Archive for July 3rd, 2012
Federal government classification of marijuana proven to be unscientific
A government-sponsored study published recently in The Open Neurology Journal concludes that marijuana provides much-needed relief to some chronic pain sufferers and that more clinical trials are desperately needed, utterly destroying the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) classification of the drug as having no medical uses.
While numerous prior studies have shown marijuana’s usefulness for a host of medical conditions, none have ever gone directly at the DEA’s placement of marijuana atop the schedule of controlled substances. This study, sponsored by the State of California and conducted at the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, does precisely that, driving a stake into the heart of America’s continued war on marijuana users by calling the Schedule I placement simply “not accurate” and “not tenable.”
What Being An American Means To Me
I am not given to setting out pronouncements like this very often, but in light of the last several years I thought it might be worthwhile to do so on the occasion of the 236th anniversary of our declared independence.
I don’t think in terms of demonstrating my love of country. My affection for my home is simply a given, a background hum, a constant, foundational reality that is reflexively true. This is the house in which I grew up. I know its walls, its ceiling, its floors, the steps to the attic, the verge, and every shadow that moves with the sun through all the windows. I live here; its existence contours my thinking, is the starting place of my feelings.
The house itself is an old friend, a reliable companion, a welcoming space, both mental and physical, that I can no more dislike or reject than I can stop breathing.
But some of the furniture…that’s different.
I am an American.
I don’t have to prove that to anyone. I carry it with me, inside, my cells are suffused with it. I do not have to wear a flag on my lapel, hang one in front of my house, or publicly pledge an oath to it for the convenience of those who question my political sentiments. Anyone who says I should or ought or have to does not understand the nature of what they request or the substance of my refusal to accommodate them. They do not understand that public affirmations like that become a fetish and serve only to divide, to make people pass a test they should—because we are free—never have to take.
[More . . . ]
There is no news in St. Louis
Newspapers are dying all over the United States. The headlines in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch (the only surviving daily paper in St. Louis) make you wonder how this paper has lasted even this long. As I review these cheesy headlines, I keep wondering “But what is the news?” Here are the top ten headlines featured on today’s Home Page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website:
- Streak of 100-degree weather in St. Louis area hits five days
- Allen Craig, hitting machine [Craig is a St. Louis Cardinal baseball player]
- Find your fun for the 4th
- Dog Days Quiz I: TV Dogs
- Andy Griffith, ‘Sheriff Taylor,’ dies at 86.
- Man bitten by copperhead in southeast Missouri dies
- Photo: Webster Groves residents eagerly await parade
- Missouri to get $32 million in GlaxoSmithKline fraud case
Non-transparency for President
This article by Vanity Fair raises dozens of questions about how Mitt Romney made his money and how he keeps it from being taxed. This is a clinic in non-transparency. It is a story about off-shore accounts and high-priced accounting gymnastics. It is not a story about investing in straightforward businesses here in America. It is a chapter in the story of how financial services have destroyed respectable businesses over the last few decades.
There is no way Romney would have a chance to win the presidency, except that winning high office these days rarely has much to do with facts. Mitt didn’t earn his money anything like the way that an auto worker or a store clerk earns money. If each of us had an army of lawyer and accountants, maybe we would do what Mitt has done, but we don’t. Mitt is not one of us. He is Exhibit A on how to play the game by taking advantage of tax loopholes set up only for people like him. Mitt will be spending much of his time in this campaign trying to make it look like he is one of us. Mitt will be pouring gasoline on the culture wars. Mitt will be doing everything in his power to distract us from questioning whether his money is honest money.
Let the circus begin!
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