It is finally legal to partake of marijuana in Colorado and, while I’m happy with the progress, I’m not investing heavily in Zig-Zag just yet. First, I have to decide whether I’m even going to “do” pot again? And if so, in what form?
That’s right, “again.” I have smoked a form of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, or cannabis) exactly four times in my life, all before I turned 30. Twice, while stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army, I went to parties where large bowls of hashish were passed around. It was not uncommon for us Cold Warriors to be high, sometimes for long stretches of time. As ubiquitous as drugs were in the New Volunteer Army, it's a wonder most of us weren't jailed at one time or another. We weren't, of course, because most of our officers and non-coms were Vietnam veterans, and while they wouldn't have hesitated to bust any of us lower enlisteds for dope, you can bet your best bong the evidence would never have been seen the inisde of an MP station. Where our leaders led, we gladly followed, and sometimes it actually enhanced life's experienes. Buy me a double bourbon someday and I’ll tell you what it was like to watch “Tommy” while jacked up on hash and Crown Royal. After mustering out, on two occasions after returning to the States, I toked generously from doobies being passed around after-work parties thrown by the then-manager of a local ... um ... media outlet. Hey, I’m not revealing any deep secrets here; I’ve confessed all of this to an unsmiling inquisitor for the Colorado Department of Corrections, and still passed the background check.
So, with my drug-checkered past, I should be ecstatic about Amendment 64, right? I mean, I should be settling into a hot tub with Led Zep on the stereo speakers and getting righteously and legally stoned. Or one would think. Well, turns out it ain’t quite that easy. I quit smoking cigarettes thirty years ago because I was getting more colds in the winter, and they were lingering longer. I still have a small collection of pipes (including a couple I salvaged from my late father’s home) that I can’t smoke because the desire is still there to inhale. I now fight something that isn’t asthma but acts sort of like it, and our world’s deteriorating climate is making it worse. Obviously, sucking THC-laden smoke into my lungs is out of the question.
Other forms of imbibing aren’t much better. I’ve only recently begun to closely monitor my sugar intake (or, in my loving wife’s words, “No more sugar for you, fat-ass!”) so cookies and other sweets with stoner juice in them are also verboten. Topical applications have been known to cause rashes, and just eating the stuff can tear up an old stomach. In fact, it is entirely possible that, having survived youthful indiscretions and then abstaining long enough to see marijuana legalized, at least in the only part of the world I care to live it, I may not be able to ingest it safely. Can you say “cruel irony?”
The key word here, of course, is “safely,” as in “without any fear of damage.” That whole “safe” part may have to be rethought, and here’s why: As I plod deeper into my sixties, I begin to realize that I’ve probably already achieved the pinnacle of whatever sorry-assed career I was ever going to have, and now it’s just time to have whatever fun I can afford in the time that’s left. And lest you think the “afford” part isn’t significant, let me disabuse you of the notion. Vice is damned expensive these days. I can’t afford to become an alcoholic – and don’t think I haven’t tried – because the price of my daily pour keeps going up, and I refuse to be a “cheap drunk.” Nobody in my tax bracket can afford a decent hooker these days (don’t ask me how I know this, I just do.) A "friendly" game of Texas hold’em costs a C-note just to get in the door. And the “free” internet porn is a mere echo of what it once was (see above reference to hookers.) So aside from an occasional gift of booze from reliable friends and family, so-so-quality weed may be my best bet for a good time, and an occasional good time may be as good as life gets in my decline.
Sure, if I get the weight down, get the blood pressure under control, get a little exercise, eradicate the chronic cough, eliminate the kidney stones, yadda, yadda, yadda, it’s possible for me to live almost as long as my father did. And that’s about twenty more years. If I’m lucky, I’ll dance with one granddaughter at her wedding. Don’t pity me; I’m the product of genetics and poor judgment, and I’ve reconciled myself to what I’ve done. Jesus may forgive but Mother Nature doesn’t.
So, if my life is now passing from autumn into early winter, why not get all of the enjoyment out of it I can? I have room at the Rice Estate to cultivate a little hemp, the lovely but agrarian Mrs. Rice has a gift for bringing forth bounty from the soil, and I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Now that I think about it, maybe being able to legally smoke dope will provide the incentive I need to resolve all of my health problems, if for no other reason than to be able to get high without looking over my shoulder. Hey, you set your goals your way, I’ll set mine; don’t judge me, just love me as the sinner I am.
In fact, it’s just possible that cannabis sativa could become part of my new health regimen. Hell, I might end up dancing with all three granddaughters at their weddings. Now, if I can just teach the little stinkers how to roll a decent spliff, Grandpa will be all set.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Publishing list was splashy, lazy journalism
Occasionally, something happens in the world of journalism that causes conscientious journalists to question their deeply-held beliefs about the scope of the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution. The recent publication of the names and addresses of handgun permit owners should be just such an incident.
On Dec. 23, ostensibly as part of its extended coverage of the Sandy Hook school shootings, the Journal News of White Plains, NY, published the names and addresses of all of the pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester counties. New York state law and the U.S. Constitution clearly make such publication legal. Nonetheless, a lot of people, including the county clerk of nearby Putnam County, where the Journal News also has requested such a list, are crying foul. As of this writing, County Clerk Dennis Sant had refused to comply with the newspaper’s request, although it’s likely that, should the Journal News decide to pursue the matter, Sant would be forced to turn over the list.
The Journal News, and every other journalist in the United States who is asked to comment on the incident, claims it has every right to publish the list. And so far, the only defense the Journal News has offered to critics is exactly that: They did it because they could. That is an excuse offered all too often when it comes to publishing information that is of no real use to readers but causes a kerfuffle on Main Street. No doubt the staff of the Journal News thought they were being pro-active and edgy when they published the clickable interactive links on their web site and the list of permit holders in their pages. I'd be willing to bet they even invoked Ben Bagdikian's immortal defense of publishing the Pentagon Papers: "We don't just have the right to publish, we have a duty to publish!"
But the gun permit lists aren't the Pentagon Papers, aren't even in the same category. The Pentagon Papers were highly secret documents that chronicled the extent of deception and incompetence at the highest levels of the U.S. Government in prosecution of the Vietnam War. The list of gun permit holders is just another list of perfectly legal licenses and permits that any moke can get for the asking. And some of the people who's names and addresses are on that list are former police officers, prosecutors, and judges, some of whom are responsible for putting away some really bad guys -- guys who'd probably like to know where those people live. At best, it's a shopping list for any gang banger who wants to get his mitts on handgun and isn't afraid to break a window to do it.
The question then becomes: Just because it’s legal, does that make it right? The Journal News hasn’t even offered the clearly obvious defense it could be making, and that is this: Handguns in the possession of private citizens are dangerous things, and Americans should know who among their neighbors are dangerous. One reason they haven’t made that defense might be because it’s disingenuous. Having a handgun permit doesn’t make a person dangerous. Few mass killings are ever done with handguns because they simply don’t render a high enough body count. Tying legal ownership of permitted handguns to the Sandy Hook killings is like tying everyone who has a license to fly an airplane to the 911 attacks.
But here’s my biggest problem, as a journalist, with the lists that were requested and published. It’s lazy journalism for the sake of sensation. If the Journal News really wanted to perform a public service to its readers, and really wanted to tie that service to the Sandy Hook killings, it should have published the names and addresses of everyone in its readership area who owns a Bushmaster AR-15 assault-type rifle. Ah, you say, but there are no such records, and what records there are are kept secret by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms! True, and that’s the point. If the Journal News had expended two or three times the effort trying to get records of people who own assault style weapons, it would have come up empty-handed, and could have reported about the gaping hole in record-keeping on guns. It would have run head-first into the BATF, which considers the public records law a minor nuisance (while it funnels illegal weapons to Mexican drug lords.) And reporters would no doubt have been thrown out of every gun shop where they asked for names and addresses of customers.
So yes, in one sense the JN would have come up empty-handed, but they would have had a better story. They would have been able to document the complete failure of gun legislation when it comes to protecting you and me from people like Adam Lanza and James Holmes. They could have canvassed local gun stores to find out how many such weapons have been sold (although that would have required the burning of shoe leather, something reporters are loathe to do in this age of the Internet.) They could have documented the pitifully thin shield the gun reporting laws present and started a real dialogue about beefing up registration and records of guns in New York. It could have provided a foundation for a cause, the cause of making it easier to know who does and who does not own guns capable of killing twenty people in five minutes.
Instead, the JN did the easiest, fastest, splashiest thing it could do: It demanded, and got, a completely irrelevant list of law-abiding citizens and put their names and addresses in a clickable, interactive web page, and pretended it had practiced real journalism. Alas, it has not. It has only exposed several hundred of its readers to even greater danger than they faced before they got their gun permits. And that’s a shame.
On Dec. 23, ostensibly as part of its extended coverage of the Sandy Hook school shootings, the Journal News of White Plains, NY, published the names and addresses of all of the pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester counties. New York state law and the U.S. Constitution clearly make such publication legal. Nonetheless, a lot of people, including the county clerk of nearby Putnam County, where the Journal News also has requested such a list, are crying foul. As of this writing, County Clerk Dennis Sant had refused to comply with the newspaper’s request, although it’s likely that, should the Journal News decide to pursue the matter, Sant would be forced to turn over the list.
The Journal News, and every other journalist in the United States who is asked to comment on the incident, claims it has every right to publish the list. And so far, the only defense the Journal News has offered to critics is exactly that: They did it because they could. That is an excuse offered all too often when it comes to publishing information that is of no real use to readers but causes a kerfuffle on Main Street. No doubt the staff of the Journal News thought they were being pro-active and edgy when they published the clickable interactive links on their web site and the list of permit holders in their pages. I'd be willing to bet they even invoked Ben Bagdikian's immortal defense of publishing the Pentagon Papers: "We don't just have the right to publish, we have a duty to publish!"
But the gun permit lists aren't the Pentagon Papers, aren't even in the same category. The Pentagon Papers were highly secret documents that chronicled the extent of deception and incompetence at the highest levels of the U.S. Government in prosecution of the Vietnam War. The list of gun permit holders is just another list of perfectly legal licenses and permits that any moke can get for the asking. And some of the people who's names and addresses are on that list are former police officers, prosecutors, and judges, some of whom are responsible for putting away some really bad guys -- guys who'd probably like to know where those people live. At best, it's a shopping list for any gang banger who wants to get his mitts on handgun and isn't afraid to break a window to do it.
The question then becomes: Just because it’s legal, does that make it right? The Journal News hasn’t even offered the clearly obvious defense it could be making, and that is this: Handguns in the possession of private citizens are dangerous things, and Americans should know who among their neighbors are dangerous. One reason they haven’t made that defense might be because it’s disingenuous. Having a handgun permit doesn’t make a person dangerous. Few mass killings are ever done with handguns because they simply don’t render a high enough body count. Tying legal ownership of permitted handguns to the Sandy Hook killings is like tying everyone who has a license to fly an airplane to the 911 attacks.
But here’s my biggest problem, as a journalist, with the lists that were requested and published. It’s lazy journalism for the sake of sensation. If the Journal News really wanted to perform a public service to its readers, and really wanted to tie that service to the Sandy Hook killings, it should have published the names and addresses of everyone in its readership area who owns a Bushmaster AR-15 assault-type rifle. Ah, you say, but there are no such records, and what records there are are kept secret by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms! True, and that’s the point. If the Journal News had expended two or three times the effort trying to get records of people who own assault style weapons, it would have come up empty-handed, and could have reported about the gaping hole in record-keeping on guns. It would have run head-first into the BATF, which considers the public records law a minor nuisance (while it funnels illegal weapons to Mexican drug lords.) And reporters would no doubt have been thrown out of every gun shop where they asked for names and addresses of customers.
So yes, in one sense the JN would have come up empty-handed, but they would have had a better story. They would have been able to document the complete failure of gun legislation when it comes to protecting you and me from people like Adam Lanza and James Holmes. They could have canvassed local gun stores to find out how many such weapons have been sold (although that would have required the burning of shoe leather, something reporters are loathe to do in this age of the Internet.) They could have documented the pitifully thin shield the gun reporting laws present and started a real dialogue about beefing up registration and records of guns in New York. It could have provided a foundation for a cause, the cause of making it easier to know who does and who does not own guns capable of killing twenty people in five minutes.
Instead, the JN did the easiest, fastest, splashiest thing it could do: It demanded, and got, a completely irrelevant list of law-abiding citizens and put their names and addresses in a clickable, interactive web page, and pretended it had practiced real journalism. Alas, it has not. It has only exposed several hundred of its readers to even greater danger than they faced before they got their gun permits. And that’s a shame.
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