The things that go through my head

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the government is imposing legislation to crack down on crime by going after marijuana growers. Click here for reefer madness propaganda. Let me tell you what will happen if we allow the knobs in charge to get away with it.

1. The price of marijuana will increase.
2. There will be even more marijuana bust pr0n all over the news. We will be treated to more grow-op photo-ops, complete with wads of cash and garbage bags over-flowing with weed. Maybe there will be a couple grams of meth to really make the media salivate. The RCs will have fun parading their ill-gotten gains before the camera and assure the public that their jobs are actually faithful.
3. The crime rate will increase as the drug trade becomes even more profitable.

Cracking down on crime this way is a recipe for failure.

Good news, all you pot-smokers and drug policy reform activists and members of the reality based community. Obama’s attorney general made a public statement vowing to knock off the federal medical marijuana raids.

“No,” he said. “What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American policy.”

I love that dig at the previous administration. Unlike Bush, the president will now keep his promises. ZING! Well, he better, or I will have to rename my phone and he can’t be having that.

Thanks to my friend Ken, I have even more links to check out in relation to this story. Cannabis culture covered this story as well as the San Francisco Gate.

As I was driving my children home from the dentist today, we got into one of those really irritating conversations that parents of small children get into a lot. Katrina likes to ask Fear Factor type questions. “Would you eat a bucket of worms for a million dollars? Who would you rather live with if the whole family died?” Katey busts out with my blog post title and it got me to thinking. First of all, why do all 9 year old children ask these sorts of cryptic, morality questions? Secondly, isn’t paying a person $100 million to kick a puppy exactly like the Jerry Lewis Telethon that these disability activists are so upset about?

Kid 1 felt that kicking a puppy for $100 million is not bad because you could pay for really good vet care and the puppy would be good as new in no time. Of course, the puppy wouldn’t know anything about the money and would just think that you were mean to her and angry at her for some reason. Could you really hurt an innocent creature and make her fear and hate you, just to get a pile of money?

But Kid 1 explains that puppies are stupid and would forgive you sooner or later. Then we bickered back and forth about the amount of money. She agreed that it would be wrong to kick a puppy for $10, or $20, or $50, or $100, or $500. At $1000 the child hesitates but says no, she could not kick the poor, wee innocent creature for $1000. Finally, she haggled the price to $10 000. Despite my patient parental explanations, I could not get my child to agree that kicking puppies for money is wrong.

Whoa, there. You have no idea what this could possibly have to do with Jerry Lewis. Does he kick puppies? No, but he does kick the disabled. You probably think that Jerry Lewis is a generous guy that spent his life fund-raising for some worthy cause. Unfortunately, Jerry Lewis of Telethon fame, was awarded Humanitarian of the Year at the Oscars, thus tainting real humanitarians everywhere. Here is a video that I hope will help you get the picture.

Jerry uses condescending and insulting language to raise money by tugging on peoples’ heart strings and appealing to their guilt and pity. It would be nice if he actually listened to what these people had to say.

The Trouble With Jerry sent the Academy Award committee a letter explaining why they think they should rescind the award. They responded with the defense “He raised $800 million! How much money did you raise, losers” (I made up the losers part.) But it’s true that they really thought that all that money makes up for all the damage that is caused by portraying people living with disabilities as pathetic. While people with disabilities may be a minority population, it would be wise to consider that anybody could be hit with a disability at any time. We all live in fragile meat caskets that can be damaged by accident or disease. Then we may find out what it’s like to be told that you are lesser than or that you should stay in your house if you don’t want to be pitied.

Is the respect of an entire community worth $800 million? I certainly don’t think so.

Now I have to figure out why children always ask these strange questions which make no sense and lead to all these tangents. I just hope that nobody thinks that I am conflating people with puppies.

I was bored so I updated my blogroll with a couple of blogs that caught my attention. I have to say that I love Margaret and Helen. They are a couple of old ladies that have been best friends for 60 years. And they got a lot to to say about a lot of things. They don’t like Sarah Palin or George Bush or Anne Coulter. I completely understand. I do wish that they didn’t discriminate against the big-footed. They love to pick on Anne Coulter by mocking her emu-sized flippers. Those of you that know me personally know how much pride I take in my own personal, gigantic man-feet.

Yes, you heard me! I got size 11 feet. I can wear a men’s size nine, maybe squeeze into a wide size eight if I haven’t eaten in several days, which is never going to happen. Before I had children they were size ten. Having kids made them get even bigger. I can go swimming without any flippers and go skiing without any skis. I love being me, big feet and all. I could not possibly put down another human being merely for the size of their feet. Make fun of her for writing terrible books, run her down for being a deranged lunatic. But don’t pick on her for having clown feet.

Big feet are awesome. They are the greatest things in life. Any guy who would refuse to date me based on my big feet would surely be an intolerable knob. It narrows down the dating field considerably.

Other than the big-feet hating, I really do love Margeret and Helen. They are hilarious and witty.

I’m going to hell.

There are a lot of bad things going on in the world.  This story about the rape survivor refferred to as “having sex” with her assailant.  It’s an atrocity the way that article is written.  It makes my skin crawl.  It’s obviously rape to anybody with two functioning brain cells.  Thirteen year olds can not consent to sex.  Gross and creepy and wrong doesn’t even begin to cover it.

If that wasn’t enough to make you hate the world, there is this horror story about the Canadian government’s refusal to grant refugee status to war resisters. This hits especially close to home, considering that my boyfriend’s dad is a Vietnam draft dodger who escaped to Canada.  I was just at a really great presentation put on with help from the Open Door Society.  One of many things that I learned from them, was that the majority of immigrants coming to Canada are not refugees.  They are immigrants with specialized training in professions that are in high demand.  That’s why there are so many immigrant doctors and nurses in Canada.  We simply poach talented people from around the world, rather than help our own people get the training to perform in the professions.  We are closing the borders to refugees of all kinds, including war resistors.

There are lots and lots of people that have an opinion about what is wrong with the educational sysem.  They can opine about the scourge of grade inflation or low standards or funding or standardized testing or some other irrelevant side issue.  The problem with school stems from the fact that it’s a restrictive, confining institution more in love with dominance, competition, and enforcing social hierarchies than in learning.

Marks and grading are a perfect example of school perpetuating dominance and submission.  Students compete with each other for high marks on a transcript.  Only a few people can get the highest mark.  These are usually the people that try their best to impress the teacher and tell them what they want to hear.  Dissenting viewpoints are often ignored or silenced.  Students are severely punished for making mistakes.  Their mistakes are permanently recorded on their transcript.  They might get an 85 instead of a 90.  This will block admission to a prestigious school.  Better to read the teacher’s mind and give them exactly what they want, rather than take a risk.  Failure is not an option.

Mistakes should be celebrated as a part of the learning process.   The only way that this can happen is to ditch the marking and grading system.  Get students to prove their knowledge and understanding of course material before they can get a credit.  There are many ways to do this that do not require assigning marks.  There are essays that can be written and presentations presented and assignments completed.  Teachers can give written and oral feedback rather than numbers.  Tell students what they need to learn, not give them a low number.

All forms of assigning numbers to learning needs to go.  However, the school system will not allow this to happen.  Just look at what happened to Denis Rancourt. He taught a forth year physics class at the university and got into all kinds of trouble because he gave everybody in his class an A+.  The university would not allow him to go to a pass fail system.

You should have seen how all the teachers and administrators at SPSD (my employer) reacted to a speech by Alfie Kohn in the fall.  He is a big proponent of ditching the marking system.  It’s not what people want to hear.  Teachers simply can not imagine what they would do if they could not dangle a number in front of their students.  Behaviorism is entrenched in the school system.  We are all primitive organisms looking for rewards and avoiding punishments rather than human beings going through each day and trying to learn from each other.

The only way to have a minute chance at making school relevant and rewarding, like it should be, is to get rid of marks.   Multiple choice tests are useless and irrelevant.  I have spent far too much of my time teaching kids how to pass tests rather than learning about interesting and meaningful things.   Rubrics are horrible things.  Rubrics sit on the school systems brain, like a pulsating octopus.  They are simply one more way of assigning a number to learning.  They need to go.

Before I go, I should emphasize that I do not blame teachers for their inability to see the problems in the school system.  After all, they are simply doing what they are taught to do.  The system teaches them, and they pass it on to their students.  It is going to be a painful process to wean teachers of their marking addiction but it is incredibly important, if school is ever going to lead to lifelong learning.

Have I made myself clear?  Good.  Class dismissed!  Have a nice day!

Guess where I got this awesome picture of a cannabis plant?

I got it from a perfectly legal local medical marijuana grow. My friend the grower is allowed to grow twenty five plants by the government. He has a license over the door of his grow room. He has a drip irrigation hydroponic system with six pipes all fed by a twenty five gallon reservoir. He has to add lots of water to the reservoir every day and change the nutrient solution once a week. Pretty sweet deal, eh? It was the first time I had ever seen the inside of a real live grow room, legal or not. I am so jealous.

I now know three people with legal medical marijuana grows. I can remember when nobody could get permission to grow this beautiful plant. Things are looking up. Overgrow the government! There is a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not an oncoming train. Hooray!

She sure can turn a phrase. I just had to bring you this awesome quote which made me really happy to read.

Lonni and I are in complete agreement on one point: that women don’t own what our bodies eject. There are plenty of bodily effluents over which I would be happy to waive my jurisdiction, after they’re out and away. But — and this is where Lonni and I part ways — until they’re out, they’re mine. Take my used kleenex, my earwax, my excised tumors, but unless I’ve given you the secret password, stay the hell out of my canals.

And for crying out loud, if a kid is what gets ejected, by all means set it free. Don’t shake it or hit it or send it to bed without its supper. Don’t imprison it in a nuclear family or in some bleak concentration camp of a school. Don’t tell it to lose weight or how pretty it looks in makeup. Don’t abuse it with patriarchal myths about appeasing imaginary dude-centric celestial concierges. Don’t force it to marry some asshole in exchange for money. Don’t throw it out on the streets if it’s gay. Don’t expect a goddam thing.

I only wish I had been introduced to this line of thinking as a young teenager with no life experience. My life would have been completely different. But I will do my best to follow this awesome parenting advice. And I will make sure that my children read some good literature, when the time is right so that I don’t scare the bejeebers out of them.

That bit about school being a bleak concentration camp does touch a sensitive nerve with me, however.

I once went to the Midtown Plaza mall in downtown Saskatoon. It was the biggest mistake that I have ever made in my life. First of all, like every gullible consumer, I wandered aimlessly about the mall with a wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket. But I was also thirsty for a glass of water. No, I did not say a hot steaming cup of Starbucks, I want water. H2O. Not carbonated, over-priced sugar crap. WATER! As a lifelong participant in the educational system, I like water fountains. So off I went in search of a water fountain. Did I find a water fountain, you ask? No, I did not. Therefore I only had two options. 1. Suffer through my thirst until I get home and slurp directly from the tap or 2. Purchase a Dasani or Evian water bottle from the vending machine, wasting my hard-earned cash and contributing to pollution and the planet’s impending ecological collapse. The mall-builders neglected to put in water fountains in a nefarious scheme to separate me from my hard-earned cash. Well, it worked. Are you happy that you pried $1.75 out of my wallet? I certainly hope so.

I hope that you do not require more reasons to hate the mall. But just in case you do, I can provide. I walked past Cole’s bookstore and came across a lame display designed to separate consumers AKA suckers from their hard-earned cash. The display was entitled “20 books to read before you turn 20″. This is not enough to condemn the display. No, it was the books they chose that elicited a mighty eye-roll from yours truly. I have to admit that I have not read “The Diary of Anne Frank” or “The Book of Negroes” and I have no reason to dismiss those books as hackneyed garbage worthy of disdain. In fact, both of those books are on my grand list of “Books I Must Read Before I Die”. The book that gave me pause was “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I have to admit that I have not read this book and I never will. You see, I suffered through a couple of other Rand books, namely “Atlas Shrugged”. I can not emphasize how terrible Ayn Rand is. Her books are horrible. She tries desperately to be an honorary man by going on about “mankind”. Thanks a lot for erasing the existence of women, jerk. I have no respect for a female writer that is too lazy to use gender inclusive language such as “humankind” or “humanity”. Did she not grow up in a male-dominated world? Did she not feel anger and frustration while reading textbooks in school written exclusively from the male point of view? It sure used to anger me A LOT when I would read absolute garbage dismissing the female experience.

Also, she loves to write gross sex scenes wherein hetero chicks orgasm while men degrade them. It is impossible to read any of her horrible “literature” without scrunching your nose and thinking “EWWWWW!!!!”. I am an expert on Ayn Rand because I once read one of her books. Trust me when I say, don’t read Ayn Rand. Unless you like projectile diarrhea in written form.

Also, Rand is in love with cancer sticks and compares things she loves to smoking. All the time. And no, I am not making this up.

As if that wasn’t bad enough to convince me that Cole’s hates all women everywhere and female experience, they have to put up a truly odious display. A poster entitled Books for Boys. The books were books that any child living on planet earth could and would enjoy. If you answer yes to the following questions, you would like these books:

1. Do you like getting dirty?
2. Do you like taking things apart?
3. Do you like learning new things?

And that is what everybody likes to do, no matter what the configuration of their personal genitalia. It’s what makes you human. There was no “Books for Girls” display, but that was probably a good thing. They are so stupid that they would have probably put books about kittens and rainbows in the “Books for Girls” display and that would have made me even more cranky than forgetting that girls even exist. I wish Coles would realize that girls are human. How about a “Books for Kids” display?

Coles can forget about ever getting my hard-earned money ever again.

I’m starting to sound like a cranky Andrea Dworkin style radical feminist, the older that I get. And that’s all right with me. Male as standard, female as secondary (or worse, non-existent) is the foundation that misogyny is built upon.

I hate The Mall.