One problem that has arose is that the patients themselves are required to cultivate their own crop of marijuana, or more likely, acquire it from an unapproved source.  Over time, it has become apparent that a system would be needed to grow the needed crop, without at the same time giving illicit drug providers an excuse to ply their trade.  Thus, we have a plan, with Oregon Ballot Measure 74, to establish a medical marijuana supply system to provide marijuana of a suitable quality and sufficient, consistent strength to safely do its job. The measure would allow limited selling of marijuana to these patients, if it is grown within the parameters of the law.

This seems to be a winning proposition, no matter which side of the original law you stand on.  If you support the use of medical marijuana, you will appreciate the effort to provide a safe supply of the drug to all who need it, without having to turn to a “black market” to get their supply.  If you were against the concept of legal medical marijuana, a no vote on this measure will not change anything about the current situation.  However, the measure will provide a system to contain the distribution of the marijuana.  This would help to keep the people not entitled to receive the drug from doing so, and would curb the increase in places that offer the drug to those needing it.

If you don’t like the idea of medical marijuana, passing this measure will help to control the supply of the drug.  Passing this measure will stop a problem that currently happens in California, where there are few restrictions on who can provide marijuana.

If you do use medical marijuana, or know someone who does, passing this measure will allow the patients to get a proper supply of the drug they need.  It will keep them from having to grow their own, a process that leads to unsure results.

In all, this measure is a winner for everyone.  Please join me in voting YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 74.

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However, if we wanted to ask a question that was more to the point, just exactly why is it so bad to be a Muslim? The evidence is pretty clear that Obama, like a great number of Americans, is a Christian who goes to church on special occasions and when they feel the need. That is the same as a lot of people in this country, and it’s not necessarily bad. Likewise, why is it any better or worse to be a Christian or a Muslim or a follower of some other faith?

My question, one that no one in the media seems to be able to address right now, is just what is so wrong about being a Muslim? Some people are Christians, some are Muslim, some are Buddhists, some are Sikhs or Pagans or Jews or followers of any one of a number of other spiritual systems. The question: Since when did it become an insult to call someone a Muslim? Until we address that, we are just arguing over mindless accusations that detractors of the president seem to want to make to .

Until we can accept one another for who we are, without “hating” someone else merely because of their race or religion, then we are fairly well doomed as a society. And until we can speak of one another (as individuals in a country) without the racial or religious labels, we are truly showing our ignorance. I look at the media reports and see misinformation on both sides of this issue.

Some of these folks are seeing Christians and Muslims as an “either/or” situation. I may offend a few with this description, but not deliberately. Let me explain:

• Both Christians and Muslims believe that one God/Creator made the Earth.
• Both believe that one should worship the Creator on a regular basis.
• Both believe that regular prayer is a benefit to one’s life.
• Both believe in the words of a holy book, that in each case was written by wise men inspired by God, and at a basic level tell similar stories.
• Both holy books tell us how the world was created, how to worship and please God, and how to lead good and ethical lives.
• Both books are full of wisdom to live by.
• Both books have certain passages that could have very bad meanings, depending upon how they are interpreted.  In other words, if taken strictly and literally, and out of context, they both in places direct us to do things that are inappropriate by today’s standards.
• Both books, while for the most part directing us to do good and not to hurt others, have sections that say we might need to fight or kill people to preserve ourselves and our respective religions. In both cases, only those who already have a mind toward violence actually interpret those sections as a call to violence.
• Both religions have regular religious practice, a yearn for peace, a call to be charitable toward others, a call to be charitable toward their church, and a call to take care of ones self and others as their main focus.
• Both have lists of rules one would follow to lead a good and wholesome life.

There are a number of ways that the religions differ, of course. But if you look at those things, you will find that they are in the realm of “method of practice” than in actual dogma. Christianity is different from Islam, but not much more than the way that different sects of Christianity (Catholics, Mormons, Baptists, Protestants, and so on) are different from one another.

I find that many Christians, despite claiming to love their neighbors and claiming to be tolerant toward others, will badmouth the Muslims as bad people.  On the other hand, I have found that a great many Christians will go out of their way to badmouth the practices of their fellow Christians who happen to practice in a different way in a different church.

Yes, this does oversimplify things somewhat. But in the end, in the things that matter, most of the world’s religions are truly not that different from one another. So, why are we demonizing the other religious people so much?  Aren’t we really only arguing over the method of religious practice and some minor doctrinal details, rather than in some really evil difference in what we believe?

Unless we really believe that anyone who doesn’t sit next to us on Sunday morning is the bad guy.

Anyone want to help me out on this?

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Her world had been turned upside down when it was discovered that her original immigration paperwork had been done incorrectly. Despite assurances from Multnomah County adoption authorities that everything had been done correctly, she was not officially a US resident or citizen. When this was discovered, it was feared that Blanca, who knew only the US as home, who did not realize there was a problem, who had no connections to Mexico, and who did not even speak any Spanish, could be deported to Mexico and not allowed to return to the US.

I am happy to note, from recent reports, that this story will eventually have a happy ending. While the process will not be immediate, the Federal Government has seen fit to allow Blanca one of the rare visas that will allow her to stay in the US as a permanent resident. The now-19-year-old will not be able to apply for US citizenship for another 8 years. In the meantime, she will not be able to pursue some of her original goals. She is now working toward saving money for college to become a dental hygienist. Of course, she will not be eligible for financial aid because of the recent problems with her immigration status. I have confidence that she will make it work.

I know that this young lady will be able to overcome all of this and be able to grow up to do whatever she wants to do. It is unfortunate that our system is not flexible to respond when it is clear that a mistake was made, whether that error was on the part of her parents, the County, or the Federal Government. It just seems that we have become so short sighted on the whole subject if immigration that we cannot do the right thing, even if the right answer to the situation is obvious.

It appears that there is clearly some room for improvement.

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Comment: I’m not sure which Americans that Ms. Palin and Mr. Gingrich and others think that the president is out of touch with, but it certainly doesn’t seem out of touch to me that any religious group might want to build a facility in the most populous city in our country. On it’s face, it seems absurd that building a religious place of worship near the site of a disaster would be any problem at all. Certainly, the faith-based programs that would be happening at this community center would not only be of service to the community, it would have a healing effect in allowing the community to come together at this location.

I have heard of communities that might not want a church in a particular part of town due to traffic or zoning concerns. But I don’t ever remember hearing that they don’t want the church because a site of a disaster was nearby. In fact, in times of disaster and the aftermath of attacks or war, it is often representatives of religious organizations that are the first to arrive and to help. The arguments being made simply do not make any sense.

In an earlier incident in our history, in a terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City, I never once heard that we needed to do anything about the location of any nearby religious centers or places of worship. No one thought that the proximity of a church was of any concern to anyone regarding how close it is to the center of that explosion. Certainly, there is at least one place of worship in Downtown Oklahoma City.

The “conservatives” that have been decrying the new Muslim community center in New York are saying that it is inappropriate that a Muslim center be built, but have not said whether it would be appropriate to build a Christian community center or a Jewish community center in the same spot. I presume this is the case, as they have said as much in not so many words. Yet, they tell us that it would be wrong to call them religious bigots. I’m not entirely sure what else I would call them, if it is OK to build one brand of church but not another.

Perhaps they believe that, because many of the al-Qaida terrorists had been brought up as Muslims, that all Muslims must be bad. None of the Muslims that I know would do such a thing, and I know all of them to be upstanding members of our community. Even if the terrorists were Muslims, that is still not a reason to vilify the millions of Muslims around the world who are not terrorists. Certainly, the Republicans who are trying to eventually become our leaders are not so uninformed as to think that the Muslim religion, rather than a terrorist organization, attacked the World Trade Center. I have to conclude that they are either grossly uninformed, or that they are religious bigots. Neither one of these are particularly flattering to them.

Again, if we take previous incidents into account, Timothy McVeigh, who destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring 450 more, had been raised in a Christian household. In another example, Adolf Hitler, the killer of millions during World War II, sent Jews, members of Christian denominations different than his own, and others to the gas chambers to die, all in the name of Christianity. We recognize these figures as anomalies. We have not shunned all Christians because of the actions of these particularly criminal Christians. It makes no more sense to shun these Muslims because of the actions of a few others who have no connection to them.

As we look to our leaders to guide us, the wise words of Barak Obama have reminded us that we all have the right to practice our peaceful religions in any appropriate manner. It is a right protected in our constitution. Please tell me if you think differently, educate me on this issue. But I can find nothing other than blatant religious bigotry in those not allowing this New York project to go forward. This never should have been more than a local issue.

I only hope that this does not become an issue in our own community.

UPDATE: From information in an article today, it appears that the Muslim community in New York City might abandon their community center project. The bigots will see this as a victory. The religious will see it as an offer to the community to stop the tensions that will inevitably arise from building the project. It is truly unfortunate that, in this day and age, that we still have the intolerance that will not allow our neighbors to pray in peace. Will the detractors be praying in peace tonight?

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An estimated 10 to 15 percent of our population is homosexual.  It would be expected that a similar percentage of the members of our military is homosexual.  This is going to be the case, whether or not those individuals actually declare their sexual preference in public.  Despite the claims of some of those who wish to see discrimination continue, hiding the matter will not change it.  Besides, the homosexuality itself is really not the matter, is it?

A few of our military leaders claim that “unit cohesion” will suffer if it were known that homosexual people were among the members of the military.  The fact is, they are already there.  They have simply been ordered not to “come out of the closet.”  These people do exist.

Some leaders claim that homosexuals would sexually molest their comrades or partake in inappropriate displays of affection.  In fact, it seems quite unlikely that gay service members would do this with any greater frequency than would heterosexual service members.  While such cases are not rampant, it is certainly not unheard of for a heterosexual service member to sexually molest a colleague, or rape a local resident after an off-base drunken night on the town, or to partake in inappropriate displays of affection themselves.  I have yet to see any evidence where a gay person would do so any more frequently than a straight person.

No, this is all about hiding blatant discrimination.  There will be no problem with gay servicemen serving with their straight counterparts, since they do already.  They would simply be able to do so without being required to lie about it.  Until 1948, servicemen were segregated by race in their units.  At that time, there was pressure from a few military leaders that if the services were integrated, it would cause a loss of “unit cohesion.”  Today, the US Military is a better force with all of it’s members working together.

The issue here is not so much about discrimination.  Americans have been successfully able to serve in the US Armed Forces regardless of their race, gender, or religion.  Certainly, we can allow all to serve regardless of their sexual preference.  No, the issue here is that the military requires some of it’s members to lie about themselves.  However, if they are caught telling that lie, they will be discharged for lying.  This is no way to run a military.

We do not need to take more time to study this issue.  The time to end this policy is now.  If not now, then when?  We will have the courage to do the right thing.  We were wrong for a while, just as we were wrong to segregate people by race.  We can get over it.  We just need to have the courage to make the change.

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As we look around today, there are numerous remembrances, both public and private, going on around us.  Whether the commemoration is at the local veterans’ cemetery to remember all of those who served in long-past wars, or whether it is a family gathering to honor a recently-departed loved one, all of those who have died in service deserve our thanks.

This honor should go to our military men and women, whether or not the conflict was “politically correct” at the time.  These people did their duty for our country without questioning the politics of the situation.  We called, and they came.  Then they died.

In most of the past conflicts that our country has been involved in, there has usually been a clear threat to our country.  When the threat had passed, we took steps to withdraw and let our service members get back to a normal life.  In the Revolution, they stood up for us until the threat was over, then we stood them down.  In the World Wars, they came forward to help when there was a clear threat to ourselves and our neighbors.  When the threat was over, we brought them home.

We are currently fighting in two overseas wars.  In one case, in Afghanistan, we are told that we are fighting to keep an enemy from reaching our shores, though I think most Americans would be hard pressed to tell you just how that might happen.  In another case, in Iraq, it has been pretty much shown that we were enticed there on false pretexts, and that our continued involvement there will result in little further gain or protection for the people of our country or for others.  In fact, the military of most other countries have already seen the folly of the situation and have left.

In prior wars that our country has fought, when the job was done, we brought them home to get them out of the path of danger.  If we truly want to honor the brave souls that are fighting for us and who have given our lives for us, we should bring them home and get them out of harm’s way.  Unless our government is not telling us something, our job is done in Iraq.  The highest honor we could give our soldiers would be to bring them home now, so that we don’t have to be mourning their deaths in the future.

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I usually go about my day not worrying one way or the other about the race of the people that I interact with.  We all live in this world, we all look a little different, and sometimes it is easy to forget about what some others of us have to deal with every day.  Perhaps, after a while, it becomes easy to believe that all of us are treated on an equal basis all the time.  Clearly, this little experiment highlighted how this is not the case.

Of course, as all know that racism is still a big problem in our society.  Despite all the work of civil rights leaders past and present, despite a growing integration of all of us into general society, and despite the fact that “nobody talks about it” as much anymore; racism is still prevalent in our society.  If we had somehow kidded ourselves into believing that the issue was going away, then we are sadly mistaken.

The issue then becomes what to do next.  Certainly we could propose newer and different laws and regulations. But really, we already have a lot of laws and regulations in place to address the issue.  We can, in fact, easily identify the current laws that were violated in this case.  The ultimate solution is something deeper.

There seem to be two kinds of people.  One includes those who truly believe that all of us are equal as people, those who see each other as individuals, rather than as outsiders with a skin color or family history different than their own.  The other group includes those who are somehow either afraid of people of a different race, or those who feel that their generalized group of people are overtly superior to other generalized groups of people.  We are never going to be able to legislate against fear.  Changing deeply seated false beliefs will be incredibly difficult.

In a way, we have made it socially unacceptable to discriminate against others due to their race.  For most of us, discrimination is just not done.  There is no need to do so.  But this has not convinced a significant portion of the public to accept all as equals.  What it has done is to simply hide the problem.  The bigots talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.  This test only highlighted that fact.

Every time that I hear someone say that we are beyond tracking people’s races on census forms, or that we are beyond anti-discrimination laws, we can also point to where something like this comes up that shows us we still have a problem.  The law keeps the bigots from saying that they discriminate, but the law can never stop it from happening.

Now, the only question:  How do we solve this problem once and for all?

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We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Yeah, that one. Anyway, I’m thinking about the fact that during the course of the song, there are a LOT of events from the 1950′s and 1960′s and 1970′s and 1980′s that get mentioned. Then I get to thinking like this: That if you knew something about all of the people, places, and events that are mentioned during the song, you would know quite a bit about popular US history. Or, you would have a lot of trivia locked up in your noggin.

Anyway, just for fun,  I thought I would share a list of all the events mentioned in the song.  How many ring a bell for you?

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, “The King and I” and “The Catcher in the Rye”

Eisenhower, vaccine, England’s got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien, Phu Falls, “Rock Around the Clock”

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, “Peyton Place”, trouble in the Suez

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, “Bridge on the River Kwai”

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, “Ben Hur”, space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, “Psycho”, Belgians in the Congo

Hemingway, Eichmann, “Stranger in a Strange Land”
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

“Lawrence of Arabia”, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again

Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

“Wheel of Fortune”, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore

So, how many did you get?

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Now that this minor detail is out of the way, I need to tell you about something that I feel rather strongly about.  The new year is 2010.  That is pronounced TWENTY-TEN.  I know that most of us have not been calling the last few years twenty-oh-nine and so forth.  We have used two-thousand-and-nine.  Yes we have.  But now that it is 2010, it is time to get this right.

I understand that the year after two-thousand was two-thousand-and-one.  I said it that way too.  Do you know why?  Because Arthur C Clarke wrote a book in 1948 that was later turned into a movie.  You know the one.  2001: A Space Odyssey.  It was good enough that we all called the year two-thousand-and-one.  And that’s OK.  But it is time to grow up now.  The year 2000 is not some futuristic date in the future anymore.  It is so ten years ago now.  It’s time to say it right.

This year is twenty-ten.  Next year will be twenty-eleven.  It is so much shorter and concise than the two-thousand-and-ten that I keep hearing people say.  We have been using it already.  Every reference to the 2010 Olympics (coming to Cascadia!) has been twenty-ten.  When we speak of the upcoming Olympics in London and in Rio de Janerio, they have always said twenty-twelve and twenty-sixteen.  In most future references to these dates, we have tended to use twenty-something, rather than two-thousand-and-something.

We should also follow the conventions that we have always used.  I was born in nineteen-sixty-two, not nineteen-hundred-and-sixty-two, nor in one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-sixty-two.  Why did we change?

You don’t believe me?  Well, here are some dates that you learned in school:

• The year of US Independence?  Seventeen-seventy-six.
• Just to be equal, the Creation of Canada?  Eighteen-sixty-seven.
• Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock?  Sixteen-twenty.
• Columbus “discovered” “America”?  Fourteen-ninety-two.
• World War II?  Nineteen-forty-one.

So why shouldn’t the year coming up be pronounced twenty-ten?  Oh, wait.  Do we think it is different in years divisible by ten or something?  Then how about this (if you were really paying attention in school):

• Leif Ericson and the Vikings really discover America?  Ten-oh-five.  1005.  Back in school, we never said one-thousand-and-five.  Ten-oh-five.

So, with all of this precedent, would it be too difficult to start saying the date correctly as twenty-ten?  Every time I hear it said the other way, it just makes me think that the speaker doesn’t know how to say it right.  So, please say it right.  Twenty-ten.

And, happy new year!

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As the big day drew closer, there were more and more signs of the season.  Advertisements for items suitable for holiday gifts increased during September and October.  Christmas decor was up in places before Halloween.  At a 24-hour grocery store that I found myself at after midnight on Halloween, the Christmas candy displays had already replaced those from the day’s holiday.

I think that by Thanksgiving, I had almost had enough of the Christmas season.  There was more to come, though.  It was unavoidable.  Much of the traditions we associate with Christmas were gone, but the marketing was still there.  Somehow, it all felt so empty.  But we went through the motions of Christmas anyway.

Finally, the week of Christmas arrived.  Interactions with my customers went beyond “Thank you and have a great day” and added “and Merry Christmas” too.  We did the duty and wished each other a happy holiday.  We weren’t sure which holiday the other actually celebrated, but we did it anyway.  It is the social norm.

Finally the day arrived.  It went much like every other holiday:  An excuse for a day off.  Or a part of a day off, in any case.

But it was the following day that it really hit me.  After over three months of preparing for the holiday, the actual day came and went mostly as an afterthought.  Except that the next day, we weren’t wishing one another a happy holiday, of any kind, anymore.  Back to normal.  The holiday is gone.

It all makes me want to just wait next year for the week before Christmas to acknowledge it, then go from there.  It might not dilute the experience as much.

So many possibilities.  I’m just wondering who killed Christmas.  Anybody see it out there?

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