Who knows why. Here’s Jack McHugh:
I believe the joyous response today was a bit premature. Then again, markets tend to move on perception as much as reality, so if people want to believe the economy is picking up, then why fight it?
Chart by Doug Short.
A reader writes:
I've smoked probably a dozen times in my life. I don't do it anymore because for whatever reason, it leaves me in the stupids for about 36 hours, and I usually can't spare that.
But as I've gotten older, I've come to realize just how ridiculously widespread pot use is. The closet of people who either currently or have in the past used marijuana on a semi-regular basis includes probably 75% of the people I know, including highly successful doctors, lawyers, public health researchers, IT professionals, small business owners, architects, local and state politicians, farmers, mechanics, chefs, teachers, researchers, community leaders, my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and of course the musicians and artists in the crowd too. Yes, I have seen abuse of marijuana sidetrack lives and ambitions, and have true negative impacts on people, but those instances as a percentage of the use I've observed are tiny, and far, far lower than the negative impacts of cigarettes or alcohol.
I recognize that we can't just legalize it and be done. Legalize it with caps on THC levels, blood THC levels for drivers, levels for intoxication at the workplace, tax it at 200%, ban advertisements on TV and billboards, advertisements that target kids, and set a legal smoking age. But all of that is eminently do-able.
Another writes:
If you have to put me in a box, I'm in the "did all kinds of drugs in college, but quit when I had kids" box. I still think most drugs should be legalized.
What do you tell your kids? It seems to me that no matter what you tell them, your actions say that you only follow laws that you agree with, and you are free to break laws that you disagree with. My kids speak contemptuously of parents who smoke pot and attempt to hide it from their kids.
Since I don't do illegal drugs, I try not to mix with people who do. Too much of a hassle. I don't want to risk arrest, and I have no patience for dealing with active drug addicts. So, while I have an active social life, it doesn't include drugs, and it includes very little alcohol for that matter. Yeah, I know that some people duck out in the alley to toke up at parties I go to, but they are not my close friends and I'm not a fanatic about this.
It seems to me that you get the worst of both worlds in the cannabis closet. You get to get high occasionally. On the other hand, your kids think you're a hypocrite, and you're stuck with friends who are more or less drug oriented.
Another:
I smoked pot like a fiend in college; when I smoked I did nothing else because I was unable to do anything else. I quit after a pretty co-ed stopped by my dorm room to ask me to go to a party with her and I was too baked to get off the couch because I was engrossed in Caddyshack 2.
Smoking pot — more than alcohol or shrooms or hash, the three other drugs of choice in my youth — kept me from achieving anything of consequence. When I stopped smoking pot and, not coincidentally, started drinking coffee, I became more productive. I also became happier about myself. I don't miss pot.
In another sign of the strains between a Vatican resolutely opposed to modernity and a Western parish and priest eager to embrace its humane reforms, an archbishop evicts a priest and most of the congregation from a church in Brisbane. The sins? Allowing a woman to preach the homily and blessing committed gay couples. These are the 'evils' the church is focused on, the things it won't tolerate. A little polygamy and animism in Africa – and widespread marriage annulments in America are, in contrast, manageable. And for several decades, child abuse was fine if kept on the downlow.
One despairs but recognizes the truth in this, at least:
“The Church when it is facing annihilation can turn itself around.”
But not until then.
Marc reports on Obama's LGBT priorities. Obama's view on protecting gay servicemembers from harrassment and random firing is best summed up by the phrase "the fierce urgency of whenever":
The preferred route, I am told, is to build consensus. Obama would appoint a panel to study the issue and then wait until after the 2010 elections when there would (could) be more Democratic Senators.
I wonder how Obama would have felt if Truman had followed the same path of cowardice and convenience in 1948, when racial integration was far more contentious in the military than gay integration is today. Or whether he would have applauded if the NAACP had decided that inter-racial marriage was too big a step for them in 1967 and they'd be content with calling it a "civil union." On the matter of civil rights in his own time, alas, the first black president has so far demonstrated the courage of a Clinton.
I'm struck by how many Republicans are still wedded to discrimination, even after so much evidence has been assembled revealing it to be counter-productive and based on nothing but prejudice and fear. They are the real culprits here. As for the Democrats, they seem permanently scarred by 1993, unable to move a measure that would help retain skilled service members at a time of great strain and remove a hideous burden from many patriotic Americans serving their country. The polls also show massive public support – but we have a large lobby group, HRC, apparently unable to pass laws that are backed by vast majorities of Americans. Forget DADT. If a lobby has been unable to pass their core legislative priority – ENDA – that has support of well over 70 percent for two decades, why should we hope for real change at a federal level?
I know that Christianism has gotten a grip on the military under Bush and that the GOP is now wedded to the notion that gays are to be ostracized or never mentioned. I know too that avoiding high drama culture war battles is a priority in this climate. And I know the Obama peeps are trying to move ahead on some basic recognition of gay couples at a federal level and are working on some executive orders and regulations (such as the HIV immigration ban) that are worth supporting and applauding. But these service members are serving their country with decency, professionalism and honor. The way they are still treated is a disgrace, and the insult to their service is a deep and dreadful one. End it. Treat them finally as the heroes they truly are.
(Photo: Amy Martin helps to plant hundreds of American flags displayed on the National Mall as part of a campaign by gay rights lobbying groups including the Log Cabin Republicans, Liberty Education Forum, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and the Human Rights Campaign November 30, 2007 in Washington, DC. The groups planted the flags on the anniversary of the signing of the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' law, with one American flag for each soldier discharged from military service due to their sexuality. By Win McNamee/Getty.)
As I mentioned on Chris Matthews last Sunday:
Today the Iowa Supreme Court posted notice of a Friday ruling in the Varnum v. Brien marriage case that could lead to the freedom to marry for gay couples in Iowa. If the Court upholds the August 2007 District Court ruling, Iowa would join Massachusetts and Connecticut in offering marriage licenses to committed same-sex couples.
Did Obama just save the G-20 communique?
Jonathan Chait tires of George Will’s climate change denialism:
Will (again) cites the unusually hot year of 1998 to prove that the planet isn’t warming. He fails to understand a very basic concept in data that you don’t need any particular social science expertise to grasp, which is that trends don’t always move in a perfectly straight line. The planet has been getting warmer, and there was an extreme spike in 1998. Both these things can be true.
“The church is not simply the prolife movement, and to the extent that every interaction between the church and our political system is held hostage to the demands of the most confrontational elements of that movement, the church’s social message, including its message about abortion, will be marginalized and ineffectual. The respect and honor owed the office of the president does not depend on any particular president’s merits (as Buckley often reminded his liberal critics). That respect is, among other things, a powerful affirmation of the willingness of Americans to live together peacefully, despite profound disagreement. Notre Dame’s invitation to President Obama is perhaps best understood in that light,” – the Editors at Commonweal Magazine.
Know hope.
(hat tip: Kain)
The Dish 