"Mid-Week View Points"

Was hearing on the news today that a nurse in one state in trying to get spanking outlawed, even in one's own home with one's own children. Seems she doesn't have a concept of the difference between discipline and abuse. (Yes...and why don't we just go ahead and give them all hanguns and crack pipes while we're at it?)

Speaking of drugs...

I thank whatever powers that be that gave me the common sense to do it, i.e., get out of the hippie scene back a good 30 years ago or more now, as I see more and more of my old buddies from those days with either physical ailments, or simply dead.

One guy I know has been a doper ever since he was 20 or younger, and is now in his 50's. He has 40% loss of one of his kidneys, nodules around one lung, hypo-glasemic, and other problems so much that he's now on total disability.

Another that I knew from those days has cancer and won't have much longer, and yet still another (one that I just found out about last night), died due mainly to breathing problems. The latter being a heavy pot smoker for at least 30 years, even though he's always suffered from respiratory problems and allergies.

Now...I'm not saying that smoking pot caused these people to have all of these physical problems, or even caused the death of one, but I'm sure that the amount of tar and subtraction of oxygen over the years certainly attributed to their sicknesses. Strong words from me, having been just as active "in that scene" from the time I was 19 until I was in my early 40s. But in the late 1980's I completely got out of all of that and cleaned up my act (so to speak). Eliminating such escapism (and that's ALL that certainly is, I discovered) made me quite a bit more productive, a better citizen, a better son to my parents, a better husband to my wife, a more respected person in the community, a better worker, and, no matter what one may tell you about pot, MUCH more imaginative when it came to both my writing and artwork. It eliminated 70% of my laziness.

And I don't miss it. Not a single bit. (Wednesday:11-28-07)