason: back tits.
Back fat is something we’ve all seen, and something many of us have experienced first hand. I for one am always concerned about arching my back in such a way as to create rolls, because back fat is, and I think there’s a general consensus on this, gross. Excess fat on the arms, legs, and even stomach is obviously not desirable, but it’s socially acceptable to a point, and there are enough excess butt fat enthusiasts that it doesn’t even deserve a mention. But back fat is just plain icky, and as icky as back fat is, back tits are so much worse. You may never have seen back tits. I’ve never seen them up close and personal, but this website displays a photo of some poor, unsuspecting Wal-Mart shopper, who had just stopped in looking for bargains on Twinkies and lard, sporting full-on back tits. I’m not super busty, but I am something of a fat person, and this lady’s back tits were at least twice as big as my front tits. No joke.
Now I’m sure someone who’s never seen me has no idea what it means when I say I’m something of a fat person. This is because over the past couple of decades, our notions of fatness have become demented. Back in the old days, fat people were extraordinary. These days, not so much. My BMI indicates that I’m borderline obese, but when I tell people that they’re shocked, not because I carry the weight well (I don’t) or know how to dress for my size (I can’t dress for any size) but because we’ve redefined the word “fat.” For the most part, if you’re below 200 lbs, you’re thin enough. You won’t break into showbiz, an industry in which everyone appears to summer in Ethiopia, but in regular life no one will give your weight a second thought. Not when you’re walking next to a 35-year olds who has to use a cane because his legs alone can’t support the 400 lbs he’s hauling around.
So what do we do? Well, first we should remove Laotian babies from factories and put in some 8 year olds or something. Second, we need a nanny state. Conservatives don’t like that idea, except as it applies to drugs or abortion, and that makes it by definition the way to go. Someone from above has to bar restaurants from serving appetizers that contain an entire day’s worth of calories. Someone has to outlaw the deep-frying of macaroni and cheese. Someone has to ban junk food advertisements, particularly those aimed at children. Someone has to save us from ourselves.
Here in New York, the government has tried to take some steps in the right direction. The estimated calorie counts of menu items in chain restaurants must be displayed, but your neighborhood mom and pop ice cream store, the one that’s busily serving you those delicious cones of diabetes, is exempt. Governor Paterson proposed a tax on all non-diet sodas, a good idea if I ever heard one, but the beverage lobbyists lost their shit and started airing commercials arguing that such a tax would put an undue burden on working families. I have yet to see a follow-up commercial reminding everyone that soda, being nothing but sugar water, is hardly a necessary component of the human diet, and stating in no uncertain terms that if an extra 10 cents puts Pepsi out of your price range, you have more important things to worry about. Having been on a personal mission to lose weight over the past 6 months, I’m now interested in forming a “Let’s stop being so fucking morbidly obese” lobby. I’m accepting applications.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
HELP!! My Future Depends on Learning How to Bullshit
The most unfortunate aspect of law school admission is not, as some claim, the LSAT. With a decent brain and some practice, you’ll do well enough on any standardized test to get where you want to go in life. No, the most unfortunate, pathetic, miserable aspect of law school admissions is the personal statement. Now you might think that, as someone who regularly drafts personal statements for this blog, I would be at an advantage. You would be wrong. You see, a personal statement for law school admissions is effectively a single-spaced page brimming with bullshit, and bullshit is not my forte. This may be an indication that law school isn’t the right place for me, but that’s neither here nor there.
The problem is that I was a late-bloomer. When I was in high school, bullshit was completely anathema. I had some silly, adolescent principle that one should be honest, irrespective of whatever trouble such infantile behavior might bring. What this means is that while everyone else was being nice to teachers’ faces, saying and doing the right things to ride out their teenage years as smoothly as possible, I was busily sharing with anyone who would listen my overwhelmingly negative views on just about everything. I missed out on years and years and years of bullshitting practice, and have never quite caught up. So, however easy writing may come on non-bullshit topics, I’m fucked when it comes to bullshit.
So what do I say? That from the time I was a little girl I dreamed of being a lawyer? That’s patently false. Since I knew I was going to be a rock star or a roller coaster designer or a member of some royal family, lawyering didn’t deserve a moment’s consideration. Sadly, at about age 6 I was discovered to be so musically untalented that it’s almost contagious, and after failing to construct so much as a cube out of Legos, it became abundantly clear that, in the interest of protecting human life, I should not be responsible for the construction of anything, thrill rides most definitely included. Then came the final blow: I learned that, as a non-royal, I have no shot at entry into any monarchical family. It seems they eschew outsiders, preferring instead to just fuck each other and pop out little retarded hemophiliacs to take their place.
I didn’t settle on law school until I finally came to terms with the fact that my adult dreams of cake-testing and elf-hunting would not come to fruition, and that’s not the kind of statement that’s going to grab an admissions officer and guarantee me acceptance. So I need help. I need help because I have to construct a work of non-fiction fiction, and I don’t even know where to begin. Here are some key words I think might play well:
Asthma
Economics
The EU
Social change
Synchronized swimming
Theodore Roosevelt
If you can dream up a way to combine these words into one kickass piece of bullshit, I’m open to suggestions.
The problem is that I was a late-bloomer. When I was in high school, bullshit was completely anathema. I had some silly, adolescent principle that one should be honest, irrespective of whatever trouble such infantile behavior might bring. What this means is that while everyone else was being nice to teachers’ faces, saying and doing the right things to ride out their teenage years as smoothly as possible, I was busily sharing with anyone who would listen my overwhelmingly negative views on just about everything. I missed out on years and years and years of bullshitting practice, and have never quite caught up. So, however easy writing may come on non-bullshit topics, I’m fucked when it comes to bullshit.
So what do I say? That from the time I was a little girl I dreamed of being a lawyer? That’s patently false. Since I knew I was going to be a rock star or a roller coaster designer or a member of some royal family, lawyering didn’t deserve a moment’s consideration. Sadly, at about age 6 I was discovered to be so musically untalented that it’s almost contagious, and after failing to construct so much as a cube out of Legos, it became abundantly clear that, in the interest of protecting human life, I should not be responsible for the construction of anything, thrill rides most definitely included. Then came the final blow: I learned that, as a non-royal, I have no shot at entry into any monarchical family. It seems they eschew outsiders, preferring instead to just fuck each other and pop out little retarded hemophiliacs to take their place.
I didn’t settle on law school until I finally came to terms with the fact that my adult dreams of cake-testing and elf-hunting would not come to fruition, and that’s not the kind of statement that’s going to grab an admissions officer and guarantee me acceptance. So I need help. I need help because I have to construct a work of non-fiction fiction, and I don’t even know where to begin. Here are some key words I think might play well:
Asthma
Economics
The EU
Social change
Synchronized swimming
Theodore Roosevelt
If you can dream up a way to combine these words into one kickass piece of bullshit, I’m open to suggestions.
Friday, August 6, 2010
I've been giving this whole god thing some thought...
As you may have discerned from my previous post, I’m not a big fan of god. I’ve been assured he’s a lovely guy if you get to know him, but I don’t see myself jumping on board anytime soon. This is largely because no one’s ever given me a good reason to think he’s out there, but also because the god of most major religions has always struck me as being a dick. I mean, what kind of insecure maniac would punish a person with eternal hellfire for no other reason than that the poor sucker questioned the maniac’s existence? Isn’t god supposed to be above such petty bullshit? An image just passed through my head of god floating in the clouds, damning nonbelievers to hell with a thunderbolt and an intonation of “Nah nah nah boo boo.” I suppose thoughts like that are why I have trouble taking churchgoers seriously.
My goal here isn’t necessarily to shit on religion. I am perfectly willing to concede that religion may have been beneficial to human civilization in previous millennia, and it may have even facilitated some of our great advancements as a people, but contemporary religion has been perverted beyond all recognition. God and god’s laws were initially tools used to keep hoi polloi in line. Don’t fuck your sister, don’t fuck a sheep, don’t steal shit, don’t murder people, etc. This is all good advice if your goal is a functional society. These days, however, the emphasis seems to be on developing a personal relationship with Christ and converting queers. These values being dominant, the best case scenario is that our civilization will stagnate; the worst case scenario is that our civilization will cease to be civilized. Any reasonable person who’s seen those “God Hates Fags” signs outside of soldiers’ funerals would have to admit we’re headed down the latter path.
It’s not just religion that bugs me, but the whole idea of god. My skin crawls whenever I hear some cretin say, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” I suppose what they really mean is, “I don’t go to church, but I believe crystals can cure cancer,” but mostly I think it’s just a nonsense turn of phrase people use because they’re hesitant to write god off entirely. The problem is that belief in god is the default mode, but this setup is preposterous. Belief is active, while a lack of belief is passive, which puts the burden of proof squarely on the believer. No one would think of asking someone to provide evidence showing that toys don’t come to life at night. Because there’s no reason to assume they do, the default is to not possess an active belief in the consciousness and animation of toys. The onus is on the aberrant who believes that toys are people too; this guy has to prove to me the validity of his demented conviction.
I would argue that there’s similarly no reason to believe in the existence of god. You’d be hard-pressed to find any physical evidence of him. Some people would say that the universe itself is evidence enough, but that’s just because some people can’t follow a thought through to its logical conclusion. If the universe came from god, where did god come from? Did he spontaneously come into existence, spawned from nothingness? In that case you can cut god out of the equation entirely, and just say that the first particles in the universe came from nothing. Either way you’re left wondering how nothing becomes something.
The argument that god didn’t spontaneously come into existence, but rather has existed for all of time, isn’t much better. Again, god is an unnecessary complication since the nonbeliever could effectively counter by asserting that the matter involved in the big bang has existed for all of time. Both explanations allow you to opt out of the messy “something from nothing” quandary, but you’re still left to determine the nature of infinite time, which is well out of the realm of human conception.
Everyone is looking for answers, but the questions we’re asking are presently not answerable. If you don’t give it too much thought, god is a good resolution; if you give it a lot of thought, you have to come to the conclusion that god, whether or not you believe in his existence, is not a necessary component of the universe. If the capricious god of organized religion exists, I’m sure he’ll send me straight to hell for saying this, but god is irrelevant. George Carlin was an atheist who believed in the power of Joe Pesci. I’m an atheist who believes in the power of cake.
My goal here isn’t necessarily to shit on religion. I am perfectly willing to concede that religion may have been beneficial to human civilization in previous millennia, and it may have even facilitated some of our great advancements as a people, but contemporary religion has been perverted beyond all recognition. God and god’s laws were initially tools used to keep hoi polloi in line. Don’t fuck your sister, don’t fuck a sheep, don’t steal shit, don’t murder people, etc. This is all good advice if your goal is a functional society. These days, however, the emphasis seems to be on developing a personal relationship with Christ and converting queers. These values being dominant, the best case scenario is that our civilization will stagnate; the worst case scenario is that our civilization will cease to be civilized. Any reasonable person who’s seen those “God Hates Fags” signs outside of soldiers’ funerals would have to admit we’re headed down the latter path.
It’s not just religion that bugs me, but the whole idea of god. My skin crawls whenever I hear some cretin say, “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” I suppose what they really mean is, “I don’t go to church, but I believe crystals can cure cancer,” but mostly I think it’s just a nonsense turn of phrase people use because they’re hesitant to write god off entirely. The problem is that belief in god is the default mode, but this setup is preposterous. Belief is active, while a lack of belief is passive, which puts the burden of proof squarely on the believer. No one would think of asking someone to provide evidence showing that toys don’t come to life at night. Because there’s no reason to assume they do, the default is to not possess an active belief in the consciousness and animation of toys. The onus is on the aberrant who believes that toys are people too; this guy has to prove to me the validity of his demented conviction.
I would argue that there’s similarly no reason to believe in the existence of god. You’d be hard-pressed to find any physical evidence of him. Some people would say that the universe itself is evidence enough, but that’s just because some people can’t follow a thought through to its logical conclusion. If the universe came from god, where did god come from? Did he spontaneously come into existence, spawned from nothingness? In that case you can cut god out of the equation entirely, and just say that the first particles in the universe came from nothing. Either way you’re left wondering how nothing becomes something.
The argument that god didn’t spontaneously come into existence, but rather has existed for all of time, isn’t much better. Again, god is an unnecessary complication since the nonbeliever could effectively counter by asserting that the matter involved in the big bang has existed for all of time. Both explanations allow you to opt out of the messy “something from nothing” quandary, but you’re still left to determine the nature of infinite time, which is well out of the realm of human conception.
Everyone is looking for answers, but the questions we’re asking are presently not answerable. If you don’t give it too much thought, god is a good resolution; if you give it a lot of thought, you have to come to the conclusion that god, whether or not you believe in his existence, is not a necessary component of the universe. If the capricious god of organized religion exists, I’m sure he’ll send me straight to hell for saying this, but god is irrelevant. George Carlin was an atheist who believed in the power of Joe Pesci. I’m an atheist who believes in the power of cake.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Why I'm Not a Dick
I’m sure my six followers are all wondering what in this world terrifies me the most, and even if you’re not, I’m going to share. Have you ever said anything along the lines of “How do you know what’s right and wrong if you don’t believe in god?” If the answer is yes, I’m scared of you.
To accuse everyone who’s ever posed such a question of being a sociopath might be slightly hyperbolic, but it’s also not far off. You can’t come up with any reason to be nice to your fellow living creatures except that, if you’re not, god might get pissed? On the bright side, we’re dealing with a person who knows he’s not supposed to rape and murder; I’ll put myself out there and argue that the more people we can get on board with that message the better.
That being said, there are better and worse reasons for not doing wrong. A good reason to refrain from rape and murder is that you yourself would rather not be raped and murdered, and can therefore extrapolate that others feel similarly. A good reason is that you know acts of violence devastate victims’ families and you take no pleasure in the devastation of others. A great reason is that you don’t want to. A bad reason is that god says you’re not supposed to.
For reasons I can’t fathom, people continue to cling to religion and feel it confers upon them a moral compass. If your belief in god stops you from raping and murdering, at least you’re not out there raping and murdering, but I do firmly believe that we’ve come far enough as a people to more deeply consider our system of ethics. If you’re going to insist on keeping god in the equation, why not ask your imaginary friend why he doesn’t want you to be a dick? Maybe there’s more to it than eternal damnation.
My brain is feeling fuzzy, so this post is a little disjointed, but I’m just sick of good behavior being considered the domain of the believer. I have no investment in the existence or non-existence of a higher power. I’m invested in things like cupcakes, Australian eccentricities, and my beloved doggie, Moira, but I’m also a pretty good person. It may hurt Jesus’ feelings that I don’t believe in him, but I can honestly say that today I chose not to do wrong for all the right reasons.
To accuse everyone who’s ever posed such a question of being a sociopath might be slightly hyperbolic, but it’s also not far off. You can’t come up with any reason to be nice to your fellow living creatures except that, if you’re not, god might get pissed? On the bright side, we’re dealing with a person who knows he’s not supposed to rape and murder; I’ll put myself out there and argue that the more people we can get on board with that message the better.
That being said, there are better and worse reasons for not doing wrong. A good reason to refrain from rape and murder is that you yourself would rather not be raped and murdered, and can therefore extrapolate that others feel similarly. A good reason is that you know acts of violence devastate victims’ families and you take no pleasure in the devastation of others. A great reason is that you don’t want to. A bad reason is that god says you’re not supposed to.
For reasons I can’t fathom, people continue to cling to religion and feel it confers upon them a moral compass. If your belief in god stops you from raping and murdering, at least you’re not out there raping and murdering, but I do firmly believe that we’ve come far enough as a people to more deeply consider our system of ethics. If you’re going to insist on keeping god in the equation, why not ask your imaginary friend why he doesn’t want you to be a dick? Maybe there’s more to it than eternal damnation.
My brain is feeling fuzzy, so this post is a little disjointed, but I’m just sick of good behavior being considered the domain of the believer. I have no investment in the existence or non-existence of a higher power. I’m invested in things like cupcakes, Australian eccentricities, and my beloved doggie, Moira, but I’m also a pretty good person. It may hurt Jesus’ feelings that I don’t believe in him, but I can honestly say that today I chose not to do wrong for all the right reasons.
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