View from the Ledge (June 20, 2016)

View From The Ledge

(Chuck channels the spirits of his landmark 1980-1996 zine)
June 20, 2016

Start Spreading the News: A "DEA lawyer" who says he's in the loop told a reporter for the Santa Monica Observer that cannabis will be moved from a Schedule I Controlled Substance (i.e., no medical benefit) to Schedule II (rx's OK in all states) on 8-1-2016. The SMO published this bit on Saturday, but it has been slow to catch on laughed off by legit sites concerned with who the hell "DEA lawyer" is. You heard it here first--or second, or whenever. [Santa Monica Observer]

Oh, You Didn't Know? GAO reported that, yet again, the federal workforce is wonderful (78% of middle managers are "outstanding," precisely 1% performing poorly). [Washington Post]

Bell Curves
Yr Ed, being a hobbyist statistician, unavoidably sees everyday life in a series of Bell Curves (fat ones, skinny ones, short-tailed, long-tailed, whatever). It's been my occupation for 28 yrs to imagine the median and seek the tails--especially, of course, the left tails, which is the direction most often marking failures. Sometimes, I just don't know how the characterization goes (as the pro football running back John Riggins once said, of those in the Washington, D.C., establishment who were puzzling him, "I don't know whether I'm ahead of 'em or behind 'em, but I know I'm not even with 'em"). Hence, my wiseass-neutral The Passing Parade, below.

What you need to remember is that, say, when Reagan became president, the population of the U.S. was 225m; today, it's 315m. That's 90m more people (births minus deaths), and they create a boatload more possibilities of daily life. Yeah, much has happened to shape the personalities and lifestyles of everyone, but, in addition, there are just many more possibilities now than then because there are many more people. So if you're a certain age (let's see, 1980 was 36 yrs ago), don't be shocked. And guess what--it's gonna get worse . . . or, y'know, better, much better.

The Passing Parade (I): A guy last week got caught trying to smuggle an iguana into the Boulder County (Colo.) courthouse. [ed. It doesn't matter what the reason was, but anyway, there wasn't one.] [Daily Camera (Boulder)] The Passing Parade (II): Oops--need to feel better about my country; let's go to Europe. He started, 5 yrs ago, with about 100 bottle caps, and now has about 10,000 umm , no, actually, a million no, wait, what? About 10 million. He's "donating" them to a family recently struck by tragedy. I guess they appreciate the sentiment . . .. [The Local (Vienna)] The Passing Parade (III): A Japanese family lives and works in a house shaped (and labeled "MILK") like a milk carton. Oh, wait. That doesn't count on my thesis b/c it's Japan. My bad. [Fark]

From a column by Eduardo Porter: "It's possible the United States will soon be governed by a president who rode into office partly by appealing to popular resentment against China, a country where overt nationalism is a central plank of the government's claim to authority. What would happen if an incident in the South China Sea [cf. Gulf of Tonkin incident which started the Vietnam War] ended with 200 dead American sailors?" [NY Times, 5-25-2016]

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