Washington State's First Real Legalize Cannabis TV Ad

I saw my first real pro Cannabis commercial (link from Huffington Post) on TV in Washington State yesterday.

TV ad from New Approach Washington

In it, a "soccer mom" type in a coffee shop says:

“I don’t like it personally, but it’s time for a conversation about legalizing marijuana," the woman in the ad says. "It’s a multimillion dollar industry in Washington State and we get no benefit. What if we regulate it?”

And then she gives reasons to legalize and tax it. On the Huffington Post article they say:

"A recent survey found broad levels of support for I-502, with 55 percent approving, 32 percent opposing, and 13 percent saying they were still undecided. A similar poll in January found lower levels of support, leading some to believe that the initiative is still gaining momentum heading toward November."

The TV ad is from New Approach Washington (you can see the video direct on their site) and God knows we can use a new approach on this issue. It's gone on long enough. We've wasted enough resources on it for far too many years, ruined too many good citizens lives over it. On their site they also ask, "What could $582,000,000 every year do?" And I agree with their answer: "a lot."

From an ABC News report, Mercer Island Washington Police Chief's reason not to legalize it? That it will make his job harder. Seriously? Give me a break. Your job isn't to have an easy job, that's why you are in Law Enforcement. He says that it's only reason for its use is to impair people. I would like to know one thing from him then, if he's ever had a beer? Yes, alcohol has medicinal qualities too; but that's no reason to legalize it if it were illegal today; nor is it now for Cannabis. That's, not the point. If we have such great freedoms in this country, why is it illegal?

Yes, I vote we legalize it. Enough already. Read a book. Use knowledge that is freely available and not being pushed by fearmongers, some police, judiciary and legislature. There are plenty of ex police and judges who are begging us to legalize? What not those currently in their positions? Because they are afraid of those who are pushing an agenda of fear and profiting from it being illegal. Really, it all comes down to who is making money on Cannabis being illegal NOW.

Besides, IF it's being legal is such a serious problem, then it will go haywire if legalized. People will start killing for it, robbing homes for it, molesting children, killing on the highways, being stoned at work all the time. Cat's and dogs will start living together, jello will rain from the skies. And no one will be able to tell you're high, unlike alcohol where you can at least smell it, and the person wobbles a bit and can't drive well (like on cocaine) so it's easier to tell, and we'll have to make it illegal again at that point and that will end the debate.

Or, it won't be that big a deal and we can stop wasting valuable resources debating it and putting people in jail over it. Not to mention, boosting the tax base. Seems to me the only people benefiting are the Police and judicial departments. With a drastic decrease in Pot crimes, they are going to loose funding for arresting criminals who are no simply longer criminals.

Bill Maher chimes in on Medical Marijuana On Huffinton Post. I agree with him that President Obama in his second and last term as President may just finally do what needs to be done. Not only on this subject but on others, like government reform. On that topic, do we really want another first term President in office and have to wait another four years for something to get done? Not to mention the nonsense that will ensue if Romney gets into office. But that's another issue altogether.

In another news release from The Olympian: "New Wash. marijuana group disbanding."

"Seattle lawyer and Safe Access Alliance president Kurt Boehl (BALE') said Wednesday the group will dissolve. Boehl said he formed the trade industry organization because he thought there was a need to help marijuana-related businesses in the state, but he and the rest of the board of directors decided it was best to call it quits after the firing spectacle.

Group spokesman Philip Dawdy held the news conference to discuss opposition to the marijuana legalization ballot measure going before voters this fall, Initiative 502. But Boehl said that wasn't the message he wanted to convey, and he fired Dawdy as the news conference ended."

I don't know. Maybe he was a mole from the other side?

Either way, I'm seeing progress on this issue.

I just recieved this email from RegulateMarijuana.org:

"According to the report, passage of Amendment 64 would produce at least $60 million in revenue and savings, with the potential to top $100 million in annual revenues within 5 years. Amendment 64 would also create hundreds of jobs, mostly in construction, and generate tens of millions of dollars annually for Colorado public school construction."

"This is information every Colorado voter needs to see before they cast their vote for Amendment 64. That's why we've created a simple page that'll make it easy for you to share the report with your friends and family. Can you do your part to help spread the word?

"Click here to help us spread the word about this new, crucial report.

"On this page, you'll also find a link to read the full report from the Colorado Center for Law and Policy.I thought this would be over by the early 1980s. It's really time to legalize it and lay the issue aside. Let's get on with more important issues now. And if we can make money to help this country from Cannabis, let's get on with it!

You know, I remember telling friends in the 1970s, feeling rather assured of myself, that I thought this would be over by the early 1980s. It's embarrassing to this nation that it has gone on this long. Too many people have suffered over this. It is really time to legalize it and lay the issue aside.

Let's legalize this now so we get on with issues so much more important to the citizens of this State and Nation. And if we can make money from it to help this country, let's get on with it!

Ban my book, in three part harmony....

The shortest distance in getting your book known, is still via a good banning by a popular nut case like Pat Robertson.

In fact it might be entertaining to do this in a public way. Maybe by writing a blog article like this:

"My attempts at getting my book banned by Pat Robertson." Yes, it is at first ambiguous. Is the title saying I'm trying to get my book banned by Pat, or is Pat himself writing an article about getting his book banned? And if so, why is he writing it on my blog? Right there we start by sewing confusion.

Then each day, or once a week, write a short update on the attempts. For instance....

Week One: "I have sent Pat a book with a nice note about what my book is about and that I think he would enjoy it." Maybe he'd read it and become outraged and ban it. Hopeful thinking....

Week Two: "I've not heard back from Pat, so I've sent him another book and told him that he's in it. He's not in it of course, but I figured that might make him curious enough to finally read it. And I'm sure he would find something offensive enough to ban my book, if he just read it. Or maybe he will see himself in it and find it not as pompous as he is in reality and thus, call for a good book banning! Wishful thinking....

Week Three: "I still haven't heard from Pat, so this time I send a book to his assistant with a note about how I think they should read this book because it is blasphemous and it names Pat as the anti Christ and therefore should be brought to the attention of the authorities, or banned, or burned, or well, something. Banning would be good though." Too high of expectations....

Week Four: "Still no word from the Pat camp, so I've sent them another book with an old clock that has a nice loud tic tic tic sound to it, along with a note of course, on the outside that says (This is Not a BOMB!)" No comment....

Week Five: "I haven't heard back from the Pat camp as yet, but I did get a nasty call from the police department stating that they weren't too happy about my package and that they had to send a bomb squad out to dispose of it. They admitted that they couldn't arrest or fine me for sending Pat a gift clock however, especially since I had said very clearly that it did not contain a bomb and after all, in the end, they destroyed my nice gift clock to Pat." Expectations lowering....

Week Six: "By this time not only is Pat fully aware of my book, but now the police department is too, and the fire department, as well as the surrounding neighborhood, everyone in Pat's camp and his relations. Okay, now pretty much everyone everywhere knows of my book because of the news reports of the possible bomb threat (which I never did)." Bingo!

Now not only does Pat know about it, but thousands, if not millions of people have by now read the book and several bannings are actually being implemented in my honor.

Thank God for that! But Holy crap, does it really have to be that difficult and time consuming to get a God Damned book banned! If only I had known that it took a simple gift of a clock and note, I would have just taken the short cut!

Now, of course I haven't done this, and I wouldn't do this.

But I think that even if you did this fictitiously it could get a lot of readers. I mean wouldn't you check in on it to see what was going to happened next? I think I would. Why, I bet you would get plenty of suggestions on how to go about getting Pat to read the book, or to ban it. Maybe we could start a movement. If everyone just called Pat up and begged him to ban my book... just maybe....

It could start with just one person on one day. Then maybe two people could call on the second day, and so on.

How was it Arlo put it? In his lyrics below just exchange the title of my book, Death of Heaven, for his song, Alice's Restaurant (a good song and a good movie, about good things):

"And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar. With feeling."

With much thanks Arlo Guthrie. And many thanks as always to Marvin Hayes for this idea....

How do you write a short story(?), someone asked....

Someone asked recently in a writer's group:

"When you initially start working on a story do you consciously make a decision as to whether that story, when finished, is going to be a short, a novella, a novel, or even series of novels? Or do you just go with the flow and let the telling and the actual execution of the writing of the story determine its length?"

Well for myself I have almost always started as if writing flash fiction. But I have never finished it as flash fiction. Even when I really was writing flash fiction. Whatever length I start shooting for, I nearly always have exceeded that. I've gotten better at it though and what I notice now is that I'm compressing the action more, so that there is more happening in less space; while trying to make the prose be more, with less. I've had to turn out a piece that was a specific length for a publication or something, but that's usually non-fiction. Either way, I can do it. It's tougth sometimes though.

I get to the end of short stories feeling like I'm running a marathon when I'm actually running a sprint. Or perhaps vice versa as in a marathon one should pace oneself, yet, I feel more like I'm running full out to the finish in an attempt to hurry up and complete my story.

Otherwise, I'm simply writing a novel, which I should have planned out more. Sometimes I start by knowing the ending and I write toward that. Sometimes I have a concept and start with that and write to the end; but then the middle always shifts as I add to the beginning and the ending as I think of clever, before unseen directions to go, which can be exhilarating as it feels like someone else is throwing in ideas that I find exciting.

It's also kind of like I'm moving through the story along with the reader. Except, that I'm there first. It's a bit sometimes, like riding on a small ancient, seafaring boat and I find that I'm the only one there. I try to stand in the middle of the deck on the boat, with no navigator and, while in a storm, I'm doing all I can to stay in the middle so as not to get swept overboard.

Or, it's simply like being delusional and I'm just writing it down.

So, typically I just start writing and see how it goes. If it starts to feel like there is a lot there, I keep going; if not, it becomes a short story. Lately I've gotten more into novel length works so I know what I'm getting into when I start. What I've detailed here has been how things have been for most of my life. But now things have changed. How it will pan out in the future, well, we'll all see that soon enough....

The End of the World - Bye Bye - Toodles....

I believe we must be approaching the End of the World.

You see, usually weather around here in the Pacific Northwest is nice during the week (if nice at all). Then when you get time off, when the weekend arrives, it gets lousy out.

But last weekend it was beautiful. Now this weekend is supposed to be beautiful. During this week, not so much.

So, I'm suspecting that (as usually, third is a charm, right?), the world will be ending the weekend after next.

So? Nice knowin' ya'll. Later. Much, much, later.... 

NOTE: Don't you just love how ethnocentric I'm being? Okay, geocentric. Geez, picky, picky, picky. Like the meaning of words beyond their initial statement impact should count? It really is fun. I think those idiots in the media all the time, who are always spouting this kind of crap, are really on to something.

After all, what's more important than you are right?

I mean, the universe does revolve around yourself. Right?

My latest Interview by Sumiko Saulson

Ever hear of Sumiko Saulson's page ("Things that go bump in my head")? No?

See? Things that go bump in my... well, you get the idea, right?

Well, she's a writer who likes to inteview other writers. Check it out, it's pretty cool.

Okay, yes, there's more.

Yesterday (Sunday 8/5) she posted her most author interview, with uh, yeah, you probably guessed it... with me.
Which explains why I'm writing this. But she's more interesting than just my interview, so maybe take a look, give her pages a look, maybe say hi. You see, she was kind enough to interview me about my writings, so I thought I'd return the favor. Here. By telling you, about her and her writings.
You just might find something interesting there.

The Blame Game

When I was seventeen I left my parent's house. For some years after I would blame anyone but myself for my problems, most especially, my parents. Things always seemed to happen to me because of how I was raised. Everything seemed to be my parent's fault. And things kept happening to me. It was nothing terrible, but just stuff, when it would happen, always seemed to be because of something other than me.

But once I accpeted that things in my life were mostly my own fault, or better and in not even "blaming" even myself, of my own design, and started to take responsibility for who I was and what I was doing, I stopped feeling so negative about life in general and about the people around me; even when it was indeed someone else's fault. I started to tell myself that yes, who I was had a lot to do with my parent's efforts (or lack of) in raising me and the home life that they created which at times, was very negative.

But at age eighteen, or at the age at which I moved out anyway, it then became my issue, my "fault" if you will and my responsibility to take what I had been given, and make myself who I then thought I should be. As adults, we are responsible for who we are. Prisons are full of people who never took on that responsibility.
Once I started looking at the bad things in my life, even when in some instances it truly was another's fault, life was just, better. In most instances things probably were my fault simply for allowing myself into a situtation that would allow for something bad to happen. Once I instead considered that had I simply made better, more well thought out decisions and consciously chosen the best of all possibly alternatives, then whatever bad thing that would have happened, very likely wouldn't have happened.

It was at that point, once I truly began to believe and accept it, that my life become more positive.
At that point, my relationships with people grew in quality and substance and life just seemed more friendly to me. Before that, I had few friends because once someone did something that I judged wrong, well, that was it for them. I had very high ethical expectations for people. Too high, I think.

But in the end, we're all Human. Right? We are falliable. We do make mistakes and hopefully, for some of us anyway, we do learn from them.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me", certainly has some merit; but it leaves an opening for bad feelings. But, "fool me once shame on me", has even more power, more personal responsibility; it requires of you, more awareness in life and as long as you don't take it emotionally, but functionally, you are actually protecting yourself more, and the others from their harming you, or even themselves. You can trust them more openly, albeit with restraint and intelligence.

Someone once told me after they had ripped me off, "You were naieve in trusting so much, why did you believe me?" Why? Because I want to be able to trust those around me. Who wants to go through life not trusting everyone. It makes you paranoid after a while.

So from then on, if I got "burned" by someone (and understand that my bar for being "burned" back then was pertty low, it was almost, in a way, like I was setting people up to fail), it didn't mean that I wouldn't have you around, it just meant that I wouldn't allow you to burn me again, as it then became my responsibility not to let it happen. I put the burdon on myself for not allowing others to take advange of me and the responsibility became my own. At that point, I saw people around me with more empathy and concern, too.

It also meant that I got "burned" much less in the first place. In my opening up to them after the fact and sharing all that with them (if I did feel I had been burned), it did me more good, it helped them more (or gave them more opportunity for change) and it helped the relationship; IF there was anything there to help in the first place. After all, some people are just out to get whatever they can out of you. And at that point, if they weren't very good people to begin with, you know knew that and they usually made the decision to leave themselves, as I was no longer a source of abuse for them.

So as the Dalai Lama says, in this new way to viewing life and the people around me, I did feel more peace and joy in life and from then on, I was simply much happier with my life and who I was.

Responsibility, really can bring you Peace and Joy.

Whale Wars Captain Refuses German Interrment

Captain Paul Watson Sends First Message To Supporters Since Departing Germany

Read the link above for Paul Watson's statement about why he left Germany rather than waiting to be jailed and extradited to Japan.

Rutger Hauer posted this on his site today. Interesting coincidence? Maybe great minds just think alike. :) Okay, maybe not. But I appreciate Rutger pointing it out. Also, check out his Starfish Association AIDS charity page. Back to Paul....

I've been watching Whale Wars for a couple of years now. Having become a SCUBA diver in 1970 and growing up around the Puget Sound, I've always been attached to our oceans. One of the guides in my life has oddly enough been to not live too far from salt water. I've lived inland and frankly, didn't care for it.

I love Japan and historical Japanese culture. Having started martial arts in 6th grade, I was much more aware of Japan than I was our oceans for many years before that. I've always had a fascination for Japanese martial arts (I'm still on the Board of Directors for our local Aikido Dojo), cinema, foods and so on. But this is something that bothers me about them. I understand the arguments for and against their whaling and I fall on the side of being against. Sometimes we have to change our orientation, it's painful. But that's all there is to it. Cultures evolve. If your culture has always lived in wood houses and all the trees die, you change. So how about changing before they all die?

The idea that any country should be allowed to kill a thousand whales for "scientific purposes" is ridiculous. Japan is now killing around 1200 whales each year for its "research programmes".  If their actions are scientific, then their testing is done through tasting, and all over Japan, out of fish markets and restaurants. Considering the size of whales, how in the Hell could you need 1200 whales for science and what scientist is going to be party to killing 1200 whales a year for their what, experiments?

We already know about Japan's relationship to dolphins and sharks (shark fin soup). I find it sad that they need to be beaten down to do what is right about this.