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. I...

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 m...

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:            ...

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 qual...

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 mar...

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 ...

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 se...