Category: Historical

There are too many medical marijuana stories that miss the point with headlines such as Supreme Court Says Docs Can Recommend Marijuana. What the Supreme Court did, first, is without comment let stand an Appeals Court ruling that said the DEA and law enforncement is not allowed to investigate doctors who recommend marijuana. This closer to me making a recommendation that you rob a bank to resolve your financial woes than any large triumph. After all, users and producers of marijuana for any reason can still be prosecuted. And doctors can’t prescribe it, either.

Slate’s Well-Traveled series is in Tokyo. Today Seth Stevenson reports on his “investigations” in to the fascination with manga and anime.

My favorite line: At least once a day you see something, or someone does something, and you cannot for the life of you figure out the purpose or meaning. It’s refreshing, at times, to have no idea what’s going on.)

Last night I went for a walk around the neighborhood. I had to take the recyclables out anyway, and for weeks now I’ve found myself craving the rain. Decked out in black khakis and a black jacket, I wandered down my street, singing “Here Comes the Rain Again” to myself as I carried my super-sized Candinian umbrella, bright red and white with maple leaves for decoration. I wanted to stand out in the rain until I melted away, listening to the pattering of rain against the taut frabric of the umbrella. Instead, all I ended up with was my khakis soaked to the knee and waterlogged feet despite my waterproof sneakers.

Some mornings, I want to simply roll over. Just go back to sleep, not worry, wait for tomorrow. And some days, I do just that, and then fifteen, twenty minutes later, I’m suddenly rushing to the bathroom, showering, and heading in to work 15 minutes late. Those days seem more common lately, far more often. Then again, this always seems to happen in Autumn. The dying of the evening light always speaks to me this time of year, reminding me that “No, you’re not getting any older.” All those choices in life you have to make, you can’t put off forever.

I hate hangars. I really do. They’re just so uncooperative, for pieces of bent wire or molded plastic. They cling to things you don’t want them to cling to, they don’t come when you want them, and you can never find one when you really need it. I mean, just because I actually washed all my clothes at the same time, and maybe bought a new pair of jeans, or a few new shirts, doesn’t mean when I go to hang them all up, I’m missing three hangars, does it? And then suddenly you find yourself looking through the closet going, “well, I don’t wear this anymore, I can just fold it up and put it in the drawer” or “My God, what possessed me to pick that out? Quick! Stuff it away where no one can see.” Honestly! Who needs that kind of crisis just because you want to hang up a few pieces of clothing?

Austin, a good friend from college who is moving to San Francisco in December (most likely, anyway), asked me what neihgborhood I would suggest he move to. I have to admit, I would probably look to either the Russian Hill/North Beach area, the Castro, or maybe the Haight areas. Those are the three parts of the city that I personally would probably look to first, as they’re in pleasant neighborhoods with events going on but not necessarily in the middle of the hectic parts near the Wharf or in Union Square or South of Market. And yet they’re generally close enough and accessible to those areas so that heading in to them isn’t difficult.

A Times piece on Kill Bill with a reaction similar to my own.

More bluster from an old windbag. I wonder how long until someone in the administration becomes so desparate they start planting evidence.

BusinessWeek has a writeup on Celldar, a technology advance that uses Cellular frequencies as a form of passive
radar that can be used to track objects such as cars, trucks, and boats using low-cost equipment, regardless of whether any individuals are carrying cell phones.

The world where you have some relative annonymity in your movements, if it still exists, is dwindling fast.

And it might support schemes by Oregon and other states regarding “pay-for-use” road taxes. Many transportation experts assert that taxing actual driving distances would be a more equitable way of funding highway upkeep than today’s tax on gasoline and diesel fuels. That’s why the European Commission wants every vehicle in Europe to be fitted by 2010 with a black-box device that can be tracked by satellite. Germany is now testing such a system on trucks, and Britain plans to require it on trucks by 2006.

Besides all the obvious privacy issues raised by the technology, I gave some thought to the issue raised above about gasoline taxes as opposed to a direct “road use” tax. The advantage of taxing road use directly is that it correlates well with the consumption of the road as a resource. However, what I appreciate about gasoline taxes is that it can accomplish two goals. It is a rough approximation of how much a driver uses roads, since there is a correlation between miles driven and fuel consumed. And it also rewards those who give thought to fuel economy, by providing a tax break by way of achieving a further distance by using less fuel. Switching to a direct “road-use” tax eliminates or greatly reduces this indirect tax benefit for purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle.

There are many things I could write about this morning. From the Pro-Israel rally at Rutgers to , and from California’s business climate concerns to this past BusinessWeek’s cover article on Unmarried America, there are more than enough topics to fill a few pages.