TrickyBuddha Studios

I’ve decided to run for President. Here’s my stance on the issues to help you prepare and make a wise decision in the upcoming election. Who is with me?

Why should we decriminalize or legalize marijuana?

As President Jimmy Carter acknowledged: “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.”

Marijuana prohibition needlessly destroys the lives and careers of literally hundreds of thousands of good, hard-working, productive citizens each year in this country. More than 700,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges last year, and more than 5 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses in the past decade. Almost 90 percent of these arrests are for simple possession, not trafficking or sale. This is a misapplication of the criminal sanction that invites government into areas of our private lives that are inappropriate and wastes valuable law enforcement resources that should be focused on serious and violent crime.

I’ve recently (re-?) realized that there’s something quite calming about a game like Diablo or Crackdown (don’t laugh) - where you can be swarmed over by enemies (chaos) and then slowly whittle them all away (order).

I felt like playing a game the other night but I wasn’t sure what to play. I popped Burnout into the 360 but it frustrated me pretty quickly. There’s just something irritating about a one-on-one race where you force the other driver to crash five or six times and yet he’s still right on your tail. Then you make one bad decision (i.e. deciding to drive into a pillar) and you’ve lost the race. To be fair, Candice and I had a few marathon sessions with the game some many months back and progressed quite far into the game. Trying to play a more difficult race when I haven’t played in so long was kind of unrealistic, but it still bothered me the way I lost. I hate such blatant catch-up AI.

Anyway. For some reason, I decided to play Crackdown. I think, on a conscious level, it was because I still wanted to play a driving game - I just didn’t want to have to race someone. I’m not sure why I didn’t put GTA in. Maybe I knew I wanted something more mindless?

I pop the game in. I start up a new career. I run out to the street. There are car engines racing loudly all around me. Cars blaring music. People yelling in the streets. Cops standing off against gang members. My mini-map was littered with red dots (highlighting the position of hostiles). Bullets were flying through the air at me, and near me. It was all entirely too much overload. It made me mad (haha - and OCD).

So I beat the snot out of every criminal (and, by accident, the occasional non-criminal - oops), effectively stopping the blaring music, the fighting, removing the red dots and so forth. I created order out of chaos. It felt good. I felt good. I had forgotten what a fun game Crackdown is. I hadn’t played it since I beat it - which was right around the time my Xbox died (October-ish). Now I’m back into it and loving it.

***
We (me, Lisa, and Candice) were out the other day and talking about days off and overtime pay or something, as a result of the upcoming (errr, already here) holiday weekend.

The topic of “Good Friday” came up and Candice asked why it’s called “Good”. “Yeah, it was a sacrifice, but wasn’t it also the day he was tortured, put up on the cross, and killed? So why do they call it *good*?” Good question. In fact, some people even call it “Great Friday” or talk about “celebrating the passion (torture)” of Christ; I guess those are the same Mel Gibson-ites who dug his god-awful snuff film.

Anyway, the reason I post, in part, is because I discovered that “good” and “great” are not universal terms. Some people call it “the Day of Christ’s Suffering”. Others call it “Sad Friday” or “Long Friday”. Hm!

I know I’m not a believer and I know I’ve posted about this topic before, going back and forth on the merits of fixation on such a horrific moment (i.e. the image of Christ’s suffering in every church is both a representation of “the greatest sacrifice” and a disgusting torture/barbaric execution scene). But while I basically agree that nothing could be more powerful than showing what happened to Jesus (errr, what Jesus allowed to happen) as a reminder to every person why they need to be good and walk the straight-and-narrow path of righteousness, I sometimes wonder if people (Mel Gibson-ites) aren’t missing the point just a little.

Bah, it’s probably just me. :p Haha.

***
So much Obama love. I think I like it. It feels unifying. But we’ll see.

Regardless, I keep up with Obama and Clinton (figuring that one of them is getting elected and determining what life will be like for the next four years at least), their platforms and so forth, but I admit I’m not completely certain what life will be like if one or the other wins. Anyone else out there have any thoughts on why they want one or the other (or McCain, or someone else entirely)? Any thoughts on the Obama love?