- I’ve found a good cause to throw my weight behind: the legalization of hemp in North Dakota. Your response is probably that advocating the legalization of hemp is akin to legalizing marijuana (which I favor for medicinal purposes), but that’s where you’d be wrong. Although hemp contains small, small traces of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive substance better known as THC in marijuana, and the two are from the same genus and species, hemp is in no way the same as marijuana in terms of usage. No one smokes hemp to get high; they use hemp to make clothes, lotions, car door panels, insulation, jewelry and more. The leading advocate for the legalization of hemp in North Dakota is David C. Monson, a farmer, high school principal and Republican state legislator in the state who sees his idea as “practical agriculture.” Six states across the country considered similar measures to the one that Monson is proposing over the past year, and Representative Ron Paul, R-Tex., introduced a bill in Washington, D.C. that would let states allow such crops. Still, North Dakotans have been the most outspoken on the issue, going so far as to have the state legislature has pass a bill allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp and creating an official licensing process to fingerprint such farmers and a global positioning system to track their fields. Of course, our stiff, rigid and bullsh*t-filled federal government is against the idea, citing the Controlled Substances Act. “Basically hemp is considered the same as marijuana,” said Steve Robertson, a special agent for the D.E.A. at its Washington headquarters. “We’re an enforcement agency. We’re sworn to uphold the law.” Right, Mr. Robertson, because we wouldn’t want to take a closer look at the law and see if it can be adapted and redefined to better address the issues it was actually designed to address. Good thinking on that one, D.E.A. Keep up the fight, North Dakota, hemp ought to be legalized and it looks like you’re the right ones to lead the fight.
- Amidst all of the uproar over the gambling scandal involving former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is the fact that a player who in many ways is the face of the league is building a new, 40,000-square-foot home that has its own freakin’ casino. You may remember hearing a few months back that LeBron James was constructing a mansion in the Akron, Ohio suburb of Bath Township. The house will be ginormous and boast things like a barber shop, basketball court, movie theater, two-story walk-in closet and the aforementioned casino. I know that the NBA can't control things like this, but how ironic is it that James is building this monstrosity at the very time the league is in the throes of a huge gambling scandal that has the potential to do major, possibly irreversible damage to its rep? Yes, there won't be any sports book action and money being bet on games at the in-house casino. Presumably it’ll be a place where James and his friends go to play poker, shoot some craps and have a good time, with James running the place himself. Still, if you listen to former mob boss and now anti-gambling advocate Michael Franzese (which I highly recommend you do), he vociferously states to anyone who asks that any involvement with gambling or gaming by athletes is a bad idea and can lead to nothing but negative ramiprecussions. Hopefully nothing comes out of James and his home casino, but it does go to show you how ingrained gambling and gaming are with these pro athletes; it’s something they feel the need to do regularly, even when it results in them losing tens of thousands of dollars and puts them in compromising situations.
- For the second time in his career, Michael Vick is having an apparel ban of some sort dropped on him by the NFL. Acouple years ago, the league had to prohibit fans from ordering Vick’s #7 jersey with the name “Mexico” printed on the back after Vick gave an unsuspecting woman herpes after sleeping with her and she came back to sue him. At that time, the NFL decided that fans would no longer be able to personalize Vick jerseys with the Mexico name, but right now that ban isn't looking so severe. As of today, NFLShop.com will not be selling any Michael Vick-related items and Reebok has stopped all sales of Vick jerseys, to which the company has the rights. A few weeks ago, it would have been hard to fathom an NFL without Vick in it, as he’s been one of the faces of the league for the past six years. More and more, though, the developments in the federal dogfighting case against him are making it plausible that not only could Vick miss the 2007 season, he could be done in the NFL altogether. A conviction on the charges he’s facing would definitely mean prison time under strict, inflexible federal sentencing guidelines, and from everything being said about the case, no one would be surprised if the Falcons released Vick no matter what the outcome of this case, barring a swift and improbable dismissal of all charges against him.
- Following the new NFL personal conduct policy that Commissioner Roger Goodell has set forth shouldn’t be this difficult for players. If you can avoid getting arrested, stay off drugs and behave like a somewhat normal citizen, you’ll have no trouble with Goodell. Yet players continue to get arrested for driving drunk, get into brawls at clubs, test positive for steroids and end up behind bars at an alarming rate. A large chunk of the trouble seems to be happening at clubs, especially strip clubs, so you’d think players would wise up and avoid this type of establishment. Carolina Panthers offensive lineman Jeremy Bridges clearly is not one of the smarter members of the league, because he now stands accused of misdemeanor assault for allegedly pulling a gun on a female employee during an altercation at a strip club in Charlotte. With no prior run-ins with the law (none of note, anyhow), and being a first-time offender of the NFL’s player conduct policy, Bridges might escape without a suspension, but then again, Goodell is suspending guys for just about everything this side of parking tickets, so maybe not. But good thinking by Bridges here, I mean who’s more dangerous than a chick working at a strip club? Plus, what solves an incident better than pulling a gun on a woman you weigh twice as much as? Players should just abide by the simple rule that if you feel like you need to take a gun to a place you’re going, maybe it’s a place you should be going to begin with. Start using your brain, Bridges, or Goodell will have you on the suspended list along with Mike Vick, Tank Johnson, Pacman Jones, Odell Thurman………and the list just keeps going.
* A brief addendum: The Panthers have gone ahead and suspended Bridges for the first two games of the regular season, clearly trying to beat the commish to the punch.
- Does NASA make a point of hiring psychopathic nut jobs? I only ask because after astro-nut Lisa Marie Nowak’s cross-country caper several months ago to kidnap/murder another woman involved in an astronaut love triangle, it became clear that NASA doesn’t do the best job of monitoring the mental stability of its employees. Now comes news that an unidentified NASA employee tried to sabotage the space shuttle Endeavor less than two weeks before the ship was to take flight. This loose cannon purposely damaged a computer inside the shuttle by cutting wires inside the machine, which is supposed to be delivered to the international space station by the Endeavor. The computer is supposed to monitor the strain on a space station beam and relay the information to flight controllers on Earth. The saboteur also damaged a second computer that wasn’t intended to be on the flight. No motive was given, but speaking of motives, this should be ample motivation for NASA to step up its security and mental health evaluations for anyone on its payroll that gets anywhere near a shuttle. Tighten things up, NASA, we can't have a government agency running so inefficiently, ineffectively and out of control, can we? Take a look around, see if you have any other agencies and departments running amok like that…….besides Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department, and besides the war in Iraq and besides Vice Lord Cheney and his direct defiance of the National Archives requesting information he’s bound to turn over….aww, screw it. The entire administration is one ginormous joke, so why should NASA be any different?
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