Letters to the Editor
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A Red Star For One Of The Best Misheard Lyrics EVER
I don't mean to pick on Joan Strand's letter from page 8, but her quote from Paul Simon's The Boxer is a classic.
Joan, It's not "just a come-on in the war zone 7th avenue".
The lyric, in context is:
Asking only workman's wages, I come looking for a job.
But I get no offers, just a come-on from the whores on seventh avenue.
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome, I took some comfort there.
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He's a little toad
The greatest downside of pot is that it can make you feel paranoid. Other than that, it's a relatively benign, non-phusically addictive, creativity-enhancing substance, infinitely better than alcohol.
However, since it's illegal, smoking pot can make you fearful. Of course, cops love to use this technicality to harass minorities, liberals etc. Writers are quite correct that many authorities conduct witch hunts over pot. I think it's been shown quite conclusively that cocaine use, for example, has a great deal more in common with alcohol than marijuana.
The pot issue here is, as called, peripheral to the mother's general behavior. I know plenty of mothers who smoke pot and keep everything together superbly. Nor do their kids have an attitude about it; they just aren't interested (it's their parents' drug). Mom here doesn't have her act together.
The kid sounds like a little prick. If he's not careful he'll grow up to be a Republican.
Marijuana use is not an unqualified benefit. I can't think of many things that are. Drinking alcohol was for many years demonized. Now even conservative people think it's pretty normal to have some wine at dinner.
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So What!
my mommy smokes pot, wha, wha wha....
someone wipe me!!
What a self-righteous little prick, should go for a career in politics or better yet he can start his own cult!
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If mom’s drug use isn’t illegal…
Then I’m really at a loss as to why her son is still so bent out of shape. He sounds like a he’s on the road to becoming a nasty, judgmental sort of person who can’t keep his own personal beliefs and the rights of others separated. I’m surprised the LW is so supportive of him when it seems to me that he’s in sore need of an education in empathy and understanding.
Anyway – this all seems to be normal teenage stuff (bucking authority and threatening to move out). The LW should know that this drama, or some version of it, is par for the course. It’s not the end of the world and I doubt any interference from the LW would be at all useful. Unless there are truly instances of abuse and/or neglect the LW needs to step away from her friend’s family private business.
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bad mama jama
There's a lot of moralizing going on here, not just about the pot use, but about the woman's apparent lack of ambition and income. People (incl. her letter-writing 'friend') are putting Mama down for not having an Official Job, not taking an Official BigPharma Drug for her back pain, not growing up into an Official Adult.
Mama is described as having "barely had a serious job, let alone a career," despite the fact that she's raising two kids, presumably taking care of the house and her husband, maybe volunteering at school and who knows what. Should she have paid someone else to do these things while she whiled away the hours at some Official Job, say behind a Stop-n-Shop cash register, even though it wasn't financially necessary? If you have to pay someone to to do something for you (for example, raise kids, clean house, mow the lawn, help out at school, etc.) then its qualifies as a job whether or not you receive an official paycheck for it. I thought that was settled by feminists a long time ago. If she'd been working outside the home, the same chorus would complain that she's too ambitious and neglecting her kids... bla, bla, bla indeed.
All healthy teenagers "anguish" about hypocrisy, contradictions and deceit. They're idealistic and view the world in simplistic, absolute terms. This is what makes teenagers both so endearing and infuriating.
The bottom line is, if this "sensitive, perceptive" kid is only getting agitated about the pot use when he stumbles upon evidence of it, then Mom's probably not as dopey as some are making her out to be. Let her be.
Maybe a lesson in how the pharmaceutical industry operates is in order, too. Mom could be taking far more dangerous legal substances for her back pain if oblivion was what she was after.
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Speaking of poverty of imagination anonymous
"you obviously have no first-hand knowledge of communities or circles of friends who accept cannabis use as unmarked behaviour"
Ummm, nope, not so -- I have plenty of experience, also of idiots who think that their heavy use is unmarked behavior, rather than behavior that no one bother on remarking to them about. It has of course occurred to you that people do notice your use of marijuana as well and your boring self-righteousness on the topic and simply choose not to engage with you on the topic, since you are, to be blunt, not rationale on the issue. Certainly, that was the situation with the heavy pot users I know -- we broadly recognised that there was no point, that as a group they were to far up their own collective asses and far to smug for any comment to be a worthwhile activity. I and my friends also broadly recognised that as a group they could not be trusted or relied upon, any more than you trust a chronic drunk or a gambler.
Meanwhile, since you are so happy to pat your anonymous back, and then make comments on my syntax, might it have occurred to you befuddled brain that in fact I spend my time in many countries, on several continents and tend to use the slang and jargon prevalent in all those places.
Moreover, this constant equation of drug use with free speech is laughable when the tobacco lobby do it, and just as laughable when potheads do it.
You announced, in essence, that what this kid needed to do was go to a commune tolerant of marijuana (and magic mushrooms and various other mind-altering substances), where the 15 year old might have sex . . . you then say you are a professional and a parent. You have spent your succeeding postings trying to avoid the substance of your suggestion -- "hey mom send him to pot-camp for the summer so he can have his conciousness raised and his rocks off and he will discover how smart you (and Anonymous) are." Now suddenly you seem to realise that 15 year olds doing drugs is well, just not a good idea, and their getting laid, well not such a good idea too.
What I'm puzzled about, did you offer your 18 year old the marijuana a few years when he tried it? The general view is stay away from the ganja until age 25 you know...