The things that go through my head

The latch on my gate has been broken for the last couple of weeks, thanks to the cold spring winds slamming the gate shut. The latch got bent out of shape and I proceeded to bend it back into place with a hammer.  The next time that the wind bent the latch I ordered my boyfriend to pound it back into shape. Thanks to the stress and strain of the metal being bent and re-bent, the poor latch broke.  This is why I had to stand outside with my dog while he did his business. The weather is beautiful and all the snow is melting and mud-puddly. It’s the perfect weather for a housebound middle-aged, young-at-heart dog to run amok on our block.

Just think of the outdoor adventuring my dog can accomplish on a wet spring day!  So much garbage to discover among the melted snowbanks. He could luck out and find a carcass to drag home. Maybe an errant cat could saunter carefree through the neighbours’ yard. This would require running off at a frantic pace to let that cat know that such impertinence will not be tolerated. Perhaps a young child dropped a few French fries at the local McDonald’s for my sniffy dog to discover and enjoy. Without a pesky gate latch to hinder his movements, he is free to run and sniff to his hearts’ content.

Unless his owner decides to keep a stern and watchful eye while the middle-aged dog takes a load off, there is no way, no how that he will stay in the yard. Unfortunately, the same spring fever that hit the dog also hit his owner. While the owner was supposed to supervise the dog (or fix the gate), she wandered about the yard, picking up garbage, splashing through the mud puddles and deciding what yardwork needs to be tackled once the snow is finally gone. Once the dogs’ owner snaps out of her spring induced reverie, she realizes that the dog is nowhere to be found. Panic sets in momentarily. “OMG Did Winston get run over?” She takes a walk to his usual hideouts. She finds him in the first place that she looks. Do you know where that naughty dog was found?

Squatting in front of my neighbours’ sidewalk unloading a pile of puppy poo. Winston looks sheepish, ashamed and embarrassed, the way he always does when he is caught in the act of pooping in an inappropriate spot.  I give him my stern “What Do You Think You’re Doing?” look.  He finishes and runs back to the yard sheepishly, head hanging low, his little legs quickly scuttling back and forth, propelling him back to the yard. He stands expectantly in front of the gate. I stand by the front door in my grumpy owner voice. “C’mon boy, it’s time to go inside”. But he stands his ground and whines and I swear he is trying to tell me something.  If I didn’t know any better I would think that my dog wanted to show me something in the backyard. Curiosity gets the better of me and I decide to humor my dog (and myself). I follow him to my backyard and he saunters over to a gigantic turd, which obviously does not belong to my twelve pound Jack Russell terrier. He then looks at me expectantly, as if to say, “Your turn to sniff the mystery turd”. I decline but I realize that pooping in front of my neighbours’ yard was Winston’s attempt to right a wrong.

I cleaned up his errant poo when he wasn’t looking, so as not to upset my dog and nullify his retaliatory action. Then I proceed to fix the gate in order to keep my dog in the yard and all the other dogs out.

No gate will keep the cats out, unfortunately.

Proof I fixed the gate.

Drew Carey does a great job covering the topic of medical marijuana. He talks about the harsh penalties being handed down to people that grow it for the people that it can help and the raids carried out by the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United States. Drew interviews a doctor put on house arrest for the crime of helping a minor treat his pain caused by cancer. Even though he was helped immensely by his use of medicinal cannabis, the federal government only cared that his patient was a minor. The feds are suffering from illogical reefer madness and they need to smarten up on this issue.

It reminds me of how much I used to like the Drew Carey show. It must have gotten canceled years ago.

Blogging is such a mixed bag sometimes. I love to write and I love feedback on my writing, even if it’s just the occasional comment from the three or four people besides me that actually care about this blog. If you get a following on a blog that you update regularly, after a while you can feel like you have to produce something every single day, even if you would rather splash around in the mud puddles or clean the house or fret about a major life change. I recognize that I love it when people bug me to update the blog because it means that somebody actually cares about what I have to say. But when I don’t want to blog it feels like such a chore. A very strange combination of factors conspired to keep me from blogging for the past few weeks. The fact that I bought a new laptop and I have had the worst case of writers’ block because I am not used to it. I realize that this makes me a very strange cookie and that I should not admit to being this weird on a blog under my real name.

That’s another thing about blogging that sucks. I am continually reminded by the so-called “real world” that everything I put on this blog is accessible to the whole world FOREVER! And that is such a bad, horrible terrible thing. I can’t think of one good, sane reason to care about being held responsible for the things that I say. I stand by them, and if I am serious about that, I should post my thoughts under my real name, by gum. So that’s exactly what I do.

I say that and I mean that, but I can’t help fearing that I engage in a little bit of self-censorship on this blog. There are many times when I think “Can’t write about that, I don’t want everybody to know that!”

Anyway, what has finally spurred me to give up my lame writers’ block excuse is the absolutely ridiculous reefer madness being displayed by the dead tree media of late. First we have this lame dog pile dumped into the Star Phoenix. The dripping disdain for medical cannabis is apparent in the tone of the article and the fact that the editorialists couldn’t even bother to get their facts straight about this issue. They declare that if only that user of “doobies” had just respected the owners’ request to move, there would have been no problem. If only those pesky groups that are continually discriminated against would just go away and quit demanding their rights and to be treated with respect, everything would be peachy keen and smell of roses. As if! This line of thinking brings up a few questions that I think everybody should think very deeply about, before getting defensive and dismissing everything that I have to say.

Why do people get so upset about the idea of cigarette smokers sharing their spaces with cannabis users? I simply do no understand why it is justifiable to punish medical cannabis users in this way. It makes no sense. Cannabis smoke is far less dangerous than tobacco smoke. There is more pollution and second hand smoke being spewed out the back-end of cars than by even the largest group of cannabis smokers. Why the double standard? I can already hear the response from the reefer madness indoctrinated crowd. “But Tanya, marijuana is illegal!” It is very true that people have fought a constant uphill battle to have the well-documented and extensive medical use of cannabis recognized and respected. There was never an excuse for the government to punish people for growing plants. It’s absolute bullocks and inexcusable. There should never have even been a need to prove the medical use of cannabis for it to be allowed to be used legally by people that need it.

This is my long-winded rambling way of saying that there is no excuse for the ridiculous drug laws. Nothing good has come of imprisoning millions of harmless drug offenders, the majority of whom are in prison related to cannabis offenses. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it. The government spends all this time and money punishing people for using the wrong drugs and we have literally nothing to show for it. Unless you consider escalating rates of drug use and HIV infections an accomplishment.

If I get around to writing a proper response to this sewage published in the Star Phoenix, I will be sure to publish it here. I think it’s time for a letter to the editor.

But wait! The reefer madness propaganda machine is just getting started. We get to hear my main man Obama mocking the people who responded to his request for feedback on his site and demanded that cannabis be taxed and regulated. Apparently, putting a stop to jailing people for their personal drug habits is beyond the pale for the Grope and Flail * and simply must be mocked and disdained with witty remarks about wondering why anybody would think that President Obama would want to legalize the demon weed. But they made a grave mistake by dismissing the 53% of Canadians that think cannabis should be legalized. What gives Globe and Mail the right to do that? The politicians and the media are both out of touch with what the people really want.

* To use Canadian Cynics’ terminology.

The DFH were right and I am proud to call myself one.

From this article about how legalizing drugs will be BAD, comes the following comeback.

As usual the conservative commentators are way behind the 8 ball on this one. The facts is that the marijuana industry in BC is now probably our largest industry since forestry and tourism have hit the skids. Maybe we should legalize it, but only when the economy has recovered. We can’t afford to right now. We need the fiscal stimulus of building new prisons to house all the criminals, we need to hire lots more cops to save us from ourselves, and think of all the cops, lawyers, judges and prison guards out of a job if marijuana were legal. For Gods sake, even the Hells Angels and all the other gangs would be left with little to do when they could no longer sell a weed for $3000 a pound. Legalize marijuana? Hell no, we can’t afford to!

This week I bring you an appalling drug policy story that I saw while perusing the excellent Drugnews Digest at The Media Awareness Project. They are an excellent news site, compiling drug policy news stories from around the world. Check them out. Anyway, we North Americans live privileged pampered lives at the expense of people living on the other side of the world. No wonder shopping at Wal-Mart is a tool of the patriarchy, as all of their goods are cheap crap from China. But it isn’t just our rich white honky lifestyles that hurt people. Just consider the damage that international drug policy has had on disadvantaged groups from around the world.

In the name of eliminating drug crops, dangerous, poisonous pesticides rain down from the sky. This has been going on in Columbia for many years in an attempt to kill the drug crops. What has been the result of this policy? The governments spend billions of dollars on drug eradication and drugs are more widely available at cheaper prices every year. According to the US governments own statistics, drug production in Columbia is up by 36%! AY-YI-YI!!! This should be a good enough reason to lay off of the aerial drug eradication poison. But no! I bring you more bad news.

A group of 100 widows in Columbia that started a farm, after tragically losing their loved ones, recently lost their crops due to aerial eradication. Unfortunately, Teresa Ortega and her group are just one of 10 000 farmers that reported losing their crops in recent years.

What the hell are we thinking, to allow this to go on year after year?

Instead of coming to their senses and legalizing all drugs, likely some disconnected government agency will issue a report shaming the cocaine addicts in Hollywood for the fact that their habit probably came at the expense of someone’s hard-earned food crops. Stupid government. #%$@#$^#^%^%^#

That seems to be what ABC news reporter Emily Friedman wants you to believe. I mean, when I first read this story, I truly couldn’t believe my eyes. Are there people out there earning over $250 000 that do not understand how tax brackets work? Check out this quote:

Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder, Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of paying the taxes proposed in Obama’s plan.

“I’ve put thought into how to get under $250,000,” said Poczatek. “It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off.”

“Generally it means being less productive,” she said.

I really should have written this blog post yesterday because it appears that they have updated the article to reflect a tiny amount of common sense. But they still have the fools stating that they would cut back the amount that they work if they had to pay more taxes on the money they earn over $250 000. Cutting back to fewer hours because of this proposal is just ridiculous. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

If you really want to laugh at some incredibly foolish people, go ahead and check out the faulty logic and reasoning of Instapundit. He is blaming the downturn of the economy exclusively on the election of Obama. C’mon, now. Is anybody buying this nonsense? I sure hope not.

Just in case you don’t understand how tax codes work, go ahead and read this nice summary.

I should also mention that I found this story on Pandagon.

I have decided to shake up my use of the English language. I am endlessly annoyed with the way that language shapes our attitudes toward gender. I am sick and tired of telling people, usually men, to quit being grammatically lazy and use inclusive language. Don’t say “mankind” when you mean “humankind”. The male as standard and female as secondary trope is the foundation upon which the second class status of women is built.

I do make an effort to use gender inclusive language. I believe I am successful in my use of the written word but I definitely lapse in my spoken language. For example, today while I was frittering away my free time by playing Mario Galaxy with my kids, I informed them that we needed to go back to the Loop-Dee-Loop galaxy in order to get more Men for Mario. Then I corrected myself and said 1-ups. But it still annoyed me that I fell for the Male-as-Standard BS at all. Sure, it’s great that I say power-ups or 1-ups. But it would be even better if I went to female as standard. That would really make people think. So no more calling Mario’s lives Men or even 1-ups or power ups. I will call Mario’s lives Women.

I can already hear the silly questions that my use of female as standard, male as secondary will illicit. Here are the silly questions with my responses to each.

Q: “Oh Tanya, you’re such a feminist.”

A: “I do what I can but it’s never enough.”

Q: “Isn’t replacing male as standard with female as standard just proof that you hate men?”

A: “I’m sorry but this question is too stupid for me to take seriously.”

Q: *stunned silence*

“Oh I’m so so sorry that I hurt your feelings. You were being serious! I really had no idea. Well, here is my attempt to answer a question that would not be necessary for me to answer if the radical gay feminist agenda had been as successful as Right-Wing radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh would have you believe.

You see, when I was a young innocent girl-child, I attended public school in order to get this thing called an EDUCATION. It was serious business and I took it very seriously. I did what the teachers asked of me and I truly believed that school had all the answers. However, some thoughtful seeds were planted in my brain when I noticed that the textbooks were written exclusively from the male point of view. When I asked my teachers about this they would either explain that this is just the way it is or they would give me that frustrated eyeroll that my frequent questions illicited. As an adult I would learn all about patriarchy and then it made sense. In a patriarchy, womens’ interests and concerns are not considered because they are secondary to mens’ concerns. This makes no sense when you consider that women make up over half of the human race. But when you live in a patriarchy, that’s just the way it is.

For the majority of my adult life I have done my best to eradicate this trope from my speech, not that anybody has noticed. And I feel this is insufficient to make the point that male as standard is pervasive. If I used female as standard, people may notice and ask questions and maybe even think about the ways that they use language.

You may even want to think about why it is that feminists must spend 98% of their time reassuring the poor men that they do not hate them. ”

Q: “That is such a great idea! I am going to do it too. I’m going to say womankind when I mean humankind (forget mankind). I am going to refer to the gender of animals as she when the gender is unknown. You’re idea is so awesome and amazing that I am going to steal it.”

A: ” Thank you kindly, Woman. Imitation is the sincerest form for flattery.”