Dense ground fog along with its deep quiet this early Thursday on California’s north coast, but if the weather trend continues, sunshine later with a gusty wind for this afternoon.
Normal here, might not be normal there: A supercell thunderstorm drifted through Denver’s northeast suburbs early this afternoon spawning tornadoes and depositing incredible amounts of hail.
Baseball-size hail, that is.
Meanwhile, metaphysically-speaking on the impact of cumulonimbus clouds, this month is the 40th anniversary of the coming-together of marijuana and me.
(Illustration found here).
In fact, I can nearly pinpoint the exact day, all because of this:
The bare bones of the story: In the early-morning hours of May 15, 1974, three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical anti-Israel group, snuck across the border from Lebanon.
Dressed as Israeli soldiers, they made their way to Ma’alot, where they killed three members of the Cohen family — apparently chosen at random — before entering an elementary school that was hosting more than 100 teenagers and teachers from a religious school in Safed for the night.
The terrorists held 115 hostages, including 105 students, and threatened to kill them if Israel did not release 23 prisoners being held on terror charges.
For more than 12 grueling hours the young Israelis huddled in a booby-trapped classroom, abandoned by their teachers, until the terrorists turned on them with guns and grenades during a bloody rescue effort by the military.
The ending was bad — 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and 68 more injured.
While attending college at the University of Florida, I worked part-time at the Gainesville Sears-Roebuck store on the back loading dock. A bunch of the guys there knew I had never tried pot, so on this particular day, we all gathered over at a friend’s apartment and I smoked marijuana for the first time via a bong.
Dude, did I get stoned, or what?
Yes, indeed.
After I returned back to my own apartment, I flopped down in front of the TV to watch the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite — Uncle Walter was off that day, and in his place, Roger Mudd. The news shit hit the fan. First, the Ma’alot horror, then in a short space, some of this:
— South Central Los Angeles – 500 law officers storm a suspected hideout of the terrorist Symbionese liberation Army. Five occupants of the hide-out are killed after a 2-hour battle. Patricia Hearst was not one of the five slain, but she was in the battle – according to the FBI.
— The House Judiciary Committee votes to subpoena tapes of 11 presidential conversations and President Nixon’s daily diaries for 8 ½ months in 1972 and 1973. President Nixon will ignore the subpoenas.
…
— Ireland – Bombs planted in cars explode at the height of the commuter rush hour in central Dublin. At least 30 persons were killed.
— President Nixon said he has given long thought to the possibility of resignation but has decided he will not quit the nation’s highest office “under any circumstances.”
Among other horrible shit, and upon discovering Mudd was only half-way through the broadcast, I thought the whole fricking world was coming to a horrifying end — and then the munchies. No one told me about the munchies. After the trauma of the news, I nearly killed myself with a trip to the local In-n-Out burger place — a cheeseburger, fish sandwich and a large order of fries, and to wash it all down, a jumbo chocolate shake.
I thought my stomach was going to explode.
Anyway, marijuana changed my view of life, opened me up and made me a much-more whole person — made me a better person. From the get-go.
Fast-forward to the nowadays and marijuana’s view in the world has changed drastically, which has led this week to one of the most ironic, and completely dumb-ass situations in pot history. And total bullshit.
From HuffPost, and the semi-stoned rant of FBI Director James Comey:
“I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview,” Comey said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published earlier this week, noting he was “grappling with the question” of how to fix the FBI’s hiring policies concerning marijuana.
When confronted about his comments at a Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Comey said he was only “trying to be both serious and funny” and the FBI will continue to rule out candidates who have smoked marijuana in the last three years.
“I am determined not to lose my sense of humor, but unfortunately there I was trying to be both serious and funny. I was asked a question by a guy who said, ‘I have a great candidate for the FBI, his problem is he smoked marijuana within the last five years,’ and I said, ‘I’m not gonna discuss a particular case, but, apply.’
“And then I waxed philosophic and funny to say, look, one of our challenges that we face is getting a good work force,” Comey said.
Why didn’t he wax philosophic after a couple of bong hits — asshole!
A sense of humor?
And he was talking originally about the FBI hiring techno-geeks to become hackers — hacking and stealing and being criminals themselves.
In the fabled war on drugs, some of the victims are shithead hypocrites like Comey, and after 40 years I still say to the man — Fuck You!