Beside the point that Republicans stole the prior Supreme Court nomination, and the point that Kavanaugh's extreme conservative positions make him unfit for the office; not excusing rape charges, it bothers me we are going back to post adolescent high school time to look for inappropriate actions to use as unconfirmed accusations against Kavanaugh or any man or woman. Now they are claiming that Kavanaugh exposed himself as a teenager. Hell, I ran through the streets of downtown Jacksonville, Florida bare ass naked when the song The Streak was popular - and I was in my thirties. Of course, with my background I could never be seriously considered for any major public office that would require scrutiny.
My only reply for my actions from high school through age forty when I married my wife, is to quote Solzhenitsyn: "One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being."
I recent
commented on a blog, and suggested the person smoke pot to relieve stress. Being a Vietnamese vet from the sixties it
didn’t occur to me that there are still a lot of people that have never tried
it.
I guess the
cookies and such are all-right; but as an ex-smoker I find the process of an
occasional tote relaxing in itself.
I prefer a
pipe when I smoke, as there is no waste and no rolling involved. Nothing fancy, just a small metal or glass
pipe. You take a bud and crush it to tobacco
consistency and fill the bowl.
You will
need a Bic lighter, as you have to relight after every draw.
If you are a
beginner, you don’t want to smoke the whole bowl. Just light the pipe and take a small drag to
char the weed, and exhale quickly. Next
take a drag and hold it in your lungs for twenty or thirty seconds – whatever is
comfortable. Wait for a few minutes then
do it once more and stop. Two hits for
a beginner is enough. You are not looking
to do a bong with Cheech and Chong.
And you definitely don't want to smoke weed with Willie!
Have some pleasant
music on – relax. You won’t feel
particularly high but you will be relaxed.
When you have some down time from work or obligations do it again. You will learn where your comfortable limit
is.
If you don’t
overdo, this will be a pleasant experience and a relief from stress. You won’t get a hangover and the worst thing
that will happen is you will get the munchies.
Pot has
always had a bad rap from people that haven’t smoked. During the early twentieth century, white men
who were fine with bathtub gin and probation rum were horrified that the black
community was getting high on the Devil Weed.
Every since then pot has been made out to be an addictive killer that is
the stepping stone to herion or worse. And
yet, nobody ever smoked a joint and then beat his wife and kids.
There are
medical applications for pot but they are being suppressed by dinosaurs like Jeff
Beauregard Sessions. There is relief for
people suffering with Cancer, Parkinson’s, Epilepsy and PTSD; and this is a
natural plant, not a chemical concoction.
With this
blind irrational fear of marijuana, we have also suppressed the use of hemp as
a manufacturing product and a cash crop for farmers. Hemp grows quickly and can be turned into
cloth, paper, fuel pellets, rope and hundreds of other useful items.
Just like
racism, sexism and fundamentalism, a couple of older generations will have to
die off before more progressive thinking can prevail.
From childhood,
my image of Texas men has always been linked to the Cowboy.Men who drove cattle through Indian territory;
braved attacks from rustlers; forded dangerous rivers; road out deadly stampedes
– men who lived rough, worked hard and partied hard when the drive was
over.
You wouldn’t
disrespect these men.You would never
insult their wives or disparage their fathers or insult them to their face
without expecting immediate payback: a fist fight or a gun fight.
I guess
Texas men have changed.It seems they
are willing to vote for a yellow, sniveling coward: A man that Donald Trump
called to his face - Lying Ted; insulted his wife insinuating she was ugly; lied about his father calling him a terrorist involved in the assassination of a
President.And yet, a man who is willing to drop
to his knees anytime Donald Trump reaches for his zipper.
It seems the
new Texas man standard must be: you can
spit in my face, disrespect my wife, disparage my father and I will still kiss
your ass as long as you let me keep my job... and I'm just fine voting for a man like that.
The book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler proposed
that mankind was psychologically and emotionally unable to adjust to rapid
change; that change, to be comfortable, must happen over an extended time.
Boy was he wrong.
Change did
come slow when knowledge was acquired by trial-and-error.
At the time
of Jesus, the wheelbarrow was cutting edge technology.The
world prodded along for centuries until the invention of the printing press in
the 1400’s. The printing press allowed
the mass sharing of information including the technology of the day.
By the early
1900’s the T-model Ford and primitive airplanes were cutting edge technology.Changes were happening, but they were still
slow.
In 1976’
computers were in their infancy and the Apple-2 with 4 Kb of ram, 5 ½ inch
floppy disk and a monochrome monitor that wrote in upper case only was
available for home computing for around a thousand dollars.
Now in only
forty years we have gone to hand held gigabyte computer phones with hundreds of
apps available.My GPS has the address,
maps and driving directions for everyone living in the United States and
Canada.NASA has probes hurling into
deep space and the internet has connected almost every person on earth.
This is only
the beginning.Computers are changing
our world at such a pace that it is hard to keep up with new innovations.We are on the cusp of artificial
Intelligence (AI) where computers will learn and think for themselves.It is almost unimaginable where technology
will have taken us by the turn of the 22ndcentury.
What could benefit Donald Trump more than a major hurricane hitting the east coast just days after the release of Bob Woodward's book? What could have been weeks of detrimental headlines will now be buried in the storm. And one hell of a storm. the Ol'Buzzard
We live in a great town: good restaurants, play houses, a University, low property taxes and reasonable real estate prices We have a seven theater multiplex theater here. Tickets are $4.00 for seniors and college students can attend on Wednesday nights for $2.50. A medium popcorn in $2.50 and a small coke is $1.50. My wife and I can attend a movie for $12.00 including a buttered popcorn and a drink. Tomorrow we are going to see Happy Time Murders. Check it out on YouTube:
20015 was
the hottest summer ever recorded in Maine; broken a year later in 2016.Now, 2018 is the hottest summer ever recorded
in Maine.
Maine
normally has between three and seven days in the summer with humidity above 70%
- this year that record was smashed by 36 days of 70%+ humidity – another record.
This has
been one of the most miserable summers here in Maine in my memory.We have never needed an air conditioner in
the Western Mountains; but I fear that if the last four years are establishing
a new norm, we may have to consider purchasing one.
The good
news is that Fall is dawning.We are
starting to see patches of color in the trees.This morning the outside temperature was 54 degrees and the inside
temperature was 62.I went out and
turned on the oil tank and kicked on our Monitor heater.Except for a couple of days this week, the
ten-day forecast is highs in the sixties and lows in the forties and
fifties.
WE LOVE IT!
The
republicans and the flat earthers still deny climate change is the result of
human pollution and population explosion, so the trend will continue.Perhaps we have already reached a point where
the change is not reversable; if not, that time is not far away.
What will be
the final results when ocean currents shift, ocean salinity is diluted and
ocean water rises?I won’t be around to
see it; but I don’t expect a good outcome for the human race.
In the meantime,
I will revel in the approach of fall and anticipate the first snowfall of
winter.
