JOB CREATIVITY

When a 43 year old ex-Marine with custody of his two sons didn't feel he could make enough money as a building inspector while construction was so bust, he came up with a very new business plan. Of course it will only play to the medical marijuana folk, but there is always hope that the market will grow if Americans wake up to the fact that we can cut into the business of some of the drug cartels by making marijuana legal.

Christina Davidson wrote about the burgeoning market for what is being called Colorado's Marijuana Economy: An Explosion of Ganjapreneurship.

There are many discussions today about why marijuana is not legal in the USA. The religious and moralists think it is sinful but it is the economists who are really in the know. Current subsidized crops would not do well as the hemp plant, which is alleged to have 10,000 uses. The haves of the present are terrified of losing that power to the 'have-nots' of today. As long as the poor farmers continue to be brainwashed about the sin of marijuana (no, I am not a user) they will continue to let the power of the wealthy dictate their poverty.

TED KENNEDY WAS MOURNED BUT THE WORLD CONTINUED TO LIVE...WE JUST WEREN'T TOLD ABOUT IT IN THE US

Al Jazeera writes today: "Drug violence in Mexico has killed more than 11,000 people nationwide since December 2006 as it talked about the recent shootings."

BBC News writes: "Nigeria's fraud police say they have recovered $170m (£105m) from wealthy debtors who owe money to five banks.

It is only one-thirtieth of the billions they want to track down.

Earlier this month, Nigeria's central bank was forced to bail out financial institutions that were close to collapse because of bad debts.

Nigeria's banking scandal is not linked to the global financial crisis, instead it is the result of corruption in the banking world here."

The United Press of Pakistan writes: LONDON, Aug 27 (APP): President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday while appreciating the role of Britain in the rehabilitation efforts in Swat and Malakand said the United Kingdom should expand its support to help Pakistan create more job opportunities and counter illiteracy. Talking to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on telephone the President also noted the support of Britain to help Pakistan face the challenges of extremism and terrorism.

He said Pakistan needs the world support to tackle all the ills that nurture the seeds of extremism in the society."

In fact, newspapers around the world were continuing to publish news events while the Boston Globe noted only that Ted Kennedy had died. You really have to look around to keep up with the news.

AXOLOTL BECOMING EXTINCT

Having been born before the era of planned obsolescence, I hate to see anything go and never ever be able to have it brought back...even the little axolotl, which I learned today (though I have never seen one) and learned, sadly, I may never get to because they are becoming something Nature has given up on....or was that mankind that did it? I must be the only person on the planet earth who has not seen an axolotl!

To think that I may not have another opportunity. YouTube makes it looks like they will be extinct though everyone is putting them in their fish tanks. It is not clear to me why people plant rare flowers in their yards when the conditions for their survival are lacking, or why people must capture fish and put them in little tanks for their own private showings. However, zoos may save some animals from becoming extinct, and fish tank enthusiasts may do the same for the axolotl.

Matt Walker, editor of Earth News says it is "The amphibian that never grew up is on the verge of going extinct in the wild."

Since they have the ability to re-grow lost limbs and tails and re-generate dead or damaged brain and heart cells, it might be worth while to keep them around and let scientists probe their physical competences.

CIA INTERROGATORS (TERRORISTS?)

Nate Carlile in Think Progress on 8/24 writes that a CIA interrogator threatened to kill the detainee's children. If this makes any American proud of their country allowing this sort of things for years, those who have run our country are too powerful and we deserve the world's hatred for allowing those who perpetrated such abuse to go unpunished. I'm sincerely hoping that so many eyes on this problem will solve it in the near future.

The Obama administration is setting strict new standards for terror suspect treatment.

Carlile goes on to state that Eric Holder, Attorney General will appoint a special prosecutor decide (or prove the obvious?) whether CIA interrogators and contractors broke laws. Leon Panetta, trying to save his agency's reputation wants to call this an 'old issue' and insists we drop it and move on. There are a few of us in the country who do not think that is a good idea as it sends the wrong message to those who will repeat history, whether it worked or not. Actually, we are told that Panetta threatened to quit. If he wants to hide his agency's past I think he should resign.

WAITING ROOMS

I'm never without a book in waiting rooms, prefering talking to people when any are there. Today I sat with three women and a gentleman. One woman was clearly politically in a different place than the rest of us. The gentleman sat with his nose in a book and commented when one lady read his tee shirt and commented..."so you're older than dirt!". He did have a white beard, but otherwise looked younger than a senior. He smiled and said, "That's what this tee-shirt I bought in Arizona says", with a smile. He continued to read throughout the long discussion between (I will call her the angry lady) and me. The woman sitting between the angry lady and me was a woman who had told me previously she lives in Senior housing and is widowed. She was a bit younger than I. A few minutes later the angry woman arrived and we began discussing the current Health Care Bill, the debate over its merits or lack of them when a lovely young and attractive blonde woman sat next to me and kept her nose in a book.

Ordinarily I will stop a heated discussion when others are around, but no one seemed perturbed so the angry lady and I talked on. Things she was saying suggested her husband was a business owner or exec, and later, seeing the fancy car she drove, was even more convinced. The fact that she sees nothing wrong in the number of people who don't have health insurance did not gain her my respect but I kept my portion of the exchange to sincere questions, requesting answers that a reasonable person might have considered. Her TV News allegiance indicated she did not really care for fair and balanced news.

The angry lady was outrageously impassioned, seeming to believet that the louder she could shout, the more convincing she would become. Finally, the lady from senior housing decided to speak up. Since we were two people in discussion I expected to be included in her annoyed (noticeable by the fury and and raised decibels) but she spoke only to the angry woman. One might guess the angry woman was not used to being spoken to with such assertiveness and responded with outrage herself. It was clear from her response that she believed she knew exactly what was right for all people, criticized Obama as though he, singlehandedly, was behind everything in the bill(s), and that she felt pity for those who felt differently.

The remaining four of us wished her a happy day as she glared at us as she left. When I went to the desk to pay up, shortly after, I said to the two people at the counter that we had had a rather spirited discussion back there (I was very sure they had heard it all) and that her husband was probably a business owner. They smiled at each other, knowingly, and smiled at me with no comment. Before I left, I apologized to the others waiting and said I wanted to hear her view and was very sorry if I subjected them to any unpleasantness. It was apparent that the others would not have participated but, as spectators, it had been entertainment for the three of them.

Some of the most educative and entertaining waits have taken place in garages and doctor's offices. While I always take a book, I doubt that I have ever gotten to read more than ten pages in any waiting room and find it a most enlightening social experience. The joy of the contacts is that I don't have to write thank you notes nor have to give most of them another thought. Nevertheless, there are many of those brief contacts and conversations which I shall never forget, persons nor content.

HOW I DEAL WITH FRUSTRATION

The world is tossing more and more frustration to all of us. It seems that nothing is simple any longer. All attempts to make someone's life easier end up making others more difficult. To make a phone call to a business takes great stamina. A robot forces you to wait while your ears are assaulted with detestable music. When you have gone through a filter of questions, you might even be lucky enough to get to speak to a real person.

Most frustrating, however, is that so many others are equally frustrated and haven't a clue how to handle the feelings. They pick fights, misunderstand your words and intent, and insist they know exactly that which you meant and won't listen to you explain what you had, in fact, said and meant.

People have lost respect for people's personal boundaries. They answer questions put to others; and, ask personal questions with, seemingly, no awareness that they are asking things that are not their right to know, The questions are a total invasion of the right to privacy.

Each person has to find that which works for them, much like people have to find what works as a weight reduction diet for themselves. If you must make calls to places that put you on hold for long times and make it Having yourself put in ult to talk to a person who might be able to understand your request more effectively than the robot.

You will always have choices, You can do something or nothing. If you do something you should be prepared. There seems to be an unwritten rule out there that says when you are in a private home, if something isn't tied down or is gagged, the pickings are free.

FLOATERS

No, not those blown up to keep afloat in water. I'm talking to those lovely little bits of flotsam and jetsom that travel in your eyeball and have you thinking there are bugs in front of your eyes. There have been many with me for years now and my eye doctor says they do no harm. (He clearly doesn't mind reading a book slapping at imaginary bugs on the page). At times it seems I an looking at the universe with planets orbiting through my vision field.

Floaters are condensations of cells in the vitreous or gel part of the eye. Floaters can look like a number of things including dots, spots, dots with arms, spiders, clumps of dots or strings. Sometimes they settle down at the bottom and are less irritating.

They increased in number after I had my lens replacements to rid me of cataracts. Then increased when the back of the lenses grew covers of epithelial cells which were then lasered to get rid of the tissue which decided to grow there to make my vision a permanent twilight. The laser surgery is completely painless and brief, and I no longer need a thousand watt bulb to read food labels.

It is not clear to me why they are called floaters and not sinkers, since they are supposed to eventually fall to the bottom of the eyeball. Recently I developed a new shape and color. Apparently they haven't figured a way to get rid of them without taking your eyeball out, so, choosing the lesser of two evils I have begun to accept them and some of them have distinctive shapes and names. There is a black one that looks just my computer cursor, only thinner. I've nicknamed it Excalibur because I'm unable to pull him out of my eyeball. Sometimes I have the fantasy that they will grow and split like amoeba cells and I'll have to go through the rest of my life as though I am seeing the universe through a microscope slide with planets orbiting one another rapidly while the space junk rolls around.

Indeed, people with floaters can never be bored...boring, perhaps, but bored....NEVAH!