Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday - The High Rodeo Clown Named Messiah Edition

Marijuana might actually have medical benefits, and other things we already know
The war on drugs has done no favors for actual medical research in many ways. Some medications used for legitimate medical conditions, like ADHD, are widely accepted even though they are very similar chemically to the heavily abused drug Meth. Others, like marijuana, are shunned from any real discussion of disease treatment and symptom control. Why?


The only answer that I can seem to come up with for why one is recognized by the FDA and the entire medical community for it's ability to help patients and the other isn't is a timing issue.

Amphetamines were used to treat ADHD long before Meth became a problem. Even though they have always had addictive characteristics, even though they have always had known side effects, we've used them to treat ADHD for decades without question. Meth and it's accompanying problems came into heavy rotation later.

On the other hand, marijuana has always, at least in our culture, been deemed a recreational drug. It was never seen or accepted by medical professionals as something with legitimate medical usage, and so the idea that it could be now is abhorrent to many within the industry. Even with an increasing amount of states passing laws allowing medical marijuana usage, you have cities shutting down clinics, doctors who by and large refuse to issue cards, and a federal drug enforcement program that still wants to criminalize the use of it.

Here's the thing.

ANYONE who has ever spent time with a cancer patient that uses marijuana to alleviate symptoms KNOWS that it very much so has health benefits, that it works better to suppress nausea, boost appetite and quell anxiety than all the "legal" meds that are prescribed. I'm not just making a hypothetical argument here about the drug either, I've seen it in person.

Marijuana can help with many conditions, and it absolutely boggles my mind that science hasn't invested much in figuring out what derivatives of marijuana provide the benefits and testing it in an actual laboratory setting. If it were treated as every other drug out there regulated by the FDA, they could control ingredients, purity, dosage and all other elements like they already do to the opiates and amphetamines routinely prescribed every day in this country.

Just because it's historically been a recreational drug, and Nancy Reagan told us drugs are bad, we don't. It's stupid. We have something that works, and we won't use it.

I was surprised, and happy to see that Dr. Sanjay Gupta has changed his opinions about marijuana, that he's seeing now the very real benefits to marijuana. CNN ran a documentary called Weed about it. Maybe now others will start to listen too.

What's In A Name?
People name their kids some interesting things. Some people just make things up, celebrities name their children after fruit, others name their kids after fictional characters and on and on. I laugh when I see some of the names of athletes. My personal favorite baseball player names are Milton Bradley and Coco Crisp. Kinda makes you want to just sit their parents down and ask reaaaally?

This, my friends, is America. Land of the free, home of the brave, place where you can name your child after a breakfast cereal or board game company.

What you can't do, apparently, at least in Tennessee, is name your child Messiah. A judge there, in a child support hearing, decided she didn't approve of the name given to the 7 month old boy, and changed it to Martin. Her reason? Ready for this???

That name is a title earned by only one person, Jesus Christ.

Nope. I'm not kidding.

Never mind that the name is the 4th fastest rising baby name according to the Social Security Administration. Never mind that there's this pesky thing called the separation of church and state here in the good old U.S. of A. Never mind that. The judge thought it was sacrilegious.

Too damn bad, lady. Get off the bench and take your judgment with you. This is a courtroom, not a church and you don't get to decide what people name their children.

The mother is appealing the decision.

Yeehaw, 'Murica
Yeah, so apparently the Missouri State Fair has some explaining to do. A rodeo clown donned an Obama mask over the weekend there and has caused a bit of a controversy.

Oh, it's not a big deal right??? Clowns are funny right???

Not so much.

The event, which was heavily taxpayer funded, isn't the place for this kind of crap. The organizers are trying to circle the wagons, claiming that the rodeo clown went rogue and that it wasn't planned, which is obviously not true considering the announcer's words of Who wants to see Obama run over by a bull??? over and over again until the entire crowd roared with cheers.

It only got worse when another clown started to play with the oversized lips on the mask, much to the delight of the crowd.

They've apologized, sort of...but I get the feeling that no one is really sorry, just sorry that someone who wasn't cheering got it on tape.

Shame on you all.