After schooldays of ladybug hunting and playing hopscotch, I would go home to an always early dinner that was a nightly epitome of the well-rounded meal.
Rants and Mumbles
BDSM hits the mainstream—even harder
In lieu of its hues of red and pink, lovers and singles alike may be enticed to paint this year’s Valentine’s Day with 50 Shades of Grey.
All or nothing: California needs to take a solid stance on marijuana
It’s like beating a dead horse. Of course, a Californian college student is gung-ho for the complete legalization of marijuana. But now, it’s a matter or life and death.
Well, sort of. An article in the Los Angeles Times Thursday revealed a sad truth about the unregulated marijuana industry: Butane hash oil chefs are burning in lab explosions, almost as much as buyers burn their product. In a little over a year, 17 chefs and bystanders have landed in burn centers after these cooking accidents, a toll far worse than meth lab explosions, according to the article.
I’ve witnessed the hash making process before, and it’s obviously not the smartest process to undergo in one’s own home. A tray full of crystallizing butane and resin—known as butane honey oil— sat on my friend’s table, stinking up the room with the faintly pungent gas as it evaporated, making an amber goop of nearly 70% THC content, compared with 20% of most marijuana.
Dabs have gotten popular more recently because stoners are no longer happy with getting high from the natural herb. Frequent smokers will do dabs because the high blasts any developed tolerance out of the water, bringing on an eventual blissful brain death.
The ingredients — simply butane, shake and water— as well as the product itself are as legal as the buds, but “blasting” in one’s own home is illegal under current law. However, the patchy regulation has black market chefs suffering while the demand for underground oils is still burning. According to Section 11358, “Every person who plants, cultivates, harvests, dries, or processes any marijuana or any part thereof, except as otherwise provided by law, shall be punished by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 of the Penal Code.”
While patients with medical cards are exempt from this, butane production still falls under a different subsection: The use of Butane as a processing solvent has been illegal since the Bergen decision in 2008.
Under Colorado state law, there are safer ways to make the hash oil in the same way that plant extract oils are made, in a properly ventilated room and in compliance with health and safety codes. This safer system doesn’t exist in unregulated California, where friends of Mary Jane worry that black market wax is tested only by the dabbers and blasters themselves, and may contain impurities due to being improperly evaporated.
So where are California dispensaries getting the hash oil? Best guess is, not legally. Nor from Colorado, because marijuana is still illegal under federal law, and transporting it across state borders is therefore a federal offense.
There are ways to get around it. In other states like Washington, dispensaries get around manufacturing hash oil by adding just a drop of something else such as olive oil or glycerin, turning it into a “marijuana-infused product” such as weed lollipops or space brownies.
Our system simply doesn’t make sense. If marijuana is still lingering in the twilight zone between legal and illegal, the production will remain underground while non card-holders will feed the demand for the often dangerous production. The Californian black market therefore pulls the profit from the state and goes instead to the big dogs of blasting.
While there are no clear answers to who really produces the hash oil sold in dispensaries, one thing we know for sure: legalization may save some lives.
The not-so gentle green giant.
“Big agriculture” is what they call it these days, because after all, bigger is better in America.
The FDA and the White House are in cahoots with Monsanto, a multinational agricultural corporation that controls nearly 90 percent of all genetically engineered seeds, from which nearly 90 percent of all corn, soybeans and cotton are grown. Genetic engineering of food represents one of the most rapid adoptions of agricultural technology in history.
Look at the ingredients on whatever you eat next. Chance is, it contains soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, or any of a plethora of soybean or corn products.
Europe is over it, however. Monsanto, the most powerful pusher of GMOs on the planet, is heavily opposed in the EU, mainly in France and Germany. The protests are not as much about how genetically modified foods affect health-which is still debatable- but rather how mass production exhausts the environment.
The EU, which takes the process rather than product-oriented perspective on GM, has been labeling food containing food containing as little as 1 percent GMO for over a decade.
Just over a week ago, over two million people in 52 countries marched the streets in protest of Monsanto, which is working just as hard to quell controversy.
Monsanto has had a history of marketing harmful products, and there’s cause for concern when the soybean engineer is also a leading producer of herbicide and former manufacturer of DDT, PCBs and Agent Orange.
The government has always been a driving force behind big agriculture, seeking to promote the economic potential of GMO rather than focusing on environmental impact. In 1984, the White House granted the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs, rather than the EPA, responsibility for regulating biotechnology. As a result, the EPA was only in charge of regulating agricultural pesticides, while the environment should be protected from much more.
Finally, in March, Congress passed the “Monsanto protection act”, which took regulatory power out of lawmaker’s hands, turning Monsanto into a lawmaker itself. Europe saw this as a red flag.
Farmers are looking less at their almanacs and more to banks and technology firms with which they are contracted; no longer are farmers independent to produce what the land and climate allows.
Restrictions result in decreased biodiversity, so the supply of unmodified organic goods is so low in comparison to GMOs that prices remain high, diverting consumers from buying organic.
While GM crops over accommodate the ever-growing population and our iconic American appetites, mass production and consumption overwhelms the ecosystem. Like the garbage landfill we fill daily, GM crops harm the land and facilitate conglomerate success.
For example, specific regions and seasons naturally yield different kinds of crops. When the land is drugged and contaminated with additive-filled plants to mass-produce mostly corn and soybeans year round, the biodiversity of the land is compromised.
Compared to the EU, our heavily conglomerated food industry is flawed. Contracted farmers buy genetically modified products that are enhanced to resist pests, yield more successfully and bring in more revenue.
It is under corporate control that small farmers that don’t comply with monopolies such as Monsanto are shut down.
It is for this mass production that cattle are injected with growth hormone, drowned in antibiotics, and crammed into despicable conditions that, if experienced first-hand, could convert half the nation to vegan.
The sad part is there’s no escaping it. One can choose tofu over a steak, but the tofu is made with soybeans that are overtaking the land that was once biologically diverse.
Stop feeding the corporate giant, he’s destroying our environment.
Nothing-to-do
So you’re here because you have nothing to do, eh?
Master Linji, in his Buddhist teachings, states that nothing-to-do is a result of enlightenment. In our privileged society we often complain of having nothing-to-do, which in reality should be a privilege of those who have already become enlightened.
Today’s idea of “nothing-to-do” is accompanied by dissatisfaction, frustration and desperation. From this results the booming entertainment industry, overconsumption (of both products and food) and binge habits. Why is it so difficult to walk outside and think? Why can we no longer be alone? Linji compares the unlightened mental state to “meatball mind” in which humans have minds clogged with silly preoccupations and dependence on the material.
I’ve discovered that trying too hard to become “enlightened” will result in a vacuuming of time. These days, there is too much to do to fill our time, resulting in frustration and ambivalence, lack of action. Everything is disposable, most people have access to all things. Craft has been devalued.
Stress over how to properly fill free time will only result in ambivalence and pensive staring.
“What should we do today? Well, we no longer have time to do that. Let’s just chill.”
I even have trouble figuring out what movie I want to watch on netflix, how to get the most out of my two hours of leisure. Sometimes, I get frustrated with my wasting of time. I should have filled that space between class and work with some art, maybe reading.
Time management is often more difficult for the person who wants to do everything at once, the hopeful and ambitious. Therefore, we say have nothing to do, while so many concepts and ideas are left unexplored. We are fearful of unclear destination. This is a result of our insecurity as a human race.
By nature, humans in this consumerist society are socialized to be disgustingly dependent and insecure. We are taught that it is rude to stare, to trust no one, that we should not talk to unfamiliar people (to whom we give the name “strangers”).
Our days are filled with senseless analyses in the mirror, twiddling of thumbs, daydreamers’ gazes and actionless aspirations. Our lists grow longer as our sporadic interests change, passing each occasion away in fantasies. We collect books we never read, that share shelves with newspaper clippings and half-finished sketches. Material accumulation is easier than careful consolidation. Passions are disposable as hobbies, nicknames.
We purchase and consume with the hope that it will bring us happiness and fulfill this void we call nothing-to-do, but consuming only widens it.
There is always time to become enlightened.
Wake up a little earlier.
Give less shits about your appearance.
Leave your phone at home, stay away from your computer.
Najarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosophers of historical buddhism, held that “nothing exists, nothing inexists, nothing exists and inexists, and nothing does not exist and inexists.” While this is a concept that took me a good while to grasp, I have come to the conclusion that material means nothing, and dependence on any of the sense objects is fruitless. The only real thing lies in the middle of all of these concepts.
Solution: We must pursue truth with as little on our backs as possible: minimize worries, material and preconceived notions. Take things as they come, enjoy the present moment.
That’s my rant for the day.
Father
I like to remember my father from those days,
the days of plastic pools in the driveway
and quiet, hopeful lemonade stands.
he knew everything about everything,
his words like suds as I was the sponge.
Standing with his nail bags sagging from his waist,
posture tall,
Body language of a hero.
Today, those words reverberate like the patchy prophecies of ancestors.
He told me that paper towels cost five cents each
and that robert plant was the lead singer of led zeppelin.
I listened to him belt out lyrics harmonically as he worked
allowing me to tighten screws, teaching me the difference between
washers and nuts.
he taught me the dangers of stagnancy
teaching me to dump buckets filled with rainwater
dripping from the eaves of my treehouse
childhood imaginatorium
killing the mosquitos
that he taught me to despise.
He labored to help his family grow,
despite his slowly stiffening spine
through the times that seemed stale.
covered in dust, his blue eyes still glisten inside tired sockets
the melancholy glaze of middle age.
he still speaks of his memories
fingers on aged guitar strings still serenade,
he has daredevil scars and hands of a carpenter.
holding onto his dreams, he foretells of
Family businesses and fountains in the backyard.
and when he walks the beach, he quests for gems to save for
the happier days.
The Stoked Daily. 