Sleeping In Public, Immigrants, Separating Kids From Parents, Can Getting Stoned Cure All This? Sunday Reading

NPR's Ted Talk show this week* , Attention Please, was about how the world is vying for your attention.  They noted the average person sees (does that include hears) 4000 - 10,000 ads a day, all competing for your attention.  I've been writing here about how people's attention is diverted from critical issues, from learning deeply enough to understand critical issues.
*Link gets you to this week's show which will thus be out of date soon  This link gets you to one of the talks on this subject.

And I'd remind you that this blog DOES NOT TAKE ANY ADS.  The more time you spend here, the fewer adds you're subject too. :)

Here are some recent  articles that cover well issues that we either don't hear or think about enough, or at all.


1.   Sleeping In Public - Starts with a story about a Yale student calling the police because black Yale student dozed off in a dorm common room, but goes on to explore our norms against sleeping in public.  It gives some examples of where it's ok, but doesn't mention the beach, where it's ok if you're in swim wear, but not if your in street clothes.  Think about your reaction to people you see sleeping in public - when is it ok, where is it ok, does it matter how they're dressed or what color they are?

2.  Crackdown on immigrants takes a toll on federal judge: 'I have presided over a process that destroys families' - a judge talks about how soul destroying his job is.  Here's a brief snippet:

Brack also sees migrants charged with drug offenses or long criminal records and is unsparing in their punishment. But they are a minority, he said.
“I get asked the question, ‘How do you continue to do this all day every day?’ I recognize the possibility that you could get hard-edged, you could get calloused, doing what I do,” he said. “I don’t. Every day it’s fresh. I can’t look a father and a husband in the eye and not feel empathy.”
Brack, 65, is the son of a railroad-worker father and homemaker mother and earned a law degree at the University of New Mexico. He served as a state judge before being named to the federal bench by President George W. Bush.

3.  Taking Children from Their Parents Is a Form of State Terror - Masha Gessen is bi-cultural having grown up in both the US and the Soviet Union/Russia (maybe they makes her trip-cultural.)  She was a journalist in Russia and has written a searing biography about Putin.  She's someone I think understands the world better than most.  Here's a paragraph from that piece that is a relevant follow-up to #3 above.

"Hostage-taking is an instrument of terror. Capturing family members, especially children, is a tried-and-true instrument of totalitarian terror. Memoirs of Stalinist terror are full of stories of strong men and women disintegrating when their loved ones are threatened: this is the moment when a person will confess to anything. The single most searing literary document of Stalinist terror is “Requiem,” a cycle of poems written by Anna Akhmatova while her son, Lev Gumilev, was in prison. But, in the official Soviet imagination, it was the Nazis who tortured adults by torturing children. In “Seventeen Moments of Spring,” a fantastically popular miniseries about a Soviet spy in Nazi Germany, a German officer carries a newborn out into the cold of winter in an effort to compel a confession out of his mother, who is forced to listen to her baby cry."
  

4.  Why We Should Say Yes to Drugs  - Andrew Sullivan argues that psychedelic drugs help expand people's minds,  help people  experience universal love  and  see the unity of humankind. From Jesus to Lennon we've heard "All You Need Is Love."   And that's why authoritarian leaders over the same time period have wanted them banned.  (The last sentence is my thought. But the idea is connected with George Carlin's piece  )

Misc. Reading: Engaging Your Kids With Their Disabled Peers, Abortion Facts, TransCanWork, Pot Monopoly, And Thai Restaurants

1.  Thoughtful advice on how you and your children can engage a disabled child you run into by a father.

From  Daniel T. Willingham in the LA Times:

"Embarrassed parents will try to distract their child, or drag him away, probably delivering a “don’t stare” lecture once out of sight. But you can’t blame a 4-year-old for staring at a child who looks different. His curiosity is natural.
Staring at people feels wrong because it’s how we respond to an object — a skyscraper, or a waterfall. When we look at people, we usually send a social signal — a smile, for example — that acknowledges their humanity. Staring isn’t staring if you’re smiling. Or waving. Or if you say hi. That turns staring into a bid for interaction. So don’t try to stop your little one from looking at Esprit. It probably won’t work anyway, and it may be interpreted as indicating there’s something dreadful or forbidden about her. Just tell your child to wave. And don’t worry if he asks an awkward question, like, “Can’t she talk?” That’s a welcome chance for us to introduce Esprit."

2.  Do you need numbers when you're discussing abortion?  Abortion Study by National Academies Of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Offer Data on Abortion In The US


3.  As Anchorage defeated Prop 1 at the April 3 election, I thought this LA Times article was a good one today.  (Prop 1 would have reversed existing protections for transgender folks.)  It's about Michaela Mendelsohn who owns the Pollo Loco franchise in LA and transitioned to a woman 11 years ago and was thrilled to learn that one of his managers had hired another transgender woman.

"This prompted Mendelsohn to found TransCanWork, a nonprofit organization that trains businesses in best practices for hiring transgender workers and helps transgender people have equal access to employment.
“Trans people of color are over three times more likely to be unemployed and over seven times more likely to be living in poverty, under $10,000 a year, because of difficulty in getting employment,” Mendelsohn said. 'And so when I heard her story, I realized how fortunate I was to have transitioned as the boss of my own company.'”

4.  Is BioTech Institute LLC getting a patent that will allow it to take a cut of all cannabis sold?  Here's from a long CQ story by Amanda Chicago Lewis:

"According to Holmes, a secretive company called BioTech Institute LLC had begun registering patents on the cannabis plant. Three have already been granted, and several more are in the pipeline, both in the U.S. and internationally. And these are not narrow patents on individual strains like Sour Diesel. These are utility patents, the strongest intellectual-property protection available for crops. Utility patents are so strict that almost everyone who comes in contact with the plant could be hit with a licensing fee: growers and shops, of course, but also anyone looking to breed new varieties or conduct research. Even after someone pays a royalty, they can’t use the seeds produced by the plants they grow. They can only buy more patented seeds.
“Utility patents are big. Scary,” Holmes said. 'All of cannabis could be locked up. They could sue people for growing in their own backyards.'”

5.  The Surprising Reason that There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America

This article credits the number of Thai restaurants in the US (and the world) to a Thai government agency that promotes them as part of a tourism campaign that began in 2000.  I would just note that when I got back to LA after my Peace Corps service in Thailand in 1970, there were NO Thai restaurants in LA.  But soon there would be one, then two, the three, then things just exploded.  It was only much later that I learned about the  Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (H.R. 2580; Pub.L. 89–236, 79 Stat. 911, enacted June 30, 1968, also known as the Hart–Celler Act.  From Wikipedia:

"The Hart–Celler Act abolished the quota system based on national origins that had been American immigration policy since the 1920s. The 1965 Act marked a change from past U.S. policy which had discriminated against non-northern Europeans.[2] In removing racial and national barriers the Act would significantly, and unintentionally, alter the demographic mix in the U.S.[2]"

The US' doors were then opened to Thais and others.  Thai immigrants began opening restaurants, and because their food and hospitality are so good, the soon spread to all parts of the US.  That was 30 years before the Thai government started promoting Thai restaurants and helping their owners.

Pot, Deflating Bubbles, And Other Word Battles

Words play a huge role in what we know.  Even our own observations are affected by the language we speak and think in.  We wrap our experiences in the words we have available.  Very few of us break those constraints and create new words if the ones we have are inadequate.

Here are some examples word issues in today's newspaper:

1.  Stop using the word 'pot' - An ADN headline:

Marijuana industry gets blunt: Stop using the word ‘pot’

". . .But marijuana still carries a stigma that surfaces with the use of old slang like pot and weed. For many, the words evoke an image of lazy, not-so-bright people who puff their lives away.
The image deeply bothers the marijuana industry, which is telling the public — sometimes gently, sometimes curtly — that they should use the word cannabis. That's the scientific name for the plant from which marijuana is derived."

Here, it appears the cannabis industry is trying to change its (in business jargon) 'brand.'  'Brand' is a word I dislike.  "Branding" epitomizes the idea of substituting the image of something for the actual essence of it. Branders want people to think about their product a certain way so it sells better.  It's the image, not the product itself, that they are selling. 'Brand' is a way of 'branding' the word 'deception' and making it into something that's seen as good.

I don't think that the name for cannabis matters all that much - it's the intrinsic product that people are  interested in, no matter what you call it.  I suspect those holding negative images of 'pot' are dying out.  That view was part of the political ideology that didn't like rock music, hippies, and Vietnam war protestors



2.  Bubble Deflates - Another ADN headline that comes originally from the New York Times:

BITCOIN FALLS BELOW $10,000 AS VIRTUAL CURRENCY BUBBLE DEFLATES

Did you ever see a bubble deflate?  Balloons and tires can lose their air slowly (deflate), but bubbles burst.  Except, it seems, in economics.  But then economists often deductive,  starting with theory they tell us how the world works.  It's the theory, not the real world that matters.   In economics, for example, people only  make 'rational' decisions. And, bubbles deflate.  It took people like Vernon Smith to actually do experiments to burst some of this economic bubble nonsense.

This is just lazy thinking.  Mixed metaphors are a kind of lazy thinking.  "A carpenter was the low rung on a totem pole." comes from a long list of mixed metaphors.   But if you google 'deflated bubble' you'll find lots of serious economics examples of this term.

3.  Other Word Battles

George Lakoff tells us that framing the debate is the most critical thing in political discourse.  We've fought over words like "illegal alien" versus "undocumented worker"; 'baby killing' versus 'pro-choice.'  The list goes on and on.

The conservatives have made a science of this and do it masterfully.  The never say 'the Democratic Party."  They say 'the Democrat Party." It's like taking someone's name and changing it just a little bit to irritate them and control what they are called.  It's a form of bullying.   And their most successful reframing was the term  'political correctness.'  Even liberal have bought into this perversion.

I've written about the origins of the term 'political correctness' in the past.  I don't want to repeat all that.

I also posted about my view of the difference between conservative and liberal use of restricting words.  Conservatives try to restrict words as a way to win debates.  If you ban or demonize words needed by your opponent, it rigs the whole debate.   Their opponents aren't allowed to use key terms needed to make their case.   The NRA has bullied the Center For Disease Control to end research on gun deaths in the US.  Without data it's hard to make a rational argument.  And the Trump administration has banned terms like 'climate change' and 'fetus.'

Liberals try to ban words that insult or demean or even terrorize other human beings, generally people who are NOT white heterosexual males.  There are plenty of other terms to use that are more respectful and so these bans don't hinder political discussion.  

Intro To Anchorage Cannabis Market 2: Alaska Fireweed

A few days ago I posted part 1 of what might turn out to be a series of posts on cannabis shops in Anchorage.  That first post will probably be the most detailed, since it was the first and I won't have to repeat all the explanations of what different terms mean and how things are done.  At the second shop I visited, also downtown, a few blocks from the first one on 4th Avenue in the most touristy part of town, my stay was shorter, since a lot of my more generic questions had already been answered.




So, here's Alaska Fireweed.

It used to be a skate and ski board shop.  If you read the Anchorage Press, Will Ingram, who writes the weekly column on weed, is, according to his LinkedIn page, the general manager of Alaska Fireweed.  That column will tell you far more than I ever can about cannabis in Alaska.


On walking in to this store, there's a separation from the rest of the store, but it doesn't have a separate lobby.  It's more like walking into someplace where you have to give your ticket (or in this case show your id) before you get fully in.

This is Jason at the door.  Note I've merged two different pictures here and in doing that I had to cut out the divider that keeps you from wandering into the store on the left before getting id'd.

Jason handed me over to salesperson Mark who was happy to answer my questions.  Unlike Great Northern Cannabis, where they said they grow all their own cannabis in South Anchorage, Alaska Fireweed gets theirs from a variety of growers.  Mark mentioned there were places  on the Kenai Peninsula and the Matsu valley particularly.

When I asked my Big Mac question (a not very successful attempt to find out what was the most popular product) he people come in and buy a couple of grams, they buy pre-rolls, and edibles. It's like a liquor store now, and people stop by on the way home from work and buy cannabis they way they buy a bottle of wine.   And they're hoping that before long there will be room in the back where people can consume on the premises.

I asked whether this was a good job and he enthusiastically said it was.  Wages?  He said $12-15/hour.  But he also sells real estate.  This is just one job and it's lots of fun.  You meet all kinds of people.

Here your product comes in a plastic packet like this one.  Everything is labeled, there's more information, I think, on the back about testing.

He said most customers were smoking before it was legal and I asked why, since they knew how to buy it already, would they come to a shop where it costs more.

Several reasons, he said.

First, it's tested.  You know exactly what you're getting and how much.  That's a big deal.
Second, you have a lot more choices of products.  For example, he showed me an E*Blunt.

This is like an e-cigarette, but it has . . .  I realized as I was writing this that I didn't ask enough questions.  I could see that it had a USB port and I was puzzled.  That's to charge the battery he said.  You can see the little vial of cannabis oil.  I think it has a specific name, but I didn't write it down.  So I googled E*Blunt.  It turns out this is an Alaskan invention.  From the E*Blunt website:

"E * Blunt was developed in Alaska where the weather and elements don’t always allow for ease of smoking. Whether it was snow machining up the farthest peaks, skiing down an untouched mountain, fly fishing out of the back of the a boat or teeing off on the back nine, keeping a joint lit or even just dry was a constant battle. So with a lot of patience from my wife and many sleepless nights I set out to make a great tasting, discreet and easy way to smoke. With the help of some great people and a lot of good effort we are proud to present E * Blunt flavored vapes. The easy to use, great tasting, healthier way to consume. Enjoy responsibly in extreme places everywhere."

And about this particular product:

"E * Blunt Slims are rechargeable with a USB attachment, comes with a stylus tip and can be used with any exchangeable cartridges."

It comes in a lot of different flavors.  And it's not cheap.  Mark was selling it for $90.  Ah, I said, but it has a cartridge, so you can just buy that next time.  Well, it turns out, it's the oil that gets the price up.  A new cartridge is $80.  Mark said the lawyers buy these

Below are various items that were in the glass case.  I didn't ask questions.  That leaves lots of questions for the next couple of shops I visit.  And I haven't really looked at the edibles either.  

It might take a while to finish this series.  It's starting to be our travel season.  In the summer our granddaughter came to visit us.  And now it's our turn to visit her and her cousins.  So we'll be in and out of Alaska.  But I'll get this done eventually.

An Introduction To Anchorage's Cannabis Market Place - Great Northern Cannabis

Although some people think that going to college in the 1960s, attending the Monterey Pop Music festival,  teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer, and owning a VW camper certified me as a hippie, I really wasn't.  My drug use in those days was limited to occasional hits offered by friends.  I found marijuana preferable to alcohol, but neither were ever big parts of my life.  Furthermore, it was illegal and I am basically a law-abiding person. Generally if we don't like a law, we should change it, not break it.  Smoking pot was not important enough for me to consider civil disobedience.  Injustice?  Yes.  Pot?  No.

So, many years later, I find myself in a new world of legal cannabis here in Alaska.  I'm actively observing my brain's reorganization as old conditioned strictures get reshaped.  I never really thought that smoking an occasional joint was wrong.  I didn't  feel guilty when offered a puff.  But when I was in high school I never heard of anyone smoking pot.  It was still legally and mentally forbidden.  It was only during my college years that people I knew started experimenting.  And by the time I was married with kids and a job I liked, marijuana wasn't important enough to risk any of that.

So now we have a dozen or so cannabis shops in town and I decided as part of my cultural reeducation I should blog about legal pot in Anchorage.  J and I did look into one shop a month or so ago.  It was right next door to a new restaurant we were trying out and so on our way back to the car, we looked into Enlightenment.  It was surprisingly clean and the guy who checked our ID's was very friendly and was eager to gently and respectfully (dare I use this word?) enlighten us.

Click to enlarge and focus

Last week I finally went on line and made a list of all the cannabis shops in town - at least that I could find online.  And yesterday I started my field work.  After a lunch meeting down town I walked over to Great Northern Cannabis and Alaska Fireweed.

Great Northern Cannabis

It sits downtown on 4th Ave right in the heart of tourist Anchorage.  The visitor center log cabin is right across the street.

It opens into a lobby where you get your ID checked and they sell non-cannabis products - pipes, bongs, t-shirts, etc.

I told Kelly I was a blogger and wanted to report on marijuana shops and she couldn't have been nicer or more patient with my questions.

I really didn't have many prepared questions.  The main one was:  "What is the Big Mac of pot shops?"  She wasn't sure what I was asking so I had to explain I wanted to know what the most popular product was.

"Deals," she said.  We have regular deals and people want them because they're cheaper.
"Next - the highest THC percentage."

OK, so there isn't one thing.  Rather it's price and high.

Kelly told me they're open from 10am to midnight (well, they start shutting down about 11:50pm) seven days a week.   There were a number of glass pipes under glass in the counter and I asked about glass blowers.  (I broke the stem of an old wine glass from my mom and I've been looking to see if a glass blower can fix it.)  She said, yes, there are a lot of glass blowers.

She suggested I go on in to the main part of the store, where I met Olivia.  She couldn't have been more helpful.

All the concentrates and flowers in the shop is grown at their shop in South Anchorage.  Edibles come from Frozen Buds in Fairbanks.  They are starting to get stuff from Momo's Bakery as well

Then she started showing me the products.  You can see in the picture some clear plastic containers.  From left to right are two with 3.5 grams (1/8 ounce).  Then there is one with coffee.  My notebook and pen.  Then there's what looks like a little white pill vial.  That's what you take your pot home in.  The vial isn't in any of the other pictures, so I wanted to point that out now.

Here's a closer look of  the left side. She'd pulled White Widow and Pineapple Chunk out for me to check.

On the right is the coffee that you use to "cleanse your palate" between sniffings.

I've heard about cleansing a palate between tasting different wines, but isn't that in your mouth?  Can you do that for fragrance too?  The Roasterie explains the use of coffee at fragrance counters to 'cleanse the nasal palate."  So I guess it works for noses too.

Now let's look at this container a little closer.

There's this pickle shaped part with lots of holes.  In the pictures above, this part is protected with a black rubbery cover.  Here's where you can smell the terpenes - the part that gives the smell, Olivia explained.  Olivia had me sniff a few samples to compare those with a lemony scent from the others.  I have a pretty good nose, but it was hard to get the lemon scent.  The lemon scent indicates a product that will decrease hunger she said.  (Another medical benefit of pot - lose weight - I thought, but pot's supposed to make you hungry.)

The Pineapple Chunk will make you light headed.  She said more about some making you relaxed and feeling good, but not necessarily high.  But my notes didn't catch all the details.

The labels tell us the THC percentage and the OBD percentage.

THC (from Leafly):

"tetrahydrocannabinol, is the chemical compound in cannabis responsible for a euphoric high."

Olivia explained that CBD is the part of marijuana that has the medical benefits.  At home I got a little more information from a different Leafly page:

"Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of many cannabinoid molecules produced by Cannabis, second only to THC in abundance. These plant-derived cannabinoids, or phytocannabinoids (phyto = plant in Greek), are characterized by their ability to act on the cannabinoid receptors that are part of our endocannabinoid system. While THC is the principal psychoactive component of Cannabis and has certain medical uses, CBD stands out because it is both non-psychoactive and displays a broad range of potential medical applications. These properties make it especially attractive as a therapeutic agent."

Above the sniffing holes is a magnifying glass to allow you a closer look at the nugget, the flower,  as Olivia explained, or 'the bug.'  Here's my camera's look through the magnifying glass.

Again, I'm finding my notes didn't capture everything, but I believe Olivia told me that at Great Northern Cannabis, since the grow all their own marijuana, they also don't include any trimmings with their nuggets, just pure flowers.  The magnifying glass helps you see that, I guess.  If you know what you're looking for.

Now for a closer look at the other side of my notebook in the picture above with Olivia.

By this time Sara had joined Olivia explaining things to me.  Here are the two of them.




The White Widow and Pineapple Chunk shown in a previous picture contained 3.5 grams or 1/8 of an ounce.  The legal limit you can buy at one time is one ounce.  In this picture below we have 1 gram of Bubble Gummer and a one gram roll.  I also heard it called 'rolled.'  What I know as a joint.

Then we got to the deals, what Kelly had said are the biggest sellers.  The have a different $10 gram items on different days.  They also have PFD* deals (what merchant doesn't?).  Here's an example of some of the current deals one of their signs in the shop.

You can see this bigger and clearer if you click on the picture.  But even then you can't see the headings in the dark purple above the prices.  The one on the left is for 3.5 grams.  Next comes 1 gram.  On the right is "1 gram pre rolled."

You can also sign up for "Splango" by leaving a phone number of email.  After 10 purchases, you get a 20% discount coupon sent to your device.  She said they send announcements of deals, but not many.  

I also asked if this was a good job and a good place to work.  Both bud tenders, as they are called, enthusiastically assured me it was.  Good wages and discounts and tips.  They didn't get specific about wages, though said it was above minimum wage ($9.80/hour in Alaska as of January 1, 2017).
I asked about tips.  Olivia said $1 is good, sometimes someone puts in a five.  So it's not 20% like for a waiter, I asked.  No, she's pleased someone appreciates her enough to leave a dollar.

And what does it take to become a bud tender.  Here's where Sara took over as Olivia helped a customer.  WELL, first you need a marijuana handlers card.  You take a test online for $65 plus tax, she said, to get certified.  Then you have to take a $50 certified check (no personal checks or cash) downtown on Wednesdays from 9am-12pm to get your card.  On the right is Sara's.  (I smudged out her last name, birthdate, and MHP#.)

But that's not all.  You also need to get a food handler's card, but that's only $10.  You take that test online too.  They have to be renewed every three years.

Olivia said she got her job here because she knew someone who said to put in an application.  All the positions were now filled.


I went to two places yesterday.  The other one, Alaska Fireweed is a couple blocks down the street.  I'll do that soon. [UPDATE Oct 8:  It's up here now.]   I think this is more than enough for one post.  I really got a lot of information here and I probably won't have to get into so much detail at the other places, except to see if their reports are consistent with what I learned here.  And yes, both places, said sure to my requests to take pictures.

There was one more thing:  Checking ID's.  Olivia and Sara said you need a photo id with your birthdate and an expiration date.  A drivers license or a passport is good.  Student ID's aren't because they don't have birthdate.  I thought the reason they wanted to see a drivers license was to check if someone was barred from purchasing alcohol.  No, they said, that doesn't apply to marijuana.  If not, then someone like me who came of age 50 years ago really shouldn't have to show my ID.  It's clear I'm old enough.  But they've passed their marijuana handler permit test, so I'm sure they're right.

I didn't take a shot of the whole shop.  I did want to note that it's not in any way like the seedy head shops used to be.  And they had two ATM machines inside.

*for non-Alaskans, PFD = Permanent Fund Dividends, the checks Alaskans get in the Fall as the dividend on their share of the Permanent Fund where some of our oil revenue is saved.  The PFD disbursements began yesterday. (I couldn't find a link to the specific news item, so over time this link won't get to the disbursement announcement.)