Government Shutdown 2018: Which Party Owns This Mess?

by Debbie Shipman

Republicans own all three branches of government: the Executive Branch, the Legislative (both houses of the Congress) and a majority of seats on the Judicial Branch. If republicans can't write a bill that draws at least enough democrats onto their side, that's on them. If republicans want a budget, they can pass one. A clean one that isn't tied to a border wall or any other issue that the parties are far apart on. The truth is that government works well only on consensus, and there are many issues upon which a majority of both parties can agree. Our federal government has been barely functional for years.

If Republicans want an immigration bill, they have the power to pass one. In fact, a bipartisan group has been working on a bill to deal with the DACA issue, but Republican leadership refuses to let it move forward. (Schoolhouse Rock refresher here.) Republicans want the immigration issue as ammunition in the budget fight, and a clean bipartisan bill that was negotiated between members of both parties would ruin that bargaining chip. Neither party usually wants clean bills that deal with one specific issue; they want to leverage other issues like immigration. Unfortunately, there is often little incentive to compromise since even government shutdowns offer politicians a great way to polarize their constituents. Differences of opinion get votes; if we all tried to love our brother and imagine ourselves walking in his shoes, we'd have little to fight—or bother to vote—about. 

Most Americans want, in general, the same things. In fact, most human beings want the same things. We want access and opportunity to make for ourselves the best life we are capable of earning. We don't want other people or governments throwing obstacles in our way. We want at least the same opportunity as anyone else to feed our families, provide them shelter, do meaningful work and get enough rest. We want to know that the people we love are safe. We can't always agree on the policies that get us there, but our wants and needs are mostly the same. But then there are, of course, selfish people who don't care about anyone else as long as they get their piece of the pie, and worse, there are a small percentage of people who want what others have even if it means another human being dies or goes hungry. Not all politicians are that way, but the profession seems to attract more than it's share of people obsessed with power at most any cost. Wars are orchestrated by people in power to take from people who have less power. It's the rest of us humans just trying to muddle through and make the best of this thing called "life" who pay the price and sometimes lose our humanity in the process.

President Lyndon Johnson said it best, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Politicians and money-changers for whom power takes precedence over people pit neighbor against neighbor so that they don't have to use force to take from us what they want for themselves. They simply work to convince the rest of us fallible human beings that other people—brown people, hungry people, refugees fleeing war zones, transgender people, vagina hat-wearing activists—are taking what belongs to us. If we all understood that most people are more like us than they are different, We the People would be much harder to control. 

Instead of taking action to solve the problem of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, Congress wants to use DACA recipients as pawns.  Only those "Dreamers" who've earned a high school diploma or GED and kept their noses clean with no felonies or serious misdemeanors are eligible for deferred action on deportation. People in power want to remain in power, and so they want you to believe that DACA is about drug cartels and human traffickers and gang bangers, people here to take your job instead of people who grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag and serving in the U.S military. They don't want you to know that Dreamers are given work permits and pay taxes on their earnings. They don't won't you to walk a mile in the shoes of someone who faces deportation to a country where they haven't set foot since they were a child, a country with people and places they may not even remember. A place their parents left because they had few opportunities or faced hunger and poverty, or frequent explosions. You would like to say you'd do whatever it took to provide for your own family, even if it meant crossing man-made borders. Can you not at least try to imagine how a child whose parents may have risked everything to keep them safe would feel facing deportation to a country they don't know?

Congress hasn't passed major immigration reform since the 1980's when, under Reagan, they granted amnesty to illegal aliens. That's because Democrats and Republicans both are always thinking about and raising money for their next elections. They want to talk about immigration because it riles up their base. For decades now, that has been a valuable tool useful for getting out the vote. They have had no incentive to fix immigration because it would mean that they have to find another hot button issue to rile up the base.

It's as simple as that, and both parties are the just as guilty. This January 2018 government shut down though? That is 100% on the Republicans. They can put veterans and other Americans first in these budget talks anytime they want to do it. To do that they will just have to find another issue to polarize the public on. And they will, because staying in office is more important than actually governing.

Debbie has a BA in English/Technical Writing and an MA in Political Science. She enjoys writing on public policy, criminal justice, cannabis prohibition and whatever else pops into her head. 

Save Your Pot Seeds! End of Prohibition = Beginning of Corporate Cannabis

Save your seeds and grow them! https://www.leafly.com/news/growing/how-to-germinate-cannabis-seeds

 Remember that black plastic film canister you stashed in a box years and years ago? The box that holds your sports trophies, yearbooks, the first 8-track or cassette you ever purchased? The film canister you filled with the seeds saved from every bag of weed you ever bought? It’s all coming back to you now, isn’t it?

You’d dump the contents of that plastic sandwich bag onto leaves up into a texture suitable for filling paper or pipe. You separated out the stems and the seeds. You saved the seeds, and occasionally the stems, just in case there was a dry spell in your ability to score a lid. Whether or not you ever harvested a full-grown plant, it’s a safe bet that you buried a seed in a Styrofoam cup and placed it on a windowsill or threw 3 or 4 seeds into your mom’s flowerbed.  SAVE YOUR SEEDS

Cannabis is big business, and it’s growing exponentially every year. It’s not just the newly-minted millionaire entrepreneurs growing and selling cannabis who are going all in with their bet on the legal cannabis industry. Major corporations are positioning themselves to claim an oversized piece of the pot pie. Bayer, a company with close ties to GW Pharmaceuticals, which is a major bio pharmaceutical company developing prescription cannabis extracts, recently inked a deal to purchase Monsanto. Monsanto is best known for it’s Round Up pesticide and genetically modified (GMO) Round Up resistant seeds. SAVE YOUR SEEDS

 

Monsanto has been suing small farmers for years over cross pollination. In 2013, the Supreme Court in a landmark decision, declined to hear an appeal brought by an organic growers association after they sued for protection against Monsanto when their organically grown crops and farmland were harmed by Monsanto seed and pesticides through no fault of their own. SAVE YOUR SEEDS

Cannabis industry watchers are sounding the alarm about the Bayer-Monsanto partnership saying that the deal will lead to a takeover of the cannabis industry. Others are worried about the patents being handed out to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, which may lead to growers of widely popular strains being sued for patent infringement. (Who Owns Your Pot?) Growers in Oregon are teaming up to have their strains genetically tested now so that they can prove later that they were growing it before the patents were issued. SAVE YOUR SEEDS

What does all this mean? I’m not really sure. All I know is that when I read some article questioning whether Monsanto is attempting to take over the cannabis industry in Arizona, the first thought that popped into my mind was : SAVE YOUR SEEDS!

You won’t find many seeds in the cannabis you buy in a dispensary; this is not your mama’s herb.

Emerald Fields is a really fun dispensary, and their bud is excellent. 

For one thing, the THC content is higher, much higher. I’ll write about that later, but for now, suffice it to say that the benefits of blowing through a lot less weed every payday far outweigh any dangers associated with the higher THC content. Another thing is that most of the weed sold in dispensaries is tight bud grown where the male plants are identified and removed promptly. Fortunately, many dispensaries sell clones. (

Prohibition is coming to an end. Soon. Congress has allowed itself to get backed into a corner by not acting sooner to take marijuana off the DEA list as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it has no legitimate medical use and is equally as dangerous as heroin. Meanwhile, the U.S. government holds a patent on medical cannabis and the patent office is granting patents on plant-based and synthetic cannabis pharmaceuticals.  Public support for ending prohibition is at record-breaking highs. I expect Congress to start throwing some serious bones to anti-prohibitionists very soon, or they can expect to face challengers in their next election. They have protected pharmaceutical and chemical companies long enough to allow them to make serious inroads into our food and medical supplies. SAVE YOUR SEED

Maybe the tinfoil on my head is getting too tight, but I just have a gut feeling everyone should

save their seeds—any and all of your seeds. Don’t you wish you could get ahold of a watermelon that tastes just as sweet and juicy as the ones that came out of Granddaddy’s sandy patch of soil when you were a kid? Wouldn’t you love to have some of the Morning Glorys or Sun Flowers from your great-great-grandparents original homestead? We’re losing control over our food supply. We aren’t sure if we can trust Global corporations to put the health of our families above the almighty dollar. We know we can’t trust our some of our representatives to do the right thing when the perks of holding public office cost too much to give up easily.

SAVE YOUR SEEDS

 

Dig through that old box of photos; the one with your mullet-heading friends playing a game of Puff-Puff-Pass. Find that film canister, or that empty tin Folgers can if such is the case. SAVE YOUR SEEDS

Click here to read FACT or FICTION?: Medical Marijuana Will NOT Get You High and here to read New Strategies Necessary to Win the War on Drugs

to read more of my posts on cannabis.  

Is this post Piffle or a Pearl. Tell me what you think

in the comments below. 

Fact or Fiction? : Medical Marijuana will NOT get you High.

The answer is that it is true medical marijuana won’t get you high. Unless, of course, your goal is to get high. In that case, medical marijuana will most definitely get you high.

There are medically beneficial components of the cannabis plant that have no psychoactive effect. That means those constituents of the plant don’t get you high. The most well known of these components is cannabidiol, also known as CBD. Dr. Sanjay Gupta introduced CBD into the mainstream consciousness in 2013 with his CNN Documentary “Weed,” which was followed by “Weed 2” and Weed 3” as the public wanted to know more. Gupta put the spotlight on CBD by following medical marijuana patients who saw tremendous benefit from the plant. Most notably, the documentary followed a 6-year-old girl named Charlotte who had gone from hundreds of seizures per week to just 2-3 per month using non-psychoactive CBD oil. (<3% THC, also known as delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive component of cannabis.) Charlotte, a twin, was losing ground developmentally as she watched her sister hit all the normal milestones. Diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy at around 3 months old, by the age of three Charlotte was seizing so frequently that her body and mind literally had no time to develop normally. Wheelchair bound at age six and with a DNR (do not resuscitate) order in place, her family turned to cannabis when surgery to remove a part of Charlotte's brain was the best medical option available. (First, do no harm. Right?) According to her uncle in the latest report I could find, Charlotte at age 10 is now walking and riding a bicycle, but still cannot speak.

CBD oil is now available nationwide, some of it made from hemp oil and some from the plants known as marijuana. (I’m not going to get into the differences here except to say that both hemp and marijuana can be beneficial, but not equally so.) Quality varies widely, as does local and state interpretations of the legality of the oil. Sold openly online and in stores in most states, Indiana law enforcement has recently been raiding shops and confiscating the non-psychoactive CBD oil off the shelves. It’s a legislative mess that only Congress can untangle, which will only happen when public pressure is such that legislators feel safe to take that step. Remember, no matter what else legislators care about, getting re-elected is and always will be their number one priority.

But, back to medical marijuana. CBD, in addition to being an anticonvulsant, is known to have anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant, antipsychotic, antioxidant, neuro-protective and cancer-killing properties as well as other positive effects. However, CBD is not the whole story.  So far, scientists have discovered at least 565 constituents, including 120 phytocannabinoids, in the cannabis sativa plant alone. Researchers in the early 1990s discovered that our bodies have cannabinoid receptors for THC, and from there the science has expanded rapidly. Our bodies actually produce cannabinoids that help regulate our bodies. You can learn more about the endocannabinoid system here. THC, as known as delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, is the component of the cannabis plant that creates the “high” feelings of well-being and euphoria, but is also responsible in some cases for feelings of anxiety and paranoia. (The higher the percentage of CBD in cannabis, the less likely a person is to experience these negative effects.)

Like CBD, THC has some important medical benefits. THC can help with relaxation and sleep and can stimulate appetite and decrease nausea. It is also useful as a pain-reliever and muscle relaxant. Scientists are also showing that THC and other cannabinoids, such as CBD, work synergistically in a variety of ways, including killing cancer cells. This “entourage effect” means that, in many cases, using the whole plant as medicine may be more effective than using just one component, such as CBC or THC alone. (You may also be interested in learning about turpenes, another important constituent of the cannabis plant. Click here for more info.)

Whether or not medical cannabis will get you high is also dependent on the method of use. Eating raw cannabis is one way to enjoy some of the benefits of cannabis without getting high. While it’s possible to eat enough of the raw plant to get high, it would be an extremely expensive way to go about getting high since it takes a fairly large amount to feel the effects. Eating cannabis also results in a calm, mellow buzz. That's cool if that's what you're after, and you can afford it. This is why cannabis plants are less dangerous to your toddler than most houseplants, but it also does not provide all the benefits of cannabis. THC is either not present or minimal in fresh, raw cannabis, but instead starts out as THCA (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid), another beneficial component of the plant. As the plant dries and ages, and when exposed to sufficient heat, THCA chemically converts to THC. That chemical reaction is, quite simply, the reason smoking is the preferred method of people who want to get high. Cannabis edibles available in medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries, often in the form of candies or brownies, will get you high because the cannabis has been heated to convert the THCA to THC. If you were to make your own cannabis edibles that don’t get you high, you would simply avoid processes that heat the cannabis. (Click here to learn more.)

Other methods of use besides eating or smoking the plant include using cannabis products topically with transdermal patches or lotions and creams, in tinctures used sublingually (under the tongue), in suppositories and vaporizing, which is similar but has less inherent danger than smoking. The best method to use cannabis is the one that works best for the patient according to their own needs and preferences.

One thing I will emphasize here and will write more on later is that smoking cannabis alone will not cure cancer or any other disease, as far as we know. This is because the compounds that are most beneficial in fighting disease are either not bioavailable or not present in sufficient quantities in smoked cannabis. Smoking cannabis, however, is a great option for fast pain relief, depression, muscle spasms and a variety of other conditions. Most medical cannabis users take cannabis in two or more forms.

Another very important thing you need to know about medical cannabis is that there are literally hundreds of strains of cannabis variety, and more are created every year. Medical cannabis is generally a Sativa, an Indica or a hybrid of the two. Sativas are known for their euphoric and energizing effects and Indicas are best known for relaxation and pain relief. A good way to remember the difference between sativa and indica is to remember that an indica can put you “in da couch” all afternoon. Hybrids are cultivated according to the desired effects of each strain that is being paired. Cannabis plants can vary widely from strain to strain and even plant to plant, so choosing the right medicine is far more complicated than simply choosing a strain you like. To complicate the issue even further, the cannabis strain that gets me pumped up to clean house may leave you too anxious to manage much of anything; every body is different. Having said that, the chemical actions of cannabis in the body, not how you feel about what you’re experiencing, should be very stable from one person to the next, as we are all similar as humans. So, if a particular component of cannabis is effective in killing a specific type of cancer cell in my body, it should also be effective for yours even if I feel differently than you do when we consume the same cannabis plant. The cannabis plant is just now being studied extensively and we are sure to learn more about the strains and their uses in the coming years.

Finally, another question you might have is this: Is there a difference between medical and recreational cannabis? The simple answer is no, but the reality is a bit more nuanced. All marijuana can be medicine, but not all of it is good medicine. Just like any medicine, you’re going to get the most benefit from the highest quality product. That means not only finding the strains that best fit your needs, it means finding cannabis that is produced without harmful fertilizers or pesticides. Commercially grown cannabis that is sold in recreational and medical dispensaries may or may not have been grown with pesticides and fertilizers, and the only way to know is to ask. With edibles, that information along with the THC and CBD content is often listed on the product label. My advice is to purchase your cannabis from a dispensary that has a long and trusted reputation if possible, or grow your own. I realize that some people don’t have much choice in the matter. I can only tell you that you have to weigh the risks and benefits and come to your own decision. For myself, if I were to be diagnosed with a debilitating disease that cannabis is known to be effective in treating, I would use the best quality cannabis I could get ahold of regardless of the source. That’s just me. Some people warn about buying black market marijuana because it could be laced with other drugs. I personally doubt that is much of an issue because dealers have little incentive to add anything that costs extra to their product. To me, the larger problem would be that you have might not have any way of knowing whether the strain is an indica, a sativa or a hybrid, nor the percentage of CBD or THC in the product. Only a lab can answer that for you.

What I’ve written here covers some basics about medical cannabis; obviously there is much more to learn if you choose to use cannabis medicinally. I’ll be writing more on all aspects of cannabis —from medical use to political aspects — in upcoming blog posts. Please follow this page and share if you’re interested in learning more. If you have a topic you would like to see me discuss, please say so in the comments below. 

To follow my blog on a mobile device, got to the bottom of the page and click on Web Version. If any of my friends can help me figure out how to optimize for mobile on Blogspot, raise your hand. 

A Look in the Mirror

          

by Debbie Shipman

  I am standing in my kitchen on tired feet, the day’s store of energy long past exhausted. On the floor, near my left foot, are the smashed remains of a corn chip. Behind me is the smear of grape jelly I just walked through; the sound of my sticking shoe and the millisecond of hesitation as I lift my foot reveal this information. Skinny Raman noodles snake over the edge of a saucepan, their cellophane packages strewn about the counter-top beside the stove. This room should be cordoned off as a disaster area, aid applied for immediately.  I know the expression on my face. I can feel it. It is the same tired look I remember Mama wearing.

            This transformation into my mother, which I have always sworn would never, ever happen, has been pushed along by Ry, my oldest son, and six of his puberty stricken, bottomless-pit-for-stomachs, friends. Just as I hauled in the last bag from a carload of groceries— by myself as usual—boys swarmed the house like locusts. The word pestilence is not adequate. Did they know by some psychic trick of youth, a gut feeling as it were, that I had gone grocery shopping today? Or, was it a random spin of the wheel that caused the locusts to swarm and my son to stand here, Vanna White style, arm extended, palm up, inviting his guests to enjoy these “fabulous prizes”?

            Nothing was safe, with the possible exception of a sack of flour. That— and the baking soda I bought to replace the old yellow box in the refrigerator. The chips are nearly gone; there are some broken up pieces still in the bag, and a mess of crumbs lies suspended in the remains of a tub of French onion dip. The carton of milk is standing in the fridge with barely enough left to moisten a bowl of cereal. Not to worry, the cereal boxes are probably empty anyway. Everything that can be considered a snack food, or takes less than ten minutes to prepare, has either been consumed or is spilled on the countertop. Now I know what my mother meant when she said that we, her children and our friends, were going to eat her “out of house and home”. She did mean that literally.

            I don’t recall any of us kids bringing home more than two, maybe three, friends at a time. But, there were four of us. That, added to the fact that some of our friends came for dinner and didn’t leave for days (occasionally a month or more) must have contributed to the perpetually barren, habitually ransacked look of Mama’s kitchen – and to the often tired expression on her face— now passed on to me.

            In the days following Mama’s funeral countless friends from childhood reminded me what a welcoming home she made for us and for them. One young woman said to me, “Remember when I stayed at your house for a month when I was evicted from my first apartment?” She was actually my older sister Renee’s friend and, yes, I do remember. Another friend, one I had known since grade school, told me she’d never forget how Mama was so sweet to let her stay with us when she was fighting with her parents, which was often. When kids ran away from their own homes, they ran to ours. Mama took them all in like stray cats and let them hang around until they were strong enough to go home or move on.

            Other friends reminisced over Mama’s salty homemade dill pickles and her crispy, crunchy fried chicken. Nobody, but nobody, fried a chicken better than Mama did. Our friends Mara and Leslie, whose family served things like kibbe (raw hamburger balls) and lefse (God knows what), thought Mama, who could make anything edible by frying it, was at least among the best cooks in the world. All these years later, and they still rave about her cream gravy like it was a foreign gourmet sauce.

            So here I stand, tired feet bonded to the sticky floor, and I feel my shoulders uncurling from their slumped position, my lips pulling themselves into the beginnings of a smile. As I grab a dishcloth and begin to wipe crumbs off the countertop, I feel a speck of gratitude growing inside me. I guess I should feel blessed because my kids think our house is a good place to bring their perpetually ravenous running buddies. I’m glad they feel welcome here. 
         My mama was a beautiful woman and I'm good with seeing her face when I look in the mirror. But dang, why do I look like the tired version?

I wrote this in December of 2004. The children have long since flown the coop and we can't figure out on whom to blame the messy kitchen. 

Home Field Advantage

by Debbie Shipman

It was a Friday night. The Perkins-Tryon Demons had made it to the second round of playoffs for the state championship, and on this cold November night, they had the home field advantage. Hopes were high; there was far more at stake than a title. One fumble could mean the end of a dream, one missed tackle the end of an era. Twenty-four seniors suited up for the Demons that night; nearly every one of those boys had played football together since the second or third grade. Defeat this night would mean more than a lost title; it would mean the end of their childhood. Being a part of football squad would no longer help define who they are; it would simply say who they were.

            A loss for this team would mean a loss for us parents as well. It would be the end of Friday nights spent huddled on blankets together, the end of dads standing against the fence wishing they could call the plays and congratulating each other for having these young studs as sons. This night could be the last time we meet as a group with a common goal. Though we might on some later day spend time talking about the past, the chances are good that many of these friendships formed on cold bleachers will fade with time having nothing as concrete as these boys to hold them together. We might still bump into each other at the grocery store and recall the night one of the dads got kicked out of the game for being a little too vocal with the referees. Or, that game in Wellston when it was so cold that only the insane would venture out of a warm house for a football game. Football and sanity have never been close friends, and so we watched as the coaches taught our little boys to stick their hands down the front of their pants to keep them warm. We will laugh as we remember the expressions on little red faces that clearly said, “But Coach! My mom told me to keep my hands out of my pants!”

            We know that the end will come soon enough, but we all hope that this is not the night. We are not ready to let go. I spent my entire day on the verge of tears, and a look around tells me I am not the only one. Puffy red eyes avert to avoid too long a look; eye contact might crack the dam that keeps the tears back for now. One father admits that he has been on a crying jag all week; he loves these boys.

            I do not remember the score or much about the game at all. I know that, when the scoreboard ticked off the last second, the game was indeed over. In spite of all our efforts to put off the inevitable end, it had come and we were not ready. No one moved as we watched the team shake hands with their opponents and go into a huddle for the last time. We waited in silence for these boys to walk toward the bleachers, raise their helmets in salute, and shout “thank you!” one last time. That is when the dam broke.

            Parents and fans gathered outside the locker room to wait for the players to emerge. Tears fell and little effort was made to hold them back. Moms hugged their boys “second moms” and fathers sobbed into each other’s coats. We thanked each other for being part of the village that raised our children.

            The lower classmen were the first to exit the field house, and though this was not their night, they all had swollen red faces and watery eyes. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, one by one, the seniors stepped out into the silent crowd. Silent because we had already grieved with one another and now was the time to comfort our boys. Each one found family members to wrap them in their arms before they ventured on to hug the other people who had been such a big part of this adventure. They embraced the fathers who coached them and taught them what it means to be a team when they first suited up as “Bandits” all those years ago. They hugged the moms who fixed them sandwiches and brownies to eat after games on the road. As sad and wonderful as this memory is for me, it cannot hold a candle to the scene that followed.

            My son, one of the last to step out into the crowd because, I imagine, he was not quite ready to let this part of his life go, was still wearing his number 64 jersey. He came and hugged his circle of family and then, with a look of determination, strode off toward two of his friends. Within seconds the three boys were headed toward the football field and, I was sure, bound for trouble. I had visions of them tearing down the goalposts or some other act of vandalism to commemorate the end of this era. I was so wrong.

            These three tough-shelled jocks walked onto the field holding hands. They paced off the hundred yards hand in hand until they reached the north end zone. By this time the rest of their senior teammates had joined them in this one last drive, groups of two, three, and four young men holding hands. The first group of players stopped at the fifty-yard line on their way back up the field and, as each group caught up with them, they were added to this circle of friends. For long moments the boys, hands clasped, stood in that circle and cried and talked.

            I can’t know what was said, but I imagine them rehashing victories and reminding each other of silly things they did when they were nine or ten. I wonder if they were talking about the years they went undefeated and laughing at themselves for bragging (at the age of 13 or 14) about being so good they wished they could just drive on up to Stillwater and show the Cowboys how it’s done. Or, do they still have that much self -assurance? These boys, after all, never did suffer from a lack of confidence. I wonder if they feel grateful for the opportunity they’ve had to grow up together and be a part of something so much bigger than each of them alone. I wonder if they know what a blessing it is to have been raised in a place where so many people think of them as family. And then, I see my son drop to one knee and bow his head and I know he is indeed offering up a prayer of thanks. I send up one of my own.

            As these boys, really grown men, leave the field I feel such great emotion and I am so satisfied. My heart has never felt this large. It would have been nice to go on and win the championship title, but then I might have missed experiencing what it truly means to have the home field advantage.

Note: I wrote this in October of 2005. I now have two grandsons growing up in the PT football tradition.  My granddaughter plans to be a Bandits cheerleader as soon as she is eligible, next year in second grade. 

My sweet, beautiful friend, Paul, passed away this morning.

by Debbie Shipman

My sweet, beautiful friend, Paul, passed away this morning. I first met Paul when he and his other mother and caregiver, Patty, came into my gift shop almost two years ago. We became fast friends and they would stop by frequently to visit. Paul loved to sit in the rocker next to the wood stove, and he liked to shop when he was in the mood. When it was time to redecorate his bedroom, he chose a "man-cave" theme and made no bones about it when he wasn't interested in an item Patty offered for his consideration. Paul was mostly non-verbal, but when he parked himself up against the ice cream freezer there was no doubt about the message he was trying to communicate.

The first word I ever heard Paul say, and he said it loudly, was "BITCH!" I don't really think he was calling our friend, Michele, a bitch, but sometimes I tell the story of their introduction as if it were true. Because, sometimes, I'm a bitch. All I'm saying is that he walked out of my shop to go meet Michele and 30 seconds later I hear a "non-verbal" man yelling a curse word. Paul ended up loving Michele, too. I think he liked it that she called him her "boyfriend." I know this because Paul communicated happiness by raising his pinkie finger; the happier he was the higher that finger went. Michele got the pinkie a lot.

Paul got sick last winter and they ended up hiring me to stay overnight with him for a couple of weeks to make sure he didn't remove his oxygen during the night. I think Paul just took the oxygen off when he was trying to sleep because it was uncomfortable, but when he was up, that oxygen came off to dramatic effect. Just because Paul wasn't much of a talker didn't mean he didn't want you talking to him; let your mind get occupied with something else and then out of the corner of your eye you'd catch him pull that apparatus over his head and drop it, arm outstretched, away from his body looking right at you to make sure you saw it. We were already friends, but Paul and I really bonded then.

Patty did a great job of documenting Paul's life through photographs. Paul and I would look through his photo albums some nights. He liked talking about pictures of his mom before she passed away leaving him to the loving care of Patty. Paul also enjoyed seeing pictures of Patty and his vacation adventures over the six years since she became Paul's other mother. She was a great mom.
In one picture, Paul is wearing a cowboy hat and looks especially happy. Patty told me the story just yesterday about her dad, who lets nobody mess with his hat, letting Paul wear his cowboy hat that day when he first met his new "grandson." Maybe it took Paul back to the days when he rode horses with his mom, but it's for sure he liked being a cowboy.

A couple of months ago, I took some training so that I could take Paul out in the community for his day program. We would mostly go to the library or the park. Paul loved to swing, and so do I. He also loved going around mountain curves in the car. I came to that realization when I looked over once and saw he was giving the ride two pinkies up. It took a couple of trips to test my theory about the source of his happiness, but it was definitely the curves. Sometimes, when it was time to get in the car, I would say to Paul, "come on Cowboy, load up!" Now I know why he raised his pinkies when I said that.

I think what I loved most about Paul was that Paul loved me. I'm not sure why, but he did. I'll laugh every time I think about when I stopped by for a visit last week. He had been in the hospital and was, we thought, still too weak to take out and about. I asked if he wanted to sit outside on the porch swing with me, so we got his shoes and jacket on and stepped outside. While I was busy rearranging cushions on the swing, Paul slipped past me and headed for my car. I'd NEVER seen him move so fast. What else could I do? I took him for a ride. It's the last time I saw him with his pinkie up.
Paul's death is bittersweet. Everyone who loved him will have an empty place in their lives, but Paul, I believe, is where, if he has a body and a brain, they both work perfectly. His new body will take him without pain wherever he wants to go and his brain will think clearly and allow him say what he wants to say. Rest in peace, Paul. I already miss you, my friend.

Love always,
Debbie

New Strategies Necessary to Win the War on Drugs

If we aren’t willing to end the War on Drugs, can we at least agree to try some new tactics? We could let science and history inform our fight to keep Americans safe from harmful substances, to guide us in designing strategies to reach that worthy goal. That is our goal, right?  Isn’t the end game of this decades-long war supposed to be the safety and health of the citizenry? To what low point must we descend to admit that we are getting our asses whipped in this war? Drug use has remained relatively stable over the past several decades; wouldn’t drug use be going down if we were winning this multi-trillion dollar war?

Can’t we just agree, as science indicates, that a certain percentage of the population has a tendency toward addiction, and then admit that those people may be most helped by mental health professionals and not law enforcement professionals? Why don’t we just help the people who have addiction problems and leave the rest of the citizens alone to manage their own lives?

Then we will have to wrestle with the question of what to do with the addicts who can’t or won’t avail themselves of healthcare services. Shouldn’t the solution be dictated by the degree their addictive behavior affects other members of society? As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. As long as the horse isn’t kicking up a fuss and causing trouble shouldn’t he be left alone until he gets thirsty? We do it with alcohol addicts all the time. As long as they don’t put someone else in danger by driving or some other hazardous activity, we pretty much just let drunks alone to wallow in their own misery. We don’t jail them for the simple reason that they are addicted to alcohol, we wait until their behavior infringes on another person’s health or safety. Once again, isn’t the goal of this war to keep people safe?

Even if we agree that we should treat addicts instead of jailing them, you may wonder about the drug dealers who prey on the addicts. My solution to that would be to bring the production and distribution networks above board where they can have regulation and oversight. This is where we can learn from history, which teaches us that when alcohol was prohibited a violent black market rose up to fill the void that legal distributors and home brewers once filled. Who hasn’t heard of Al Capone? People didn’t stop drinking alcohol during prohibition. Rich people did it where they always did it: in their homes and private clubs. Poor people drank in speakeasies where they were more likely to be introduced to heroin and other drugs. Young men and women acted like young men and women and took prohibition as a challenge to try something forbidden.

The parallels of alcohol prohibition to the War on Drugs are so staggering that we must logically question what the prosecution of that “war” can teach us about the current “war”.   How, for instance, would ending marijuana prohibition and regulating its sale in storefronts be any different than it is for alcohol in liquor stores? When was the last time you stopped by a convenience store and found yourself caught in the crossfire between the Coors and the Budweiser salesmen? Did they have real guns, or were they using price tag labelers? Is there something inherently different about marijuana that would make a pot store more dangerous than a liquor store? Wouldn’t you agree that Americans are safer buying their Pinot Grigio or Old Kentucky Bourbon from the corner store instead of a guy selling homemade rot gut out of a van down by the river?

I challenge you, if you disagree with me, to either convince me there is a better way to protect citizens from harmful drugs than bringing it out in the daylight where addicts can get treatment and the other 90% of the people can take it or leave it, or sell me on the idea that we are winning the War on Drugs. Go

Photo from Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/20/marijuana-raids-are-more-deadly-than-the-drug-itself/?utm_term=.0bc9a3da67cf

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