Possibly dead computer

First, beard baubles. Now this:

Dyed armpit hair.

Seriously. According to the Washington Post, more and more women are deciding not just to forego shaving their pits (a common choice during the winter months) but to go one step farther and dye them.

And, having dyed the pits, some are moving on to the next step.

Bedazzlers. Beads, rhinestones, and extensions. In their armpits. Some people definitely have way too much free time and disposable income.

It does occur to me that from the viewpoint of the aesthetician dying a couple armpits may be a step up from doing full Brazilians. It's not quite as up close and personal. Then again, if dyed pits become popular enough, women may decide to stop waxing, regrow their pubic hair, and request coochie dye jobs, too.

We live in interesting times.

Exercise?

New investment opportunity for KBIC?

I haven't heard too much locally about the Justice Department's recent memo regarding marijuana cultivation and sales on tribal lands, but surely there's someone on the KBIC council who can smell a business opportunity when one arises. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, "the Justice Department will generally not attempt to enforce federal marijuana laws on federally recognized tribes that choose to allow it, as long as they meet eight federal guidelines, including that marijuana not be sold to minors and not be transported to areas that prohibit it." 

I think there'd probably be a lot of hand-wringing going on over the potential dangers of commercializing pot if the subject ever gets openly discussed because reservations are often already troubled by substance abuse: alcohol, narcotics, meth, you name it. But I'd be inclined to think that the county would be a lot better off if the drunks and the tweakers evolved into stoners. Drunks get belligerent, start fights, and kill people by driving while intoxicated. Tweakers go crazy, set up shake and bake labs that endanger people, and engage in petty crime to feed their habit. What do stoners do? Get the munchies and giggle a lot. What's the worst that might happen? The profit margins for the local pizza places would improve.

It will be interesting to see what happens if KBIC does decide to get into growing and selling weed. Most of the Village of Baraga, if not all of it, falls within the reservation boundaries. Theoretically, depending on how the tribal council decided to write its laws concerning pot, someone could open a cannabis cafe in one of the currently vacant businesses on Superior Avenue. For that matter, the tribe could add a line of ganja gourmet items to the menu at the restaurant in the casino and put pot brownies next to the Little Debbies in the gas station convenience stores. Well, maybe not right next to the Little Debbies, more like behind the counter with the cigarettes.

Medical marijuana is already legal in Michigan. The biggest problem people have when they're certified to use medical marijuana is finding a good supply. It may be legal to use it, but it's not legal for anyone to sell it. The one loophole is that if you're certified to use medical marijuana, you're allowed to grow up to 6 plants for your own personal use. How you're supposed to get the seeds to start with is, of course, a mystery.
Most people, however, who have medical conditions that benefit from marijuana use (chronic pain, glaucoma, side effects of cancer treatments) aren't that keen on the idea of having to be farmers as well as users, especially when pot is not an especially fast-growing plant. It's not like growing radishes where you plant them one week and by the end of the month they're ready to eat. From seed to weed can take 6 months or more -- there are ways to make it happen faster (grow lights can force a plant into the flowering stage when it's still quite small) but even with the ultimate in hydroponic equipment and plants that are hybrids bred to grow fast, it's not an overnight process.

In short, there is a potential market of buyers. The biggest catch would be that anyone buying marijuana on a reservation would have to use it there -- it would still be illegal to transport it beyond the tribal boundaries. I could get some pot brownies to eat at the museum in Baraga; I couldn't pick some up to bring home for the S.O. to enjoy, too. (It occurs to me that the banker's box full of mangled matchbooks would probably look like a lot more fun to go through if I were thoroughly stoned when I did it. The downside, of course, is I'd probably have really poor judgement while doing so.)

On the other hand, it is now legal to buy marijuana in Colorado but it remains illegal to transport it out of the state. Pot sales in Colorado are booming, but so far as I know the DEA and other law enforcement agencies haven't set up checkpoints at the border to check tourists' luggage. (Do I want to test that perception the next time I go visit my mother? Probably not.)  

Given that a number of states have legalized marijuana, either partially (medical marijuana) or totally, and the reservations have been given carte blanche to do the same, I have a hunch we'll see the complete legalization of marijuana nationally within a decade or two. Law enforcement won't be happy, but then they never are.

Blogger weirdness

I see that Blogger is busy being weird again. Word verification seems to have become the default on a number of blogs that never used to have it. Even weirder, on a couple blogs I visit regularly it's now impossible to leave comments. The comment box is there, everything looks normal, but when I type the cursor moves but no characters show up on screen. I have no idea if the comment is registering or not. Very, very strange.

More adventures in cataloging

I have no doubt mentioned more than once that one of the things I do as a volunteer at the local historical society museum is cataloging. I've been cataloging the archives as well as the artifacts. It's been interesting, and not always in a good way.

Sometimes it's a case of opening a box that's come down from the attic or in from the storage building and realizing that critters have been it. There's nothing quite so disheartening as lifting something that would have been really cool for the museum to own and discovering that mice had figured out that shredded fabric makes a great nest-building material. Sometimes there's the heartbreak of watching old documents crumble before my eyes because they were improperly stored in a hot dry sunlit area (the attic). And sometimes it's a case of "holy crap, I can't believe someone thought this garbage was museum-worthy."

Picture, if you will, a banker's box packed full of used matchbooks, matchbooks that are crumpled and mangled and just generally weird. Hundreds of matchbooks, and none of them are in a condition that a serious matchbook collector would look twice at. What is the point? What do I do with this stuff? Paw through it all looking for matchbooks from area businesses that no longer exist? When I first popped the top off that box I spotted a matchbook for a political race from the 1970s, so that was kind of neat. I actually went through a brief period of feeling moderately excited about the stash. That was before I took a closer look and realized just what poor condition most of the matchbooks were in. The Nixon campaign matchbook may have been mangled, but it was still worth saving as political ephemera. But what if that's the only good thing in the box? Is it really worth going through the entire pile hoping to find another pony?

I found the matchbook stash last spring. The box has been sitting in a corner of the office since then imploring me to do something with it. I came close to asking my high school student intern to go through it this past summer but decided I didn't want to totally discourage her. Readers may recall she was bummed out enough when we brought boxes down from the attic and discovered stuff like three dozen pageant banners and a whole lot of bug-filled cheap wigs. I don't have an intern for this school year yet and can't help but wonder if word about the boring reality of what the museum does and does not have has spread among the students at Baraga High.  

In any case, it turned out those three dozen banners and the box of beetle-ridden wigs were not the end of the pageant stuff. I recently found more. In fact, I have several boxes sitting in the museum office now waiting for me to finish going through them. It's all pageant stuff: a couple black frock coats, a taffeta gown, multiple banners (just how many hundred did the pageant committee pay for?!), a dozen or so felt pennants, and lots and lots of remarkably disgusting wigs, most of which were worn by (as the pageant ads proudly proclaimed) REAL INDIANS portraying Indians. I also discovered half a dozen Naugahyde loincloths. I wonder how the REAL INDIANS felt about wearing them?

I'm in better shape than I thought

I had the odd experience yesterday of suddenly feeling remarkably young and healthy. I decided recently to go looking for a new primary care physician and, as long as I was doctor shopping, to seek out a geriatrician. After all, I'm a geezer now. It made sense to go looking for a physician who specializes in taking care of old people. People can try to put a positive spin on aging, make ridiculous statements like 60 is the new 50, and talk like they're going to live forever, but the reality is that once you hit your 60s you can no longer claim to be "middle-aged." You're old.

And you start feeling old. You wake up some days with assorted aches and pains and you haven't even done anything yet. You get nervous when you have to get up on a step stool to get something off a high shelf because the idea of falling is getting scarier and scarier. You can feel yourself sliding into that broken hip demographic. It's hitting you more and more than you're not just old, you're elderly. And then you walk into the waiting room at the geriatrician's office.

Holy wah, I'm young again. No walker, no cane, no oxygen bottle in tow, no one hovering by my side making sure I don't fall over . . . suddenly I am apparently the healthiest person in the room. It felt . . . odd.

As for why I went seeking a new PCP, among other things the doctor I had been seeing had mentioned that she's not happy with the weather here on the tundra. I got the distinct impression that as soon as her contract with the local clinic is up, she was going to disappear over the horizon to a warmer climate. I was due for an annual check-up so decided it was a good time to make the switch. I've got to drive farther, but I think it's going to be worth it.

The doctor, incidentally, affirmed I am in good shape in general, although (no surprise) I should establish a formal exercise routine. I figure that if I've gotten to the age I am now without incorporating a formal exercise routine into my daily schedule, it's not likely to happen in the future, but you never know.

Be careful what you wish for

It hit me the other day that there's another way to look at President Obama's executive action on immigration and deportation. Part of the proposed policy is that certain categories of currently undocumented aliens would be eligible for "deferred action." That is, they could apply for permission to stay in this country temporarily. There would be a three-year period where those previously undocumented persons could come out of the woodwork, get legal jobs, pay taxes, and generally be productive members of society. During those 3 years they would be free from the threat of deportation. That's the positive spin.

On the other hand, the deferred action on deportation is not a permanent deferral -- it's a 3-year breathing space. So what's the point of it? Someone who is here illegally will have had a chance to briefly live without fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hauling him or her off to a deportation center, but what happens when the 3 years is up?  Does anyone seriously believe Congress will come up with a path to citizenship or a general amnesty any time in the next couple of years? What will people who apply for that deferred action have achieved?

Well, among other things, they'll have gotten their names on a list of people who are (were?) undocumented aliens. They'll have gone from living in the shadows and wondering if ICE knows who they are to having their names in a register and guaranteeing that la migra not only knows who they are but also has a photograph, a street address, cell phone number, names of various relatives, and everything else they'll need to track their mojado asses down and stick them on a bus to Neuvo Laredo or Mexicali the instant that 3-year grace period is up.

I wonder how many undocumented persons are having similar thoughts? Are they reading the information on the White House and Department of Homeland Security web sites and doing the happy dance? Or are they kind of pausing and thinking about arm bands and yellow stars? President Obama has already set a record for number of deportations annually compared to any previous administration. If I was here illegally, I'd be thinking long and hard about whether or not the short term gain of a deferred deportation is worth the long term risk of drawing attention to myself. It's going to be interesting to see how all this plays out over the next couple of years.

The stupid runs deep

I've been catching tidbits of news lately. I try not to listen to any of it for too long because so much is profoundly depressing, but there are exceptions. The anti-Obama rhetoric Republicans are indulging in over immigration is more amusing than anything else. I'm not exactly sure just what the appropriate reaction is -- laughter or pity? -- when the idiots in Congress start bloviating about cutting off funding to Homeland Security to prevent Obama's executive action regarding immigration enforcement from taking effect. Once again Ted Cruz and his ilk are displaying all the careful thought processes of a typical two year old throwing a tantrum in the aisle of a local Safeway. I'd ask just how stupid are these guys, but I'm a little afraid of the answer.

First, and most obvious, what has Cruz et al. so worked up was President Obama saying that he was going to direct immigration officials to narrow their focus when it comes to deportations. That is, instead of casting a broad net that sweeps up everyone, concentrate instead on the undocumented aliens who have committed crimes, i.e., go after actual felons and gangbangers instead of harassing the dishwashers at Olive Garden. Somehow saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (an agency within the Department of Homeland Security) should be more focused in its efforts gets translated by the right into an unconstitutional power grab by the President. WTF? President Obama says, in effect, "do your job more efficiently" and suddenly he's a tyrant? Give me a break.

In any case, just what effect do the right-wingers think cutting off funding to Homeland Security will have? They're upset because the President has directed an agency that's part of the executive branch of government to NOT do something for a short period of time. This may come as a shock to some people, but NOT doing something doesn't cost any money. If anything, it saves some. So, if you cut off funding to the agency that's already been told not to do something, what's the net effect? Well, you've just made it a lot harder for that agency to do the stuff you actually want it to do (border patrol, for example) and you've had absolutely no effect on the thing that pissed you off. Does that make any sense whatsoever? I didn't think so.

Because border patrol, airport security, and other functions of Homeland Security are considered essential services of the government, none of those things will actually stop if Congress does try to withhold funding. All that will happen is the poor saps working for those agencies will see their paychecks stop while they're expected to continue working with the expectation they'll get paid eventually. It'll be a mess, a fair number of people will quit, and in the end it'll cost the government (which is another way of saying us, the taxpayers) a lot more money than if the Republicans had just had the basic smarts (and balls) to get serious about immigration reform on their own.

I'm not even going to get into just how blazingly, unbelievably stupid it is for border states that bitch constantly about porous borders to now turn around and sue the President over an executive order that directs ICE to improve border enforcement. Not surprisingly, Texas (ground zero for stupidity in this country) is leading the pack.

The stupid, it burns.

Thanks for making me hate Christmas

It has begun. It started a little later than in previous years, but the deluge of "Don't say Happy Holidays!" and "Keep Christ in Christmas" messages landing in my In Box and showing up on Facebook is now in full flow. And as the annual rhetoric about the nonexistent war on Christmas heats up, once again I find myself thinking Jehovah's Witnesses just might have the right idea. They look at the historical origins of the holiday we all call Christmas; note that it is not in the Bible in any way, shape, or form; pronounce it (as it most certainly is) a Pagan Holiday; and choose to ignore it.

I wonder if they get as annoyed by all the annual stupidity over the mythical war on Christmas as I do? I've never been able to figure out how anyone with even two brain cells to rub together would believe the garbage that the rabble rousers on Fox spew each year about Christmas being under attack, but apparently a fair number of people fall for the nonsense. How anyone could believe there's a "war on Christmas" when stores start putting out Christmas merchandise right after Labor Day, every city in the country spends money on holiday decorations -- and let's get real; no municipality is going to bother with lighting displays just to celebrate the winter solstice (although it would be nice if they would; maybe some of the decorations would end up slightly less tacky) -- and over 80% of the population of the United States self-identifies as Christian is beyond me. How do you persecute a majority? It's logically impossible.

So what does it say when people start whining and bitching about other people saying "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" or go off on a rant when they see "Xmas" instead of "Christmas"? To me it says they're mean-spirited ignoramuses who like sucking all the joy out of the season. Someone wishes you well by saying "Happy holidays" and you respond by bitching at them? You're making the Grinch look good.

I used to sort of look forward to the holiday season. Christmas isn't my favorite holiday, but I liked having an excuse to bake gum drop cakes, do some specialized crafting, and put up a few decorations. It helped brighten the darkest time of the year. Not anymore. Now I find myself bracing for the first of the sanctimonious missives -- or worse, an in my face rant -- from one of my idiot cousins (and I've got several to pick from, unfortunately) and praying for January to get here fast.

So thank you, all you warriors in the battle to defend Christmas, for doing a stellar job of killing what it is you claim you're trying to save. You're doing a great job of turning a cheerful time of year into one that people dread.