Odd Lots
- I’m still pretty sore from lingering shingles pain on my back, and a little grouchy in consequence, though I’m trying manfully not to show it. On the good news end, Carol is much better, and we both had cheese ravioli last night. I think it was the first meal worthy of the name that she’s had in almost two weeks.
- Anger really does make you lose: Sony has condemned “No Pressure” and completely disassociated itself from 10:10.
- From the Terms-I-Didn’t-Know-Until-Yesterday Department: milk float, a small delivery vehicle (often electric) used to deliver milk in urban England. Some photos here.
- And another from that department: steamdevil, a small vortex of condensed water vapor rising into cold air from a warm body of water like a lake or a river. This is the time of year you tend to see them, and Spaceweather posted a nice example from Wisconsin.
- I’ve always suspected that grains aren’t good for me, but here’s some analysis as to why. Your Body May Vary, but a lot of this sure sounds familiar. Note well the caution on soybeans, which give both Carol and me a lot of trouble.
- Napa’s cool summer has winemakers biting their nails: They may lose much (and perhaps all) of their harvest if a freeze comes before the grapes mature, but if they can walk the tightrope to harvest without falling, this year’s late-harvest wines (my favorite kind) could be spectacular. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
- The Colorado Springs marijuana industry has made the New York Times , and has injected new life into local newspapers. I like The Independent, our quirky little free paper (its offices are in an old church with interesting architecture) and every issue I flip through down at the Black Bear Coffeehouse has another page of MMD ads. The latest issue had a 48-page pull-out supplement, devoted entirely to You Know What. The world is clearly crazier than we can imagine.
- Mars may have had not only oceans, but (c’mon, this is obvious!) also icebergs. (Thanks to Frank Glover for the link.)
- Australia is about to get its first native-born Roman Catholic saint: Sister Mary Helen MacKillop, who in 1870 got a child-abuser priest removed from his position. In retaliation, friends of the priest orchestrated her excommunication, but she was exonerated in 1872. She will be canonized later this month, and I’d say she now stands fair to become the patron saint of whistleblowers.
Posted in: Odd Lots.
Tagged: astronomy · culture · language · religion · weather · weirdness · wine
"
I haven’t looked at Westword (the Denver alternative newsweekly) recently, but I suspect it’s much the same as the Independent. Their Web site has an “ads index,” and looking in there under “Alternative Healing” yielded fifty-four advertisements (beating out even “Bars, Clubs, & Liquor”), and, at a glance, the majority of them are for MMJ dispensaries, either on personal knowledge (I’ve seen that name on a storefront) or on their use of marijuana-related terms in the business name (e.g. “420 Wellness Dispensary,” “Chronic Wellness,” “Denver Kush Club”). One clever name that I already knew about was “The Herbal Center” (THC, geddit?).
Perhaps we need to not only take Pamela’s advice, using the Finnish word “apteeki” to describe these businesses, but we need to borrow a term from Heinlein to describe the current state of affairs in the MMJ business: “The Crazy Years.”
Update after I looked at the October 7-13 issue of Westword: There are three double-page spreads of ads for MMJ dispensaries, and a bunch of smaller ads on the back page. Not only that, there are a fair number of ads for secondary businesses that are meeting the needs of the dispensaries (e.g. hydroponic gardening suppliers, legal services). This leads me to believe that we will never return to the status quo ante; the bread-and-butter of too many people is getting to be involved. At least, it won’t be reversed without significant pain.
Weed and weed products (including everything else driven by the fledgling industry) sold legally return sales tax revenues to states and municipalities, which get addicted to those funds very quickly. When a backlash gets some traction (so far I see a backlash but little traction) watch profoundly ambivalent governments say, “Well, hey, y’know, that stuff is doing those people a lot of good, and, y’know, we need to be sensitive to medical needs falling through the cracks in our systems, and, well, y’know…” Yes. We know. You need the eggs.
“Perhaps we need to not only take Pamela’s advice, using the Finnish word “apteeki” to describe these businesses,”
Or in Latin, Ubi est proxima apotheca?
Well, both Latin “apotheca” and Finnish “apteeki” are cognates to “apothecary,” so they amount to much the same thing.
Spotted another new dispensary yesterday, too…”Rocky Mountain High,” this one in the tony Cherry Creek North neighborhood (3rd & University). They advertise not only dispensary services, but “vintage clothes & gifts.” I suspect some of those “gifts” may be wares of the type found in what they used to call “head shops” (maybe they still call them that).