At what point do we say, ok, we need to actually stop living like animals in the feast or famine world, and start working together as a collective in a focused effort to make the world a better place?
Tag: opinion
Weed Day
So, 4/20 is supposed to be a big deal. Leave the milk, and cookies out for Snoop Dog, and go get high. Whatever pot smoking joke, or metaphor you want to throw out there, pot certainly does get a lot of attention.
But, why?
Mainly because a bunch of old, profiteering white men decided it was cutting into their business so they lobbied the government to make it illegal. Then Nixon came along, and started his "war on drugs" classifying marijuana into the same categories as illegal synthetics, and opioids. Ever since, "satan's lettuce" has been a big deal.
Satan's Lettuce. They even gave it a nickname including a fictional character, because their claimed negative affects of marijuana are just as fictional.
I'm not so much a defender of marijuana use as I am a defender of civil liberties, common sense, and environmental protection. Within the boundaries of making pot illegal, America has also made hemp as an industrial crop illegal. A crop that could help save thousands of acres of trees each year. That's kind of a big deal.
Why? Because the profits of one industry are valued over the profits of another. Or, they were made to be valued that way, because someone already had more money.
And as far as protecting us from the "dangers" of pot, those who claim pot to be so horrible are all pretty horrible people themselves, and we'd probably be better off making their existence illegal. My take? Pot isn't all that harmful when compared to other already legal drugs like alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine. The often used example of the "loser stoner" is misleading. We live in diversity. Some people are just that way. With or without pot, the "loser stoner" would still be a "loser" in the eyes of society in some way. There are people who use marijuana regularly that are high-functioning, and high-achievers. There are people who use it who just are people; your common, ordinary, everyday folk, and you'd probably never know they are pot smokers except for this assumed pride of pot culture that some people latch on to because of this fight to make it legal again.
Yes, again. It wasn't always illegal.
Legalize it. Stop trying to legislate some false morality that those who are legislating it don't even adhere to. Expunge the records of those in prison on minor marijuana related charges, or at least throw away those convictions, and reduce their over-all sentences if they have more to serve.
Our society doesn't NEED marijuana, but it needs a lot more common sense, and a lot less focus on trying to protect people from themselves. Not to mention, less money in government, but that's a different, albeit, related rant.
The Truth About Pornography
That point aside, if we want our society to stop looking at porn as an educational resource, we need to have, or create better educational resources about sex, and sexuality. If parents, and other guiding adults, aren’t talking to their children about this part of their life that is vital to their own connectivity to human kind, a relationship with another person, their own happiness, and sense of life fulfillment, then where are their kids going to learn from? Other kids who don’t know? Online resources? Do you think they’re going to research on WebMD, or PornMD? Think they’ll look up information from Planned Parenthood, or from Motherless? Are they going to watch educational videos on YouTube, or YouPorn?
I think you know the answers.
Sushi Bandit
If you do a web search right now on the "Sushi Bandit" you will most likely find an endless string of stories about a Utah man who repeatedly did a dine-and-dash at his local Asian style restaurants. Which is a shame, because a decade or more ago that same search would have yielded at the top of the listing an amazing blog called The Sushi Bandit.
I have been posting to this blog since December 2010. Although I have owned this name, and domain since 2005, and my official start to my latest incarnation of my photography career I consider to be 2007, it wasn't until about 2010 that I began building this site, showing off my photography here, and blogging about... everything under the sun, and under my skin.
Much of that inspiration, I have to credit to the mysterious comedic blogger who went by the name, The Sushi Bandit.
I wish I could share all of the wonders of that blog. It taught you a lot about Sushi. It was funny. It was informational. It was a deep dive into the person behind it. It was whimsical. It was sexy. Like most heterosexual men, he had a penchant for attractive females, especially Asian women, and often referred to them as his "sushi." His images often bordered on the X-rated. It was everything I would hope for a blog to be.
From it I think I absconded with some of the coolest animated GIFs going. He was a master at hunting down just the right GIF to go along with his thoughts, feelings, and what he was trying to express.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to say with this one, except it seems as thought the world took a big bite out of my hero of the bloggosphere. But I believe this was one I collected from his madness. His blog shut down suddenly many years ago, and it appears as though he had a failed attempt to raise funds for the goal of turning his blog into an actual book. Not sure how animated GIFs translate to a paper page, but I'm sure he would have made it work somehow. In my research, this appears to have started, and ended in 2013, and I am finding nothing more recent.
Like mine, the Sushi Bandit's blog wasn't posted to daily. Sometimes there would be multiple posts in a day, sometimes it would be untouched by the author for weeks, or months. I guess that's the nature of blogging.
So in the spirit of inspiring others, and continuing legacies, I want to work on making this blog a better, more interesting, and more inspiring place for people to go. However, I can't just read your mind with an eye scan as you glance with disinterest at what I already have here. I need to know what would make this more interesting for everyone.
Sure, that's one of the basics, right? Make it sexier? Except no one wants to see me remove my clothes... like, ever, so aside from photographing much better looking people than myself, or adding in similar "sushi" content such as...
Or creepy content such as...
Or just funny or weird content...
I guess my question is, does it make a difference?
Here is your chance: what would make this blog more of an inspiration to you, or at least get you to read it more often?
Or, in the case of all 7 billion of you on this planet, read it at all.
The Blog Bog…
This has been centuries in the making. Every step we’ve taken as a nation has led to this: We have completely normalized gun violence, violent war, and killing as a reasonable alternative, and a solution to problems for a large portion of our population.