Unfortunately, Gov. Pawlenty — on the short-list for McCain’s VP, incidentally — has said he “stands with law enforcement” on the issue; meaning, presumably, in opposition to it and inclined to veto based on the opposition of a small but vocal contingent of cops and prosecutors.
One problem: that small but vocal contingent has been exaggerating, offering misleading testimony, and occasionally lying outright about the bill.
However, no matter what proponents do, the Minnesota press seems uninterested in the litany of lies these people have thrown at the legislature, press, and public. We’ve made Lie of the Day videos, which we’ve blasted out to the press and elected officials; we’ve compiled a 22-page document cataloguing this pattern of deception; we’ve held press conferences and much else besides. Still nothing.
I’m attaching the videos to date below. If the nine people who view this blog are at all interested and want to help out, please check them out, cross-post them, and let other folks know — especially Minnesotans. We’ve never been this close to passing a medical marijuana law in Minnesota, and it shouldn’t be derailed because the press neglects to mention that our opposition can’t stop lying.
This has to be one of the most cringe-worthy press releases I’ve ever read. The whole thing is just agonizingly, embarrassingly inane, but here’s a favorite:
PETA is presenting Frito-Lay with a certificate of appreciation for providing consumers with a new and tasty vegan snack and is promoting the new chips on its youth Web site, peta2.com, where the kids are “all about vegan snack foods.”
This NY Times piece is getting a lot of play, it seems. That’s good. The animal rights movement needs to figure out — finally, once and for all — whether sexy/sexist spectacle is good activism. Anti-fur campaigns featuring naked women, nude mud wrestling on college campuses, underwear-clad pregnant women in cages, vegan strip clubs, and on and on.
Are we making new vegans this way? Or are we buying into outmoded and lame models of engagement that actually contradict basic messaging by recreating modes of exploitation?
And what do you call it when you do the same things over and over, expecting different results?
Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose has responded to a US drinks company who challenged the band to release their eagerly anticipated album this year.
In a statement on the group’s website, Rose said: “We are surprised and very happy to have the support of Dr Pepper with our album Chinese Democracy.”
The fizzy drinks firm has pledged to give everyone in the US a free can if the band releases the record.
They also report that Axl has “reportedly spent $13 million (£6.47 million) getting Chinese Democracy ready.”
It’s going to suck so bad. Or, possibly, be the greatest thing that ever happened to anyone ever. Either way, free sugar water for the chubby, unwashed masses! [thx, anthong]
Two of my passions collide. The writers of “The Wire” — almost certainly the greatest television show of all time — pen a fantastic piece about the failings of the drug war:
What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we’ve been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain.
Update: David Simon discusses “The Wire” with Terry Gross, with a singular emphasis on the drug war and the themes of the essay quoted above. (via crazymonk.)
The Michigan medical marijuana initiative was certified by the state’s Board of Canvassers today. This means it will, in all likelihood, go to voters in November. Which rules.
Kottke links to this piece from the March issue of the Atlantic, exploring the possibility that home foreclosures and demographic shifts will convert the suburbs into the slums of the future:
The decline of places like Windy Ridge and Franklin Reserve is usually attributed to the subprime-mortgage crisis, with its wave of foreclosures. And the crisis has indeed catalyzed or intensified social problems in many communities. But the story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound…
For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.
It’s a counter-intuitive notion, the suburban ghetto. But it makes a lot of sense. Similarly, I’ve been wondering how the desert Southwest is going to fare in the years to come. Las Vegas, where I lived once and may live again, is likely going to be without water soon: Will the enormous rate of growth in the areas surrounding the Strip and downtown mean a vast wasteland of abandoned pre-fab houses, and some sort of Mad Max dystopia, while the casinos surround their stretch of profitable turf with fences and guards?
