Current News You Can Use

A few of my articles get published in various online newsletters, all of which have the same format. I get notifications that X Daily is out, with a few writers mentioned. The mentioned writers will often retweet or favorite them.  When they do, I send them an introductory tweet: “ I’ve stopped being a   # Twitterpig ! :   http://current-news-you-can-use.blogspot.com/2014/11/ive-stopped-being-twitter-pig.html   # writer ,   # SocialMediaMarketing ”  I got one on December 29 th from Jason Sullock @UK_Marketer:   The   # Social Media Marketing Daily is out! http:// paper.li/UK_Marketer/13 01340937 … Stories via @ instaliker_us @ AnRycke @ sharkwebpteltd I was pretty sure it was my #TwitterPig article, and it was.  I sent him my standard follow-up of “Thanks for publishing #TwitterPig!  Would you rather read about: #water; #gardening; #litter; #homeremedies or #marijuana?” And I continued up my e-mail list. It was followed almost immediately by a block of 34 Twitter

12/14/14 Honorable Representatives, Reading the Oregonian, I found an article regarding OLCC’s request for emergency funding to hire regulators, and the following opinions of the reporter and one legislator: “Monday’s vote was a sign that some lawmakers have reservations about the state’s new marijuana policy. “Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, highlighted what he sees as excessive possession and home cultivation limits in the law.  Households can have up to four marijuana plants, and individuals 21 and older can possess up to 8 ounces at home and one ounce away from home. “’There are some major, major, problems in this ballot measure,’ he said.” There are major problems with this measure, though not that the possession limits are excessive.  On the contrary, they are so limited, and the law so misunderstood, that people may lose their homes just for trying to keep enough weed to supply their own households. To start with, that 8 ounces of dried pot, a mere half-

Put This Event On Your Calendar! Giant Kick-Off Gathering and Rally LAUNCHING the Citizen-Led Petition Drive   to Put a   Public Safety Ballot Measure on the May 2015 Josephine County Election Ballot When:            Tuesday, December 16, 5:00 to 7:00 PM Where:           Wild River PUB, Grants Pass 533 NE “F” Street   (Across F Street from the Wild River Brewing & Pizza Co.) What:            ·     Overview of the Petition Drive   by citizens leading this action ·     Answers   about how your neighbors are taking action to solve         the public safety crisis here in Josephine County ·     Food   (no cost) Pizza, Salad, and Fruit ·     Drink   Sodas (no cost) & Cash Bar (you pay) Learn:            What’s the Latest   and   How You Can Be a Part of the Solution ! Brief Remarks by: ·          Scott Draper ,   Co-Founder,   Community United for Safety and Owner/Manager,   Club Northwest   in Grants Pass ·          Jim Goodwin ,   Executive Director

I've been tweeting for a couple of months now, and I've figured out a few things.  I've stopped being a Twitter pig. A pig eats nearly anything, and that is what I was doing.  I was following anybody who followed me, and anybody who was suggested to me by Twitter, with very few exceptions.  My Twitter notifications become too many, and my Twitter feed was filling up with some really nasty junk.  I was also getting too many Direct Messages wasting my time with spam, mostly selling Twitter followers or music. I now don't automatically follow anybody who follows me.  I don't even necessarily respond.  I go to the site first and decide if I can stand what they are tweeting.  Really bad English and cussing turns me off.  So does sex and nudity.  So does selling Twitter followers.  Hip Hop musicians were a major source of bad English, cussing, sex and nudity.  Sellers of followers are everywhere. If I decide that a new follower qualifies, I tweet "Thanks for fo

Oregon was the first state to vote in medical marijuana, in 1998.  Enough people now have medical marijuana cards that the in-state black market mostly collapsed several years ago.  One used to be able to find pot by asking any scruffy-looking kid on the street.  Not so anymore; the kids are unable to make money at it anymore without taking it out of state, and most kids are not able to do that.   As the street market collapsed, clinics became convenience pot shops for medical users, charging black-market prices, because selling it was illegal.  For several years, we had clinics and large grows being busted for selling instate, out of state, or trading pot for trimming buds.  They were often busted because people were caught taking large quantities on the road, heading for other states or home.  In some cases, narcs bought pot at the clinics by the pound.  Thus, people realized that selling was more dangerous than giving it away, and the market was further depressed. After re

Honorable Public Servants, If Measure 91 passes, people will not just be busted for growing and storing enough pot for their own use; they will lose their homes to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.  The measure allows 4 plants but only 8 ounces of “usable marijuana,” dried bud and leaf, per household, not per adult.  8 ounces, a half-pound, is enough per year for only one person who smokes only in the evening.  The poor often must live several adults to a household, and we need to grow by sunlight, which allows for only one good crop per year.  The exceptions to the licensing rules, listed in Section 6, also restrict a household to one pound of marijuana products, like cookies, and 72 ounces of liquid marijuana, which can only be vegetable glycerin extract, the only exception defined in Section 5 to “marijuana extracts,” which are forbidden in Section 57. If your household falls outside of these exceptions to licensing in Section 6, you are subject to the licensing ru

Honorable Public Servants, As I told you last week , I have resumed smoking marijuana in the evenings after work.  I found that, after two weeks without it, I was progressively more depressed, to the point where good things that happened to me could not lift my mood.  It is my anti-depressant; that’s why it became my drug of choice and caused me to lose my taste for alcohol when I smoked it in college.  I have read Measure 91 in the Voters Pamphlet.  It seems to be written by the tobacco companies for their profit and for people who don’t like pot but want to tax it for their benefit.  Look at the endorsements in the Voters Pamphlet; it includes many people who formerly were stridently anti-pot. The proposed tax is a black-market-sized markup at $35 per ounce, paid by the growers.  It will revive our in-state black market, as unlicensed growers will easily be able to beat the taxed price.  Some licensed growers will also be tempted to sell part of their crop untaxed.

Letter to the The Daily Courier Editor, As a daily pot smoker, I will vote against Measure 91.  It allows only ½ pound of dried marijuana per household, barely enough for one user who smokes only in the evenings.  This will allow police to oppress the poor, who often have to live several adult consumers to a household.  It likewise allows one to give away only one ounce per recipient, restricting sharing between households. The tax is too high at $35 per ounce, and can be raised at any time by the OLCC, which will have a conflict of interest in regulating a product that directly competes with liquor, which it sells in its own stores.  The regulations are too tight.  Failure to file a monthly sales report would mean that the state would file for one and demand the tax they think one should pay.  Penalties for other violations are draconian, including forfeiture of all property in any way connected with a marijuana business, up to and including one’s home.  It also

About 6 weeks ago, I stopped eating cashews because I thought they might be contributing to inflammation and thus causing the arthritis that was making me think I had to give up gardening professionally.  My symptoms immediately began to ease, and I was able to stop taking cayenne to control them.  I still have sore muscles from overuse at times, but not the pain that caused me to eventually use a full teaspoon of cayenne every day, which caused other painful symptoms as it came out. I had been eating about a half-cup of cashews nearly every day with my lunch for the last 10 years for their vitaminB17, AKA Laetrile , which supposedly wards off cancer.  It was a good excuse to eat an expensive but favorite nut that I saw listed in the sources of this vitamin. I had occasionally been having arthritis symptoms in my hip before I changed my lunch from tomato juice with a half-teaspoon of cayenne and a yogurt, to sesame-chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and cashews, and taking orange jui

A month ago, I told quite a few people that I had quit using marijuana for good.  I was feeling worse instead of better when I smoked it.  It seemed that, instead of losing my high as had happened in the past when I smoked too much and too long, I was staying too high for comfort, as though my aging body was unable to clear the THC from my system and I was building intolerance rather than tolerance. I told this to various groups because I am the most famous pot smoker in the county, after 10 years of street protests against the Drug War, 31 Marijuana Resolution speeches to the Board of County Commissioners, and another felony pot conviction, tied to my protest.  It ended in May 2013, when I decided that I had won my point after two states legalized pot.  Being a locally notorious celebrity, I had nothing to lose by letting people know that I was quitting for my own good reasons, and I owed people the truth.  I also thought that, by being so public about it, I would not go back o

You can keep food and drinks cool on a camping trip or in an emergency without ice or a refrigerator, using the powerful cooling ability of water, which evaporates at 41 degrees, and therefore can cool stuff to 41 degrees, regardless of air temperature, as long as relative humidity is not 100%. Take a jug of water.  Put it in a shallow pan.  Cover it with a towel, and let the ends of the towel lie in the pan.  Pour water over the towel and fill the pan.  The water evaporates from the towel, which wicks more water from the pan, cooling the towel and the mass of water beneath it eventually to 41 degrees F, the point below which water stops evaporating.   Theoretically, one could cool a box of food by setting it in a bigger box and covering it with a wet towel that lies in water in the larger box.  I cool and keep grapes and melon slices fresh, moist and free of flies by covering their bowl with a wet towel set in a shallow pan of water. One might think that standing water would li

Kombucha brewing.  The scoby is so thick because I have not made more since I stopped drinking it. Kombucha is black tea and sugar cultured with a “scoby” or “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast,” a white, rubbery bacterial/fungal matte that has been kept alive, divided and multiplied for perhaps thousands of years since it was discovered in Asia.  It’s also called Manchurian Tea and the scoby is also called a “mushroom.” After a week of culturing, it has a sweet-tart flavor that becomes more tart as the week passes.  It has a vinegary scent that is off-putting, but once one tastes, one can become quickly addicted.  This drinker likes it best diluted with ice and flavored with fruit juices, like apple and tart cherry. It’s good to drink because the scoby converts the sugar and tannin in the tea mostly to vinegar with maybe 1% alcohol, very good for the digestive system, and otherwise good for health.  It cannot go bad, just more tart, because it is alive and keeps gr