Legalize Drugs, with Apologies to Jonathan Swift

Before you blast me for being an aging hippie and a liberal, hear me out. I have an idea that would:

Reduce crime in the US

Reduce crime across the border in Mexico

Provide a strong new taxable revenue source to the US

Let's take these in order.

Reduce crime in the US
If all drugs were legalized, it would not be illegal to buy and use them. We could create a series of distribution centers in every city, funded both by a new sin tax on drugs and diverting law enforcement funds to support the new centers. The centers would be privately run but licensed through each state. Revenues would be shared between the states and the federal government based on actual monies collected. Law enforcement would not need as much funding because drug-related crime would be reduced. Prison populations would decline and prison overcrowding would be reduced. Next door to each distribution center could be a privately operated clinic to help users kick the habit.

Reduce crime across the border in Mexico
If Americans were no longer buying illegal drugs, Mexican drug cartels would have to find other avenues through which to sell its products. Crime might be diverted to other areas in Mexico. The Mexican authorities might even be able to gain more control of their failed state. Border cities could become safer on both sides of the border. And Eric Holder might have less interest in supporting failed policies of sending guns to Mexico to trace where they end up. They end up in the hands of criminals. Idiot.

Provide a strong new taxable revenue source to the US
Can you spell sin tax? Prohibition didn't work, but taxing a legally available product did. Anti-smoking campaigns didn't work, but taxes on cigarettes and cigars added to state coffers. The same could happen with a sin tax on legal drugs.

I realize this is a radical, liberal suggestion. If we start with legalizing marijuana in all states, the FBI wouldn't be put in the awkward position of busting legal medical marijuana shops in California.

Yes, this could work. It's too logical not to work. Therefore, no one will put this idea forward. Wonder what the "super committee" would think about it.

Sumptin' Happenin'

There's something happening. Thousands of people are gathering in the streets protesting. Protesting what, you may ask. You name it. Just protesting.

Occupy Wall Street is a grass-roots activist protest movement without focus, without a leader. People are camping out in parks in various cities. People are getting arrested for disrupting traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. People are dancing and singing in the streets. And it's spreading across the lower 48.

What's driving the protests? Who knows? Public ennui? Corporate greed? Joblessness? Poverty? Loss of the American Dream? Fatigue? Deep-seated fear?
Some protesters want to stamp out corporate greed. Others are worried about what we humans are doing to the environment. Still others just want a job. Everyone wants something, even when they aren't articulating the collective angst that has driven them into the street.

I watched several news clips of the protesters. I saw myself in many of them. In the young girls with their long hair and long skirts, I saw myself protesting the Vietnam war, for women's rights, and against Dow Chemical. In the older protesters, I saw friends who wanted to hang onto the American dream for one more generation. I saw people of all ages hoping to find a way to rediscover a moral compass, personal, corporate and national.

We've lost our way. Our leaders in government haven't a clue how to take us up the next steps out of the mess we're in. We are floundering in deepening ruts of disfunctional government. We see our friends and neighbors struggling to keep going. Many are falling behind. Their children will fall behind.

If Occupy Wall Street, with all its disorganization and energy, turns a new spotlight on our collective problems, then it has a benefit. If not, at least the protesters can say they tried.

And they can vote next year. If they can find candidates who listen, then they should vote for them. If not, then they should vote for the candidate who is closest to their desires. And then they should continue the protests.

If this is our US Autumn, then we need to join the protesters. There's something happening there. What it is ain't exactly clear. We can help make it clearer.

I think we have a mouse

Shortly after Mocha, our new kitty, came home, my husband Terry and I began to suspect we had a mouse in the house. Mocha sniffed and sniffed every corner looking for the furry intruder. We thought she had found the scent in the living room, but the trace vanished almost as quickly as it began.

We'd hear Mocha chasing something in the middle of the night. At first we thought it was greeblings, those invisible critters that send cats on midnight rips across the room. We flipped on the light about three in the morning, only to find the most innocent looking pussy cat on the floor at the foot of the bed.

We kept watching to see if we could find the mouse. After all, I didn't want to walk downstairs one morning and step on what remained. The more Mocha searched, the more we searched, the fewer traces of said tiny furry critter did we find. Mocha wondered if it were in her office bed. No, but she looked long and hard before she decided it hadn't invaded her hidey hole.

I was about to give up and declare the house mouse-free, when one morning I came down to the office in the basement earlier than usual. Before it could flee, I captured the mouse in a digital image. All I can say is, "Eeek, a mouse."

What's in a name?

Apparently, a lot, since it took us several days to decide on a name for our new kitty. Here's the tale of the naming conundrum.

When the kitty selected Terry as her forever male human, the shelter named her Stella. Her six bright orange kittens were all named for different types of cheeses, Cheddar, Edam, etc. I knew immediately I could not go through life yelling "Stella" like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Just wasn't going to happen. I asked Terry what he wanted to name her.

"Spike." Well, that would be different. I don't know too many kitties named Spike. My girlfriend Karen Wrigley happened to call a couple of days after we brought her home. Karen is an animal communicator and gave me a reading. She said the kitty was too soft to be called Spike. This was during the time she was hiding in the ceiling over my home office. Karen told me she liked high places. No kidding.

We dumped Spike and kicked around Houdini, because she was an escape artist. Then, it was Cheshire, because she liked to vanish. Blondie came and went, as did Ginger.

Finally, we said she looked more like a cup of mocha coffee than anything else. She's fawn-colored with spots where her stripes would be if she were a tabby. Almost looks like a fawn-colored Ocicat. Mocha stuck. When she's doing her midnight greebling chases, she acts like she's had too much Mocha Java before bedtime. Nicknames are MJ and Mocha Java.

Karen was right about her being soft. She is. And now that she's settling in, she's with us most of the time. Still can be a boo-kitty when there is something new. She has to act scared, but it's all an act.