Congress should go to pot to raise approval ratings

A recent Gallop poll registered a dismal 8% approval rating for Congress, while 58% of Americans want marijuana legalized. Currently, 20 states and the District of Columbia have legalized it for medicinal purposes, including Illinois this year. The vote was a narrow 61-57 in the Illinois House but a wider 35-21 vote in the higher Senate chamber. Two states, Washington and Colorado have already legalized pot for recreational use. Meanwhile many thousands of unfortunate souls are languishing in jail for non-violent, victim-less pot puffing, something most of us have been guilty of at some point in our lives.

The waste of human lives and desperately needed government resources enforcing pot laws is unconscionable. Seven million of the eight million marijuana arrests in the US since 1993 have been for simple possession. Marijuana has been listed as a Schedule 1 drug since 1970, meaning it's considered as having the highest potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Incredibly it is listed as more dangerous than the Schedule II drugs cocaine, methamphetamine and oxycodone,all of which kill thousands yearly. According to CNN guru doctor Sanjay Gupta, who once opposed and now supports medical  marijuana legalization, there has never been a pot overdose that has killed anyone and its medicinal benefits are documented and legion.

 

We need the Feds to stop pre-empting state efforts to decriminalize weed, allow it for medicinal purposes and ultimately legalize it for recreational use. Dr. Gupta cautions that teenagers and younger shouldn't use marijuana just like they shouldn't use alcohol as their brains are still developing. But tens of millions of teens and pre teens are puffing away due to the allure of engaging in mild illegality and all the revenue is going to the drug cartels. Colorado estimates that first year tax revenue from pot will reach $70 million. Besides raising Congressional approval ratings to a new high, wouldn't we have a much more effective Congress if the Fab Four, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner would share a few tokes together before the next legislative session? Senseless political brinksmanship would go up in smoke, and critically needed legislation would pass in record time so the leadership could satisfy their munchies.  

 

Music Pick: Freddy Cole

Every music fan knows the singing of the fabulous Nat King Cole (1919 - 1965). But how many have ever even heard of much less listened to his brother Freddy, who's still knocking cabaret and jazz club patrons dead at 82? Nat sold tens of millions of records between 1943 and 1965, and was right up there with Sinatra, Bennett and Martin as top male pop stars. But Nat gave up jazz singling to achieve pop stardom singing forgettable tunes such as "Those Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer" while Freddy parlayed impeccable timing, phrasing and feeling into a 60 year plus career singing straight ahead jazz. Together they formed the greatest singing brothers ever, far exceeding the runner up Crosbys - Bing and Bob. Listen to any pop hit by Nat after the featured tune "I'm A Fool To Want You" by Freddy and you'll hear the difference between a pop singer and a jazz balladeer. And try to catch Freddy at his next Jazz Showcase gig while this treasure is still performing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycq6s5j8nYw

Oh Canada...please arrest war criminal Cheney

Former Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't travel very much outside America. It's not because he doesn't like foreign travel; he loves it. However, since leading the rush to criminal war against Iraq in 2003, Cheney fears arrest for war crimes should he venture too far away from the friendly confines America has given him from his criminal skulduggery. But this week Cheney makes one of his rare foreign jaunts, crossing the border to Canada for the Toronto Global Forum. Normally, the Canadian government avoids unduly irritating Uncle Sam by arresting his war criminals. But the international Lawyers Against War is urging Canada to arrest Cheney when he arrives. Their letter to Canadian Attorney General John Geretsen and Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair urged his arrest "as a person suspected on reasonable grounds of authorizing, counseling, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent torture"...an indictable offense in Canada. While a Cheney arrest in Toronto is highly unlikely, it's important for law abiding and peace loving individuals and groups keep the pressure on the world community to arrest Cheney and his fellow chieftains in criminal war and torture: President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Even with likely Canadian government inaction, Cheney will be on alert. In September, 2011, Vancouver demonstrators blocked his exit from a fancy hotel for several hours till evacuated by police. He's also cancelled one trip to Toronto due to safety concerns when large protests occurred. When it comes to criminal war, the American position is to not cry over spilt milk, even when what's split is an ocean of blood from hundreds of thousands killed and wounded. We forget that the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, largely an American affair, executed 16 high ranking Nazis and told the world that criminal war is the highest form of criminality that cannot go unpunished. As long as that youthful new heart of his is still beating, we must all keep beating the drums of justice to see that Cheney gets many years of life with it...in a prison cell. Come on Canada, do the right thing and arrest Dick Cheney for war crimes when he arrives in Toronto this week. Also published in the Glen Ellyn Patch

ESPN, college football, should sideling war criminal Rice

ESPN and college football are planning to appoint former George W. Bush National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the College Football Playoff selection committee which will pick the four teams that will compete in the first playoffs following the 2014 season. That would be a mistake and both ESPN and college football should cancel her impending selection.
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Why? It's not because Rice doesn't know football as some opponents of her selection have intimated. Rice is an avid college football fan who claims she watches games every Saturday on...ESPN. Her father was a lifetime football coach and she was once engaged to NFL player Rick Upchurch. As Stanford University Provost from 1993 to 1999, she served on the selection committee which appointed two Stanford U. football coaches.

No, the problem isn't her football bonifides, its her character bonifides. Rice, as one of architects and biggest boosters of her boss's criminal Iraq war, has no business being given any honor in any endeavor whatsoever. Instead, she should be investigated for her complicity in the Iraq war crimes and if warranted, prosecuted. Given that virtually the entire government and the fawning corporate media have decided to "look forward rather than backward", investigation and prosecution of the Bush war cabinet is extremely unlikely. When you're as powerful as the US is, there is no remedy for the most egregious criminal activity known to mankind. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions injured or homeless, trillions squandered committing those atrocities is nothing too snivel at, but snivel we do, to our everlasting shame. The US has been grievously hurt by the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war as well. The least we can do is shun the biggest perpetrators Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and, the aforementioned Ms. Rice. ESPN and college football should examine her record and their conscience and do the right thing: impose a lifetime ban on Rice from participating in any collegiate educational endeavor, even one as un-educational as football.

Book Pick: "The Victory Season" by Robert Weintraub

Subtitled "The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Age", this book is an indispensable study of the 1946 baseball season in the context of America's post war labor strife, greedy owners who held underpaid players as virtual slaves via the Reserve Clause and the cataclysmic beginning of integrated baseball with Jackie Robinson's one and only minor league season with the International League's Montreal Royals. Besides deftly interweaving the saga of the Major and Minor League seasons, Weintraub chronicles when the top players Williams, Feller, Greenburg, DiMaggio plus hundreds of others gave up their prime years to win the war. Two major leaguers died in combat and many good ones were too badly injured to resume playing a kid's fantasy. But the biggest stars were protected and all had terrific 1946 seasons, leading to a fabulous World Series showdown when Pesky Paused and Slaughter Didn't, winning the Series for the vastly underdog Redbirds over the 104 game winning Beantowners.

Just like blacks came home from overseas with renewed passion to end discrimination, the major leaguers took action against the Walmart style owners who paid little and simply fired complaining players who had no freedom to sell their talents to other teams. Up popped Jorge Pasquel who enticed about a dozen stars to jump to his Mexican League for piles of cash. When Stan the Man Musial turned him down the tide was broken and the exodus ended with the jumpers banned from the Majors till 1949. Still seeking relief, a number of players joined labor organizer Bob Murphy's baseball players union till his Pittsburg Pirate strike vote before a Dodger game narrowly failed, dooming Murphy and the players' dream of economic relief which didn't arrive till 1975. Two surprising factoids: Joe DiMaggio's father was left jobless when Uncle Sam prevented this Italian alien from traveling the six miles to his fishing job because they feared Axis collaboration. And everyman's friend Bill Veeck, owner of the Indians, voted with the other 14 bigoted owners to demand Branch Rickey not integrate the Big Leagues in '47. Say it ain't so, Bill.