Oh no. Another great classic rocker — folk-rocker, acid-rocker — is gone. Paul Kantner was always a favorite, not only for his slightly geeky beauty, mellow voice, and style, but because he had a science-fiction sensibility that marked his greatest songs. For all his rockstar cool, I always felt like he was One of Us — the high school misfits, the people who “think too much” for their own good, the ones who’d probably rather be in their bedrooms reading Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury than getting public attention. People who’d rather not be messed with by authority, too. Besides, I…
Author: Claire
“Ayn Rand Made Me a Communist.” Um … you’d probably have to be a regular New Republic reader and already know how Jacob Bacharach is one; he doesn’t actually explain, except in a vague-ish indirect way. It’s still an interesting essay, though. Question not asked: If this homeless guy can do all this, then why is he homeless? Not a bad analysis of how the R-Party is coming apart at the seams. Leaves out factors you and I know well, but seems right in its basics. Georgia state representative commits civil disobedience to get medical marijuana to sick kids. Yeah,…
In the olden days, people around here built garages (or perhaps they were originally carriage houses) on steep, otherwise useless, hills. The front of the building faced the street while the rest of the structure stood on posts. These great old garages had magnificent 4 x 12 treated floors you could have parked a tank on. But the combo of wooden understructures and unstable soils of the hills doomed the buildings. Ninety or a hundred years later, most of them are gone and those that remain look like this: Until a couple weeks ago, this one was still completely shingled…
You easties had your snowpocalypse days in the headlines. Now the action shifts. After (yet another damn) major atmospheric river fist-punches the NorthWET tonight, it’s going to swing south and seriously clobber California by Friday. Could also be catastrophic windstorms, even a cyclone, by the weekend (though maybe not). Stay tuned.
The feds have broken the Oregon standoff with arrests and one killing. A remnant remains. Leaders were apparently lured out on the pretext of attending a community meeting and trapped at a roadblock. Why? Why not wait them out? (H/T db) David Codrea exposes and righteously blasts the latest junk-science study op-ed from “prestigious” anti-gun medical sources. “Does stupidity cause gun control, or does gun control cause stupidity?” Bear Bussjaeger speculates. I’ve never understood the mentality that official (or family) wrongdoing is fine as long as no one exposes it and that any person exposing the wrongdoing is somehow the…
In the schadenfreude department: Melissa Click, the social-justice pecksniff who shoved one reporter and called for “muscle” to remove another from a public demonstration, has been charged with assault. Despite using annoying “gun violence” language, this CNN article brings the good news that mental health professionals aren’t likely to sit still for Obama administration attempts to label every mentally ill person as too dangerous to own a firearm. With statistics, even! From Microsoft: useful, creepy, or both? If this is accurate in describing how classified material “escapes” from secure servers and ends up on private ones, then Hillary and several…
Today we were between rainstorms. In the same way the Inuit are said (even if inaccurately) to have 200 words for snow, the NorthWet ought to have a word for this. Something like “interrainum.” Be that as it may, by late morning I was also between interviews for this cannabis article I’m working on. I’d just wrapped up one at the coolest retail store and didn’t have another until tomorrow. The day was already pleasant and just about then turned bright blue. I took the dogs walking on a river trail. We moseyed along in comfort, no fleece-lined jacket for…
Cool story from shooting-sports star Vera Koo. I had no idea she was so old or that she learned to shoot only in middle age because she was terrified of guns. Amazing and discouraging that cops continue to get away with being highwaymen despite these tactics being repeatedly exposed. Picked the wrong victim this time, though. (H/T MJR) Why is there no Uber for healthcare? You already know the answer, but this article finally asks some of the obvious questions. Much sweat has been sweated over China’s holdings of U.S. debt. This is the first time I’ve seen anybody get…
Part the first: Cannabiz
If I’ve been quiet the past few days (and continue to be quiet early next week) it’s because I’ve been lining up and conducting interviews for an article — something I rarely do nowadays.
When I was in corporate communications, I was forever interviewing somebody. Executives and project managers needed to talk about their latest work. Clients praised or critiqued products. I even had a gig for a long time where I (much more interestingly) interviewed employees of a big corporation about their hobbies, accomplishments, and good deeds. A millworker with a home blackmithing shop. A low-level manager who’d been the foster father to 37 children. A group of workers who saved people from a fire. Before that, I had a gig touring people’s fabulous homes and interviewing them about the designs and improvements.
Nowadays, my work requires few interviews and what little interviewing I do is by email. It’s far easier than traveling to in-person interviews or playing phone tag for weeks with busy execs, but it’s not adventurous and doesn’t usually lead to the entertaining or revealing digressions that in-person talks and tours can.
This month, though, I’m visiting growers, processors, and retailers in Washington state’s newly legal recreational cannabusinesses. And wow. Is that ever fun. Tiring because there’s a lot of work involved and all this chatting hurts my hermit heart. But fun.
It’s looking as if this is one “snowpocalypse” that isn’t going to fizzle out and embarrass the media. So, just in time, or maybe only slightly late, a friend sends along these tips for what to pack if you have to travel in the mess and what to do if you get stuck. We here in the NorthWET just got another punch from an atmospheric river. Coincidentally the amount of liquid we received in 24 hours was roughly equivalent to the amount of liquid in the snow y’all back there are about to be clobbered with. Say, roughly the level…