The American Spectator

At  The American Spectator we call them the Episodic Apologists, the contemporary American journalists writing about the Clintons: now full of hope, then in the sloughs of despond, suddenly full of hope again. Of Hillary and Bill, the Times editorialized in 2001 that its editors might “never understand the process by which a departing president and his wife come to put sofas and flatware ahead of the acute sense of propriety that ought to go with high office.” And the New York Observer lamented, “It is clear now that we [New Yorkers] have made a terrible mistake, for Hillary Rodham Clinton is unfit for elective office. Had she any shame she would resign.”

Now, eleven years later, the girlish, giggly Maureen Dowd is still at it:

Hillary is not going to President Obama’s Democratic convention in Charlotte. Evidently she’s going to wait for her own…. Her savvy public image gambit on Tuesday sent a signal she may not be leaving the stage forever. She has not only shored up her techie cred and popularity with young people. Hillary, who kept the press at a distance in 2008, is now well-liked by the press corps traveling with her around the world. Unlike Obama, she seems to enjoy going out with reporters and having a cocktail after a hard day of trilats.

In another sign she’s in vogue, she’s the model for a character, Elaine Barrish Hammond, a defeated presidential contender and divorced former first lady who becomes secretary of state, in a new TV show called “Political Animals” scheduled to air this summer on the USA Network. Hillary will be conjured up by Sigourney Weaver, wearing a ruby-red pantsuit in the first scene and described in the script this way: “Even in the pantsuit she’s breathtaking. Brilliant and indefatigable—Elaine is a force and a beauty…she has a regal countenance. If America had a queen, it would be Elaine.”

(April 10, 2012)

TheStir.cafemom.com

At large on the worldwide web Miss Sasha Brown-Worsham displays the febrile ratiocinations of her brain after a life spent on cannabis, or perhaps she went to the University of California at Berkeley:

April 20 or 4/20 is National Weed Day! We all know what that means. It’s time to break out our pipes, roll our joints, and light it up, right?

OK, in all seriousness, this day is just like any other day for the grand majority of us, but it IS the day of smoking for many avid fans of Mary Jane. Why? Because of a group of five San Rafael High School friends known as the Waldos who loved to smoke and started calling pot 420 back in 1971.

You can read the whole story over at Huffington Post, but for our purposes, the main takeaway is this: We need to legalize it! Here are 5 good reasons:

• Better for the economy: Oh suuuuureee, we could be talking about tax dollars used for drugs, but generally speaking, I am thinking of Little Debbie, Cheetos, and Pringles. Who keeps them in business but stoners? The more stoners, the more money being invested back in the snack industry. Genius, right?
• Better night drivers: Marijuana is said to be good for cataracts and that means better night vision. For many this would translate to better driving at night. Hopefully people would smoke their pot off the road, but the net result could be better driving in general, right? Besides, pot heads usually drive slower anyway.
• Happier citizens: Who isn’t happy on pot? There is a reason it’s called getting “high” not getting all low and depressed and snarky. High people are happy people and who doesn’t need a little more spark?
• Goodbye road rage: Pot slows everything down while driving speeds everything up and makes us crazy. While no one would advocate driving under the influence, even a little pot at the end of a long day would do much to reduce stress and, therefore, to reduce road rage while driving the next day. Yes, please!
• Increase in awesome ideas: Have you ever noticed that high people come up with the best ideas in the world? Think of the increase in creativity that would happen if we legalized it!

These are jokes, obviously. But the idea is serious. Legalization would lead to so many good things, not the least of which is pain relief, which is no small thing.

So if you don’t smoke anymore because you’re too old (like me), at the very least, don’t close your mind to it. Marijuana has its place and is no worse than alcohol, which IS legal.

Would you support legalization?

(April 20, 2012)