NORML asks where your police officers are, and the answer is revealing: A local St. Louis judge recently told one of my co-workers that prosecutors are finding it almost impossible to convict someone for mere possession of marijuana. The people are apparently speaking, in the form of jury nullification. Perhaps they too think that their limited numbers of police officers should be focusing on violent crimes and other serious crimes such as burglary.
I'm sorry to say that this reasonable approach to Muslims shown by Jersey Governor Chris Christie (i.e., the lack of bigotry) is all too rare among Republicans. Lawrence O'Donnell reports:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Christie's words shouldn't be inspirational, but they are in this climate of Republican bigotry.
CNN reports that the U.S. Air Force has just scrapped a long-running program that taught nuclear miss
ile launching officers that the Bible is OK with nuclear war:
The Air Force has suspended an ethics briefing for new missile launch officers after concerns were raised about the briefing's heavy focus on religion. The briefing, taught for nearly 20 years by military chaplains at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is intended to train Air Force personnel to consider the ethics and morality of launching nuclear weapons - the ultimate doomsday machine. Many of the slides in the 43 page presentation use a Christian justification for war, displaying pictures of saints like Saint Augustine and using biblical references.This program had been taught for two decades before the recent change.
Author Julian Treasure points to a ubiquitous problem: We are losing our ability to listen, which means that we are losing our ability to connect to our world and to understand one another. He offers us five hints for better listening skills: 1. Spend three minutes a day in silence, to reset your ears. 2. In noisy places, focus on how many channels of sound are you listening to? 3. Savoring. Enjoy mundane sounds, like the the sound of machinery--they are "hidden choirs." 4. Change your listening position to what you are listening to. Active/Passive, or Critical/Empathic. 5. Use the acronym RASA: Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, Ask.
The CFPB website is now up. It contains information for consumers, and includes a link for submitting complaints about credit cards.