With apologies to Linda, who is using her hydroponic greenhouse for salad greens, I have to establish ground rules for any discussion of the medical-marijuana issue. It’s pretty simple: I will happily concede that marijuana has a role to play in the health care of many people who either are not helped by conventional pharmaceuticals, or don’t wish to take them. In return, I only ask that they stop pretending legalized medical marijuana isn’t the best thing to happen to recreational pot smokers since the invention of Zig-Zags.
Not so much to ask. And yet, here is medical marijuana, happily taking root in Michigan, and to listen to one side, you’d think the entire state is filled with chemo patients, or MS sufferers, or victims of AIDS-related wasting, or some other affliction that can only be helped by Nurse Mary Jane. And the other side says it’s all about potheads who are claiming “anxiety,” “insomnia,” “excessive whiteness of the eyes” or whatever else they can come up with, to Drs. Feelgood all over the state who will happily write “prescriptions” for a drug whose strength and efficacy — even the dosage — is either a big question mark, or left up to the user.
Before I get Prospero all up in my grill, I hasten to add I have no particular problem with pot smoking, as long as a) it’s not done by my husband or child; and b) it’s done in a place where it won’t affect my own personal safety — which is to say, not behind the wheel. I have no interest in it personally, having reached a point where I most often cut myself off alcohol after two. The way I look at it, the world is already full of attractive substances that will make me dumber, from Facebook to poorly executed LOLcats. I don’t need any more.
I should add this: De facto legalization seems to have made the air a little more herb-scented. In my unscientific observations, I see pot appearing more often in the police reports I see, smell it more often on the street. Some guy was smoking a blunt in the butcher shops at Eastern Market this weekend. Just standing there, self-medicating in front of dozens of people, no effort to conceal it at all.
Two “dispensaries” have opened in our neck of the woods in the last couple of weeks, both on the Detroit side of our border. This is the story behind one of them. I guess Big Daddy got what he needed from medical marijuana. (Although I’m puzzled by the math in the story. It says a work injury and subsequent convalescence pushed Big Daddy from 300 to 600 pounds, and that treating himself with marijuana allowed him to shed 250, which means he’s still 350 pounds. Well, munchies can be a pow’ful thing.)
For what it’s worth, I’ll be surprised if it’s still legal in 10 years. It’s possible the legislature will tune up the law to everyone’s satisfaction, but I doubt it. Bigger fish to fry, etc.
Why the New York Times is worth whatever they’re charging; A.O. Scott on Charlie Sheen’s Detroit show:
You could say that Mr. Sheen and the audience failed each other. The ticket buyers did not show him the “love and gratitude” to which he felt entitled, and he did not give them the kind of entertainment they thought they had paid for. But you could also say that the performer and the audience deserved each other, and that their mutual contempt was its own kind of bond. The ushers, in their black gold-braided uniforms, retained an air of inscrutable dignity in the midst of an orgy of depthless vulgarity. Everyone else in the room — onstage, backstage, in the $69 orchestra seats — had to swallow a gag-inducing, self-administered dose of shame. And no, the journalists who traveled to Detroit to gawk and philosophize at the spectacle are not exempt from that judgment.
What is this horrible man, Clarence Thomas, doing on our Supreme Court?
Via LGM, a little wit from Krugman.
Finally, a tax-season cautionary tale of stupidity: Don’t be as dumb as this TV anchor, who thought, because she was on the teevee and everybody else did it, that she could deduct the cost of all her work clothes, as well as her contact lenses, teeth whitening, manicures, hairdressing, and thong underwear.
Monday commences now. Have a good one, all.
coozledad said on April 4, 2011 at 10:06 am
I had a discussion with a physician once about pot, and she thought the paranoia response was at least partially due to smoking it. THC is fat soluble, so its uptake is mediated better by butter. And cocoa.
I would like to have the option of making myself stupid with pot, even though the last time I tried any, it was a blue bud that came from a shrink wrapped package. It ripped my head off my body and refused to let it go for a whole day. Fear’s where the fun’s at, indeed.
Maybe someone could undertake the cultivation of weaker varieties for pussies like me.
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alice said on April 4, 2011 at 10:19 am
I’m mediated better by butter and cocoa as well.
It should be interesting to watch the medical marijuana vs. drug testing lobby battle play out.
If Sweet Juniper’s kids get any cuter, I’m gonna have to slap somebody.
And all underwear should be tax deductable.
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Mark P. said on April 4, 2011 at 10:33 am
I just returned from a business trip to the LA area. On a day off, we visited Venice Beach. At the medical marijuana clinics they have hucksters standing outside with signs urging people to come in a see the on-site doctor for an immediate prescription. It’s all part of the show there, and no one even pretends it’s anything but legalized good times. I’ve never touched the stuff, but years ago I probably got a contact high when I saw an Average White Band concert in the Pittsburgh stadium. They had to roll the roof open to clear the clouds of smoke.
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Judybusy said on April 4, 2011 at 10:42 am
I used to be much more casual about marijuana,but as Coozledad noticed, the quality’s changed. It’s now linked to triggering psychosis and as a possible factor in schizophrenia in certain people. In my work as a social worker, we’ve seen a bit of this, and I always counsel clients with major mental health issues to not use it.
This video popped up on FB afer all the discussion of typewriters. Also, thanks to NNC, I now know what steampunk is and have requested The Difference Engine from the library.
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4dbirds said on April 4, 2011 at 10:47 am
I think if one was to map Clarence Thomas’ brain and that of a serial killer, they would be one and the same. Okay, I don’t really know that but I do think he is sick, sick, sick in the head.
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Deborah said on April 4, 2011 at 10:52 am
I see people smoking pot on the street too, in broad daylight, it always astounds me. We had a neighbor in Abiquiu who grew his own out behind the shed on his property. He had a giant garbage bag of it in his house all the time. He and his wife don’t smoke so they made brownies with it. Once while visiting them they gave us a few brownies. At the time we were camping on our land. So we sat around and ate the brownies one night. Absolutely nothing happened. I felt nothing, we went to bed and that was that. The neighbor moved and that’s the end of my pot ingesting, I’m sure. I should add that this guy and his wife are super right wing conservatives, not flaming liberals at all.
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Scout said on April 4, 2011 at 11:18 am
Pot should be legal and taxed like alcohol and cigarettes and then this little dog and pony show regarding medicinal use could end. It is no more dangerous than the above substances and I would venture to say, less. You can always find anecdotal evidence of new strains being more psychedelic or of certain people not being able to handle it, but the same is true for booze. The sheer numbers of people in jail for this PLANT is insane. Between not paying tax dollars to lock up drug offenders and the money to be made on tax revenue on making it a legalized controlled substance, it would certainly be a reasonable piece toward our budget solution.
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Jenine said on April 4, 2011 at 11:19 am
@ Alice: hee!
@ Judybusy: I didn’t like the Difference Engine much, I’d recommend The Diamond Age by Stephenson instead as more entertaining. But happy reading however you go.
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Jeff Borden said on April 4, 2011 at 11:31 am
I’ll say the same thing about reefer that I’ve said for decades. No one stoned has ever decorated my bathroom with projectile vomit, thrown someone down a flight of stairs, fallen onto my coffee table, said unspeakably cruel things about a friend or gotten so angry and aggressive that it appeared a brawl was imminent. These other actions have been visited upon me by heavy drinkers.
Potheads will eat all your Fig Newtons, however, or bore you into catatonia with their description of that one time Bruce jumped on stage and jammed with their favorite local act.
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Scout said on April 4, 2011 at 11:36 am
Yeah, what Jeff said. That’s what I meant.
Dude.
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Connie said on April 4, 2011 at 11:44 am
My ultra straight grad student daughter told me several of her friends smoked pot and in her opinion the only thing it did was make them stupid.
My husband and I did note once that she would not have hung out with us in high school. (It was the late 60s for him and the early 70s for me.)
I’ve been told that at the Grand Rapids marijuana clinic the doctor visit costs $200 and you are guaranteed your medical marijuana card.
Go Butler!
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coozledad said on April 4, 2011 at 11:47 am
Marijuana goes well with classic psych-horror cinema, especially Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, or The Haunting with Claire Bloom*.
Possibly because of the reasons Judybusy mentioned.
* This is probably not an entirely reliable assessment, because The Omen scared me shitless when I was a stoner.
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del said on April 4, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I watched The Omen as a freshman in college in an auditorium on a Friday night. Everyone was drunk, or high, it seemed, but I wasn’t scared shitless because everytime he appeared on screen the students would start screaming “Fuck You Damien!” and throw trash at the screen. Lightened things up.
Now that Clarence Thomas piece — that’s scary. And depressing.
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moe99 said on April 4, 2011 at 12:08 pm
I was at a Dark Star Orchestra concert Thurs night and there were men my age surreptitiously smoking hits of weed in the audience. Had to clean my clothes when I got home to get rid of the smell. When I was way younger it would have been ok, but these days with the lung cancer, not so much.
p.s. And I have been prescribed Dronabinol by my oncologist. It’s truly medical marijuana in a pill form. But most of the dreamy high part has been removed as it’s for nausea.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Judybusy,
The Difference Engine is one of those books that is terrific until a fizzled ending, but well worth reading. My point about pot is that it should be regulated, taxed and sold in the same sort of system as alcohol. I’m sure that potency can be measured and controlled. Would kids get ahold of it? Probably, but kids get their hands on Rumple Minze and brewskis, no problemo. Marijuana is on the federal books as a narcotic, which is scientifically idiotic. I believe there is a great deal of evidence that THC may be effective for use in mitigating alcoholism, for one thing. I have no proble believing that marijuana use can exacerbate symptoms of schizophrenia, but since I’m not schizophrenic, I really think laws preventing me from smoking if I want are ridiculous, and I wouldn’t drive any vehicle more dangerous than my bicycle high, any more than after drinking.
Isn’t Dahlia Lithwick, superb? She explains the way the SC works better than anybody. Ms. Lithwicks got a very funny book called Me v. Everybody, which I’ve given as gifts to my brothers, all of whom are lawyers.
Clarence Thomas is a lying POS. He lied his fat ass off in response to every question about Anita Hill. I was at Holy Cross in 1969, when Thomas was there. His claims during his confirmation hearings to having been involved in a somewhat radicalized Black Student Union and staging a campus walkout, is pure self-aggrandizing fantasy. Clarence was one of two black kids in school that had nothing to do with the BSU, or any of the turmoil of Spring ’69. So he’s a pervert AND a perjuror, and he’ll be a Justice until congestive heart failure gets him. His wife may be more revolting than he is.
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Jeff Borden said on April 4, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Clarence Thomas is a sad shell of a man, still using those ancient resentments to inform his horrible opinions. His statements on the man from New Orleans who was robbed of 14 years of his life. . .and very nearly railroaded into the death house by out-of-control prosecutors. . .are needlessly cruel even by the standards of right-wing hacks.
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4dbirds said on April 4, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Prospero, I too look at Clarence and wonder when and how soon the heart attack is coming.
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coozledad said on April 4, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Del: Now I keep hearing Gregory Peck (probably his Atticus Finch voice) saying, “Fuck you, Damien. Little prick.”
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beb said on April 4, 2011 at 1:05 pm
I had to laugh at someone suggestion that if Republicans are so intent on cutting government spending, they ought to cut all ther money being spent trying to control drugs.
I actually don’t expect to see pot legalized anything in the next ten years. Conservatives need something to hate. Hating blacks is no longer acceptable. Hating commie suffers from a lack of commie. Hating gays is becoming unacceptable so what’s left? Woman and drugs. They’re going after woman pretty good right now but that won’t last. So drugs are the only thing left for them to hate.
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Michael said on April 4, 2011 at 1:09 pm
When I asked my ophthalmologist about medical marijuana for a mild case of Glaucoma he replied that I would have to smoke 8 or 9 joints a day to get any effect – on the eye that is.
My all time favorite oxymoron – “Justice Scalia”. But I guess you could substitute Thomas as well.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Is it part of my general unreasonableness that I believe prosecutors guilty of malfeasance that puts innocent people in jail, and on death row, should serve out the resulting sentences? In the death house case at hand, I don’t think it would be all that difficult to convincwe a jury that the prosecutors involved were guilty of attempted murder. The blood evidence means it’s a fact they knew this guy was innocent, Given the legal history of the case at appeal, what the fuck was the SC doing entertaining the prosecution appeal?
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Fairly stunning numbers in Wisconsin recall movement.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 1:43 pm
So this humongous guy claims pot helped him lose weight? That’s a first. Although I always thought “munchies” was something people did because they thought you were supposed to.
On MLK Assasination Day, I always think of a slight poem by Julian Bond, which he recited to me on a Logan Airport runway in a delayed plane. Not another person on the plane seemed to recognize him. Anyway, he said he enjoyed creating light verse as a diversion. Julian Bond’s MLK poem:
See that girl,
Shake that thing’
Too bad we can’t all be
Martin Luther King.
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Bitter Scribe said on April 4, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Maybe Michigan should get a governor like Florida’s, who actively obstructs attempts to stifle the Dr. Feelgoods in his state. The difference is that Florida’s Dr. Fs deal in pills like Vicodin, and Florida’s gov is a former (and none too straight) healthcare executive.
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paddyo' said on April 4, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Along with places in California, Denver has been a ground zero for large-scale, widespread, legal medical marijuana. The storefront dispensaries, with both cannabis-leaf logos and the ubiquitous “Green Cross” (I saw one in green-outline neon in the window of a coming-soon dispensary over the weekend), are everywhere. I live just off heavily traveled East Colfax Avenue (the old U.S. Highway 40 commercial corridor of tire stores, ethnic restaurants, strip malls and the occasional hooker), about 4 miles east of the state Capitol. There are three dispensaries within two blocks in either direction — plus an existing head shop across the street from one.
I agree, Nance, that the sudden tsunami of maladies in need of prescription pot is a joke — but then, so is continued illegality of pot for recreational use. I have a friend (no, it’s not me!) who procured a prescription for use with insomnia. She uses it only for that — and only when, in the middle of the night, she can’t get back to sleep. She takes just a couple of tokes, and she’s good to go (back to sleep). Better than Ambien and less chemical, if you ask me.
The dance with law enforcement about “paraphernalia” remains interesting and amusing, however. That same friend needed a roach clip or hemostatic clamp but, when she inquired at an East Colfax Avenue tattoo-and-smoking-supplies shop closer to downtown a couple of weeks back, the guy behind the counter said he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and they carried no such device. I’d say paranoia of a not-high-on-pot kind . . .
She went back in last week, BTW, and encountered a different clerk (or maybe it was the proprietor?). When she expressed surprise at the kabuki theater she’d witnessed on her previous visit, this guy deadpanned, “So, you’re looking for a medical device that you could use, perhaps, to prevent burning your pinched fingertips while trying to hold something that resembles a very small, lighted cigarette?”
They both had a laugh and he then sold her a nice, basic hemostat.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“None too straight”?
Try $1.7bill in fines for Medicare fraud.
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ROgirl said on April 4, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Big pharma is probably up in arms that pot is poised to take a large chunk of the business that has gone to their highly profitable legal drugs.
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Peter said on April 4, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Prospero and 4dbirds, stop wasting your time wondering when Clarence Thomas will have the big chest grabber. He’s just like Dick Cheney, and nothing that evil ever dies.
As far as medical marijuana is concerned, maybe I need the medication: I claim to be the only person to have seen and enjoyed Pink Flamingoes without being stoned.
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Connie said on April 4, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Oddly enough there always assorted hemostats for sale in the vendor mall at big quilt shows. Can be used as a quilting or sewing tool.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 4, 2011 at 2:45 pm
I probably shouldn’t even bring it up, since no one has commented on it, but Anietra is really one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in the TV business this side of meteorologists (where Phil Conners seem quite rare, in my experience). No idea what she was thinking, other than the “everyone does it” defense she wanly offers, but from what I’ve heard, she’s not the only one to think she’s been made an example of to scare herds of other TV on-air folk from continuing the same deductions. It really has been a very common practice among anchors and reporters in the weird world of broadcast.
Some clergy who’ve listed robes and stoles and special suits/dresses they use only for funeral & wedding purposes have been asking, “so this means what exactly?” The impression left is that it only applies to welding clothes and technical garb; on the other hand, I’m quite certain a number of clergy, let alone TV personalities, have abused this category.
Since I’m in the odd category of not ruthlessly pursuing every deducation we can, by mutual agreement with mi esposa, I’m just asking. A good accountant would probably gnash their teeth in reviewing our joint return, but some of the professional shenanigans I hear about at Roatary & Kiwanis tables when I’m visiting to do programs makes me think I’d be embarrassed to sign my form after that raft of deductions . . . like thong underwear.
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nancy said on April 4, 2011 at 2:54 pm
The law cited in the story is pretty clear: Clothing that can ONLY be worn on the job is deductible — not is only worn there. A uniform, yes; a suit, no. So my guess is, the clergyman can deduct his ecclesiastical robes, but not his funeral tie.
I might have backed her on the clothing, but she lost me at the manicures and haircuts.
Speaking of people who hate drugs, whoever did so upthread, y’all should meet my former congressman, Mark Souder. He routinely spewed outrageous nonsense about drug use, and continues to do so. The one that sticks with me is his claim that something like half of all emergency-room visits are marijuana-related. Half! What is this guy smokin’?
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Back , way back, in HS, I proposed that the Federal government should halp tobacco growers in NC and KY get into crop rotation with marijuana. Face it, as far as tars from cigarette papers, nobody is humanly capable, other than maybe Snoop, of smoking two packs a day of Js, so I think the question of lung cancer is a highly unlikely eventuality. You’d never manage to fire up a bomber, Cathcart. And it seems, the completeFiresign ouevre is available on CDs these days.
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Dexter said on April 4, 2011 at 3:01 pm
A house one short block from me belches wood smoke every night from September to May. It is strong smoke, it stinks, it makes my eyes burn and my lungs ache.
Through that stench, as I stood on my sidewalk waiting for my dog to relieve herself, came that no-question-what-it-is smell: somebody’s got some reefer.
That’s the first time in years I have smelled it in my neighborhood, timely for this blog topic today.
Some guys got sick of baseball as they grew older; I just got tired of marijuana and everything to do with it.
It’s hard for me at my recovery meetings because the judges will send pot offenders to mandatory meetings, and I never considered pot and booze as equals.
It seemed ridiculous and it still does.
“Anyone’s first meeting?”
“Yep…I never hardly even tasted beer but I got busted for pot and I have to comes here to these meetings now…”
“You’re in the right place.”
And I sit there and cringe, a curmudgeonly relic, biting my tongue, because this “a drug is a drug is a drug and beer and pot are both drugs so it’s all the same…”—and I mutter BULLSHIT under my breath.
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Hattie said on April 4, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Oh god. Drunks and potheads make for such a wonderful public ambience, don’t they.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Can Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger deduct the cost of all of that weird shit they wear when performing? How about Prince? Did W write off that suitcoat that so poorly concealed the dorsal electroshock control box during the 2004 debate with Kerry? What about that absurd leather getup Eddie Murphy wore in Raw?
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Joe Kobiela said on April 4, 2011 at 3:26 pm
Didn’t Hillary deduct Bills Underwear??
Pilot Joe
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Julie Robinson said on April 4, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Like Alice, butter and cocoa have always provided the only mediation and medication I need. Smoking of any kind never held any appeal. But like Scout I think we should legalize and tax it, then let our criminal justice system focus on real crime.
One of Souder’s worst legacies is that a high school kid who is convicted of one bout of reefer madness is precluded from receiving any kind of federal student aid for college, which includes student loans. He was very proud of that law, once again showing his selective interpretation of forgiveness.
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LAMary said on April 4, 2011 at 3:39 pm
“…Oh god. Drunks and potheads make for such a wonderful public ambience, don’t they.”
I’ll take drunks and potheads over junkies and speed freaks any day.
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Mark P. said on April 4, 2011 at 5:07 pm
This belatedly reminds me of when the IRS came after me. When I was a graduate student, if you got a research assistantship (as opposed to a teaching assistantship), it was not taxable. A few years after I got my degree, the IRS started sending out notices that I and most other fellow grad students owed taxes for those assistantships. Some of us fought it with the help of the school. I followed the rules for an appeal to the IRS, but the IRS delayed responding to my appeal for so long that I had to file with the tax court in order to preserve my right to do so. The IRS eventually gave up and agreed that, by their own rules, a research assistantship was not taxable (It is now). But they got lots of students to pay simply because they were scared of the IRS.
TV personalities are paid reasonably well (or more than reasonably well in some cases), but graduate students?
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del said on April 4, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Joe, I think the Clinton deduction (for underwear and other clothes) was not for its purchase but its donation. Think Goodwill.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Nancy anybody that claima smoking pot makes you dumber is q basically a moron. When I took the Sats, I got a slightly less than perfext score on verbal 695, back in the old scoring days. I’d like to bwe shown anything I got wrong. I know this is bullshit. There is nothing I got wrong. On the math. I figured out which two which two answers seemed most likely and proved them through the problem. When I took the GRE, I banged out a perfect score on the verbal and a 6 something on the math. My point is, between and grad school I took these asinine exams I muat have retained a whole bunch of odious math, despite pounds of pot down the old trachea. Maybe I’m not as smart as I might have been, but given the know=nothing state of politics in America, maybe I’m less disgusted with the sorry state of the plenitude. I’m most certainly not dumber for having smoked lots and lots of pot. I’m sure I have more insight into literature and music than had I not. But look, I think you run the most enlightening blog going. With the smartest and most decent and intelligent buncha regulars. A country where the president has been appointed by a corrupt Supreme Court, then shuttled in by a voting machine company cheating its ass off in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and finally losing to an intelligent, literate, educated, and totally reasonable brown guy, that can’t possibly be an Amurrcan. I’ve never given thought to being in yr grll. That’s really not fair Nancy, because I’ve never been remotely confrontational with you.I appreciate being up with put. America’s in the hands of racist assholes. Foreign Affairs says Obama’s venture in Libya has failed. John fucking Yoo. Nobody was tortured, how can it be a success. This is a tiny man that believes in torturing everybody. Now isn’t John Woo somebody that ought to be tortured and put to death, according to his own rubrics?
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 4, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Mark P., you’d be surprised what most on-air news folk make. Outside of lead anchors and meteorologists, it’s darn unimpressive ($30K and no benefits pretty common, based on a 30 hour contract, so-called, with Walmart-like rules about the non-existence of overtime that’s mandatory only in the “would you like to have your job next week” sort of mandate), but you still are expected to look like a million bucks.
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Deborah said on April 4, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Who donates their used underwear to charity?
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Connie said on April 4, 2011 at 6:30 pm
The Mennonite thrift shop we frequented in Goshen had men’s undies nicely displayed — on hangers. No women’s though.
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Scout said on April 4, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Better yet, who would buy used underwear? Ick, ick, ick!
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Dorothy said on April 4, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Jeff (tmmo) – do you know what Ms. Hamper is doing these days? The article calls her a former t.v. anchor. She was on channel 4 when we first moved here and then switched to channel 10 (I think 4 let her go).
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Jakash said on April 4, 2011 at 7:50 pm
I haven’t really been following this blog all that long, but I must say that when I read the “Prospero all up in my grill” remark, I thought, gee, I don’t recall Prospero ever being anything but complimentary to NN. On the other hand, how many times she’s been collateral damage from one of his inimitable, brilliant, scattershot diatribes is anyone’s guess, I suppose.
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Mark P. said on April 4, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Maybe someone can check my math, but according to the story, the newsperson had to pay about $16000 in back taxes for four years of filings. If you assume she was paying at about a 30-per-cent rate, that amounts to about $13,000 per year that she deducted from her income. I don’t know how much she made based on that, but I can say that her deduction was greater than my total assistantship. So it still seems pretty inefficient to look for increased tax revenues by going after graduate students.
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basset said on April 4, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Hemostats, some with little scissors built in, can also be found in fly-fishing shops if you can stand to go in there. Fly-fishers, as they call themselves, seem to be right up there with wine snobs in all-purpose elitism and unfriendliness.
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Kirk said on April 4, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Having failed to please Channel 10 by not moving the ratings needle on the noon news, Hamper is free-lancing, for the moment. I quote, from her LinkedIn profile:
“Freelance writing for publications, corporate marketing content, web content and speech. My writing embraces the elements of Hope, Love and Laughter that make up the fiber of human connection. ThreeWordPress, LLC is committed to telling stories with an emotional core whether it is highlighting corporate philanthropy for an annual report or travel writing for publication.”
Dorothy, she is known in this market as the only TV face who has worked for all three network affiliates in town.
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joodyb said on April 4, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Deborah, the better question would be, who would want it?
sorry, scout – you beat me to the question.
re hemostats, aren’t they just ultra-sophisticated pliers, really? we have an amazing store here, Ax Man, where one can buy all manner of medical implement (along with inflatable retail mannequins, WWII-issue Swiss army white wool ski coats and almost anything you’d need to build a robot) including Metzenbaums, surgical-grade tweezers and hemostats. Ax Man is worth a stop if you’re in the Twin Cities.
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Dorothy said on April 4, 2011 at 9:51 pm
Thanks, Kirk – I’m glad you and Jeff are from the Columbus area to clear up these mysteries for me!
Hey did anyone else watch “The Killing” premier on AMC last night? I found it to be really mesmerizing. It’s sad and compelling and I can’t believe I have to wait 11 more weeks to find out who did the murder.
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MichaelG said on April 4, 2011 at 10:07 pm
Medical marijuana is big business here in California. The Sacto alternative paper has page after page of four color, full and half page ads for medical marijuana outlets. They’re on every corner. There are battles going on in counties, cities and under the dome over taxing, licensing and regulation of this lucrative enterprise.
I agree that marijuana should be legalized, regulated and taxed. Unfortunately there are powerful interests fighting legalization. Think of all the cops, judges, dipshit drug agents, lawyers, prison guards, pharma drug manufacturers and lord knows who else that will be diminished if weed is legalized.
I think MM Jeff is right about local TV news people. They are poorly paid and work under pretty poor conditions. I don’t mean slaving in salt mines, I mean being on call 24 hours and then maybe not being called for days on end. Then the stations regularly recycle a certain percentage of them. It’s amazing how many of them turn up as spokes persons for various State agencies, corporations, utilities and foundations where they can earn a steady pay check.
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brian stouder said on April 4, 2011 at 10:11 pm
A non-sequitur, from the weekend news.
With regard to the commercial airplane that had a structural failure wherein part of the fuselage blew off, one detail that immediately struck me, and which I am still pondering – is that right in the middle of the crisis a woman on the plane texted her sister.
That isn’t (in itself) remarkable; but what caught my attention was that, amidst the chaos and noise and decompression, and with oxygen masks flipping and flopping from above, and with a bloody flight attendant and being strapped into a steeply diving plane –
amidst all that – the woman who was texting had the presence of mind to announce – in the first sentence she wrote to her sister (and which, for all she knew, could have been her last sentence, too), before asking her sister to tell her children that she loves them and always will – and before telling her what was happening; before any of that – she said “This is not an April Fools joke”.
Huh. Wow. The fact that it was April 1 would have quite literally been the very furthest thing from my mind, at that moment and in those circumstances; and even if, for some random reason, it occurred to me that it was April Fools day, I don’t think I’d have taken the time to place the disclaimer, since in the worst case, we’d be “BREAKING NEWS” in a few minutes anyway.
Seriously, and I mean this very truly, THAT is one impressively together woman. Women in general are much more together, in that way, I think.
Just sayin’
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MarkH said on April 4, 2011 at 10:12 pm
The NOON News?? She got bounced because WBNS was looking for ratings gold on the effing NOON NEWS??! How bad could she have tanked? Man, I admit I have been out of the (Columbus) news game for a long time, but that’s a new one. If MMJeff is right, and I know he is, what more could they have wanted than a low-paid pretty face who could speak well and manage to report a good story now and then. And, by accounts here she was a pretty good person as well. But, what do I know…
EDIT — Further to MichaelG’s point above, the competition for such TV jobs is brutal, hence the tolerated low pay in these markets.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 4, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Kirk already noted, and I just cruised back thru: it looks like Anietra’s going for the Daryn Kagan sort of thing — http://threewordpress.com/
As MichaelG observed, most of the media folk who don’t jump to full-on anchor work or have a spouse with a pretty solid job end up as PR for a higher ed or state agency gig, which is true of just about everyone I know who was on one of the Columbus or Indy TV stations. Anietra’s partner is not wealthy, but he’s got a steady job that won’t disappear anytime soon, so I wish her luck in kicking the live on-camera habit. I’m told it’s as bad as crack for some, which may also explain the generally (relatively) low pay.
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nancy said on April 4, 2011 at 11:10 pm
I could be wrong on this, Jeff, but I wouldn’t waste too many tears on underpaid Aneitra. My guess is, she did just fine as a noon anchor. It’s true the anchors do best, but the reporters aren’t on food stamps — unless they’re brand-new and grass-green. Columbus is a top-30 market now. I’d peg her income as high five figures at the very least. And when she left, they bought out her contract.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 4, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Oh, I doubt she’s been in the thirties for years, nor does she get my tears — but I’m always amazed by how many people assume that TV folk all get paid major dollars for their work . . . just like folks assuming a weekly column adds up to an actual [chortle] job.
Note: ironically, her partner was recently on CNN, very effectively, too — http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/04/04/nr.elepant.expert.godaddy.ceo.cnn
Harry does a nice job of politely taking down the clueless goober from GoBadly, the internet firm infamous for their Super Bowl ads with a mammary fixation.
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Crazycatlady said on April 4, 2011 at 11:26 pm
I deduct the cost of my scrubs for work. Nice! And I always laugh when I hear about medical Marijuana. I tell people I need it for my asthma! I also say, we wouldn’t need so many drugs at the Nursing Home if we put weed in the brownies. Just saying…
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MarkH said on April 4, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Condolences, Connie. It was a great run.
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prospero said on April 4, 2011 at 11:36 pm
” the best Led Song ever.” I take some afront at this all in your grill comment. I do think Iggy is the sad remnant of great Detroit 60s bands. But that’s not to say I don’t think Jim is worth listening to. , but mostly I’m hurt. It’s just that I was there, and SRC ruled, MC5 was brilliant, Seger, when Bob played lead was amazing, Iggy was a freak show, and we all figured it was pot that made him act like that. Not really. We’d all already cleared the gateway and tried acid and other pschedelics. The gateway business is nonsense. I have tried heroin and it’s wonderful, but I’m smart enough to leave it alone. It does render the user stupid and unmotivated and I did it once and never again, lest I become a zombie. You probably would have loved Detroit misic in the golden age of the Angel Song back in the days of max sustain. Better music than peanut butter and broken glass. It was a good way to grow up. And if all that pot made me dumber, I suppose its a minor price to pay for not believing my fellow human beings aren’t calloused jerks that couldn’t care less about their fellow human beings. I think these people are something less than human. They are Republicans. I believe in community service and taking care of the less fortunate. Part of my commitment to ideas like this comes from things I realized when I was high. The rest comes from studying liberation theology and Teillhard. Try that if you’ve rendered yourself dumb. So did I stunt my intellectual growth by smoking pot. I don’t think so. I believe smoking pot makes you a tad wiser if it doesn’t trigger some latent schizophrenia. I believe the same is true of hallucenogens, like LSD. I know you think this is nonsense, but I’m not being confrontational. I would venture to say, if you haven’t tried something, don’t get all in it’s grille. That’s extremely unfair. I’ve never done anything of the sort. I’m enough of an asshole you could have kicked me out of here a bunch of times, I rwally appreciate the calm and thoughtful viewpoints here. So I’m happy not to have been banned. And I apologize for all of my badly typed excesses.
All that said, and heartfeltly, x “Pastor” Terry Jones wants retribution for the dead UN staffers in Afghanistan. So Terry, I’m sure you have guns, what’s stopping you from shooting yourself? You’re responsible as much as anybody, and now trying to talk others into burning Korans. What a sociopath. What is wrong with this purported Christian? Agent Wang would say he’s a narcissist. Does the Second Amendment grant a right to own assault weapons? Those guys never heard of automaticcs. Originalism as what Scalia thinks is dangerous and monumentally stupid. I suppose he means, everybody has a right to a flintlock rifle. Dumb mofo.
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Dexter said on April 5, 2011 at 2:07 am
Satellite radio is no destination for young people seeking good money.
If a producer busts his ass and the show runs well, he may be allowed to stay at about 30K per year.
It takes a lot more than that to live in Manhattan.
The stars absolutely do make it big.
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jerry said on April 5, 2011 at 4:42 am
Dorothy @ 42
The Killing has just finished here in England – and the wait to find out who did it will get worse as things go on. Lots more to come, and all of it good. I envy you having it still to come.
The BBC will be showing #2 in the autumn – and I think #3 (and the last one) is being filmed at the moment.
Enjoy
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Connie said on April 5, 2011 at 7:11 am
Thanks MarkH. It was a good run, but it was a truly ugly game. Butler is my team.
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Mark P. said on April 5, 2011 at 8:03 am
Atlanta is a big TV market, so income of on-air personalities there is not representative of smaller markets, but even 30 years ago one weatherman was reported to have an income of around $250K. Of course at that time the weatherman was a prime viewer attraction. Several of the Atlanta stations had weathermen whose names are remembered today, while most of the anchors are long forgotten.
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Dorothy said on April 5, 2011 at 8:48 am
jerry I’m curious – are you getting the American or Danish version of “The Killing”? The one I watched had a strawberry blonde actress named Mireille Enos in the role of Sarah Larsen.
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prospero said on April 5, 2011 at 2:15 pm
I EAJE A GREAT DEAL OF CONSIDERATIO OF RHEpwefecge ever esstex,/ THIA AOLO IA A GOOS a ir gets. t The Leslies it is beautogul. This is the most perfect zolo immty WRFWXE RGU UAMIT;A FIIL IN This solo is as good as it gets.,
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brian stouder said on April 5, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Even the Internal Revenue Service acknowledged that former television news anchor Anietra Hamper kept meticulous records of the clothes and other items she bought for business use.
I only just now clicked the anchor/IRS/clothes link, and thought it was surely an Onion bit, yes?
“Anietra Hamper” is in trouble over her clothes?
This got me laughing AND made me think it was a bit of satire, all at the same time
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jerry said on April 6, 2011 at 4:25 am
Dorothy@66
We’ve watched the Danish version complete with subtitles which I normally don’t care for. But it worked well on this (and on the Swedish Wallander). My only problem with the Danish vesrion is that it seemed to have been shot in low light even outside at midday!
Just watched the first episode of Spiral 3 – a French detective procedural. Very grisly dead body – which really isn’t to my taste.
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