In 1969 12% of Americans believed that marijuana should be made legal; 4% said ‘no’; and 84% had ‘no opinion. By 2009 ‘no opinion’ shrank to 2%, as the lines sharpened into 44% for ‘yes’ and 54% ‘no’. (Note: the 1969 sample of 1585 adults has a +/- of 3%; and the 2009 sample of 488 adults has a +/- of 5%.)
In January 2010, an ABD News-Washington Post poll found that 81% favor the legalization of medical marijuana. Today’s USA Today article is informative, because it interviews James Gray, a former federal prosecutor and county judge who is now a ‘turncoat’ on the topic of legalizing marijuana.
“Let’s face reality,” Gray says. “Taxing and regulating marijuana will make it less available to children than it is today.”
When we think of marijuana in Europe, visions of Amsterdam cafes come to mind.
Relatively dispassionate, the editorial seeks to clarify the most confusing aspects of the health care debate. It does embrace the President’s plan. I will look on FOX News for an equally dispassionate, factual analysis of why the plan should be canned and how Americans will be better off with a different plan.
Having watched the health care debate two weeks ago, I know that Republicans argue many Americans must go without access to insurance. It’s part of capitalism that the bottom group, unemployed, uneducated or self-employed people will have to work harder to deserve health care. We can do it, if we try. The country can’t afford a health care system that insures everyone in some way.
No Republican can disagree with that statement. It’s a core premise of their position.
Of course we should try to work to insure as many people as possible, but a fundamental fact is that the American system always has ‘fallout’ or ‘collateral damage’. This is our inspiration to try harder, work longer hours and learn to take care of ourselves and not expect a nanny state.
Sachs is browbeating me into believing that I’ve missed it — that as we prepare to retool global economies, the science should be embedded in my brain by now.
Mea culpa, meal culpa. I am confused about climate science, and not because I can’t sort through the Sarah Palin logic.
This portrayal of climate scientists as gods compared to the rest of us is really getting on my nerves. I’d like to think I’m a concerned person with a global conscience and if these guys don’t stop insulting my intelligence and right to ask questions, they will have a serious fight on their hands.
Personally, I think we need a commission of intelligent moderates in the middle, sorting through the particulars. All we have is another meltdown of Democrats and Republicans, this time with climate scientists who all but call me stupid and lacking in moral conscience, for not comprehending the ‘self-evident science’.
Back to the WSJ, a publication that I like and find to be more moderate than Dr. Sachs suggests.
David BrooksAmerican media is so paralyzed with partisan soundbites and lack of analytical skills or intellectual rigor, that I will only listen to a few people in today’s media world. David Brooks is on on list.
I like him because he is a fair Republican Conservative — even though many won’t claim him in the party. Perhaps he’s actually an independent thinker like me, in an independent-minded country that’s not keen on thoughtful analysis. We prefer shouting matches, which is perhaps a natural outgrowth of our national, entrepreneurial moxie and rebellious spirit.
The Pragmatic Leviathan seems to be an accurate temperature check of America’s ‘silent majority’ mindset on the Obama administration and the president himself.
Supportive of the president, it gives him some good advice.
We prepare today to watch the voters in Massachusetts decide the future of Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.
Whoever wins, few will spend enough quality time talking about the real meaning of the outcome.
America needs a major cleansing breath, and I doubt we will take one. If ever America wanted an effective third party, it’s now. New coalitions must be negotiated by people with muscle and a belief system based on an accurate assessment of America’s global future.
I wish some respected national publication would write an article titled: “10 Initiatives the Majority of Americans Agree On.” All we will hear today in the media is shallow partisan talk and an inability to take seriously that America is increasingly in a real mess and we can only get out of it together. Anne
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, we share his inspiring, motivating “I Have a Dream Speech” speech, delivered on my birthday on Aug. 28, 1963.
These words inspired me as a young woman on the Minnesota prairie in ways I can’t explain, bearing an impact on my thinking and values that I don’t fully understand to this day.
Racism At My House
We didn’t have Black people living in my Midwesterrn town. I didn’t grow up in a segregated society, and race relations weren’t part of the culture of my daily life.
It would be 1968 before racism hit home. I accidentally overheard a family member on the phone, speaking with the builder of our suburban development. I still can’t articulate publicly what was said, because I am both ashamed and still incredulous over the event.
My family member explained to the builder of our house — without an ounce of ambiguity — what would happen to him, if he sold the house across the street to a successful Black veterinarian. The words of that phone conversation — never discussed or even acknowledged until now — have rung in my ears for decades.
I knew this man quite well, as the first Black person I spoke with, in my teen-girl life. He chatted with me in the evening, waiting for his prescriptions to be filled each night. I worked in the cosmetic department next door.
The Black veterinarian did not become our neighbor, even though he was well-qualified, and we never discussed the incident.
Starry Nights and ‘Yes We Can’
Watching footage of the civil rights movement, I was transported in memory to a warm, starry night in Wainscott, LI. My weekend guests were my dear friend Lauryce and two of her African American girlfriends, who I knew casually.
We were dining outside on the deck of my house, enjoying one of those glorious, East End summer night dinners under the moon, a night so beautiful that we all felt blessed with the beauty and good fortune of our lives.
No matter that I was the hostess. I was technically the outsider, because these three Black women had grown up in Charleston, SC.
Relaxed with our wine drinking, the three Southern belles fell into animated, larger-than-life conversation about life in the segregated South. There was a lot of hollering and laughter going on, even if the trio was terribly sophisticated.
When the women laughed about the so-called advantages of sitting in the balcony of the movie theater — God knows, I don’t remember what benefits were for real — I could only cry inside, that these beautiful Black women would endure such humiliation in their young lives.
They weren’t play-acting for my benefit. Many oppressed peoples develop humor to help them deal with misfortune, and I was seeing it first hand.
There are many reasons not to watch TV, and manufacturing news stories is at the top of the list.
The persistent attention all weekend to Harry Reid’s comment about President Obama was one of the most blatant examples of the media trying to create a story that I’ve seen in years.
By the time CNN is finished with us, the races will never get together. If you didn’t think Reid’s comment was a problem on Friday, CNN had us convinced by Sunday that this was the worst political racism in the 21st century.
This country is so politically correct these days, it’s nauseating. What Harry Reid said is correct, and I don’t find it racist at all. It’s true for heaven’s sake. Since when is telling the truth, especially by a political insider making a ‘private’ strategic political comment, racist or sexist or classist or … ?
Political Electability Matters
Years ago I ran a one-woman campaign to stop the New York’s Off Track Betting association from taking over the old Village Voice office on University and 11th St. in Greenwich Village. In a couple days I collected 5000 signatures against the OTB lease and had NBC News on the spot.
In 1969 12% of Americans believed that marijuana should be made legal; 4% said ‘no’; and 84% had ‘no opinion. By 2009 ‘no opinion’ shrank to 2%, as the lines sharpened into 44% for ‘yes’ and 54% ‘no’. (Note: the 1969 sample of 1585 adults has a +/- of 3%; and the 2009 sample of 488 adults has a +/- of 5%.)
Anne
