While I find the odor of marijuana a little less offensive than that of tobacco, a lot of people don’t, and I think the same standard should be applied to marijuana in public spaces as to tobacco. Related: “Marijuana dropped […]
Culture
Help the Environment with Cactus Sucking Selenium
It has been discovered that the prickly pear cactus sucks up selenium, regarded as a pollutant in the West San Joaquin Valley, slowly enough to not be toxic but enough to be of benefit to selenium-deficient diets. In small quantities, […]
The Salinas Gang Problem and Restricted Housing
Is there any connection between the fact that Salinas has the gang problem that it does, and the fact that Monterey County’s restrictions on the building of housing are very strict? I can see why the inhabitants of the Monterey […]
The Suburban Paradox
The attached article criticizes the effect of ‘greenbelts’ in Britain, and calls for ‘green patches’ instead of ‘green belts.’ The paradox is that a lot of what people move out to the suburbs for is precisely what these anti-suburban NIMBYs […]
The Continuing Presumption of Airlines
I am prepared to admit that the California Bullet Train may prove to be a failure, even though France, Spain, Germany, and China have them! I voted for the train originally, not so much to eliminate automobiles, but as an […]
Popular Music: The Ancients and the Moderns
In eighteenth century Europe, one of the favorite intellectual debates was the Debate of the Ancients and the Moderns, whether Europe had now exceeded the greatness of the Greco-Roman era or had not yet done so. There is a similar […]
Comments on the Film “The Descendants”
I recently saw a film called The Descendants, about a large family of landed aristocratic background in Hawaii. Though the Hawaiian setting is interesting, it is a story that could happen in many cultures – California is not without a […]
Christmas and Steven Pinker’s Decline of Violence
A few months ago biologist Steven Pinker released a paper (Article 1, Article 2) and a book claiming that despite 9/11, Rwanda, and other such events, violence is actually declining in the world. He rebukes the myth of the ‘noble […]
Some Points on Housing
Recently The Weekly Standard ran an article by Ike Brannon and Benjamin Gitis suggesting that the mortgage deduction was no longer so important as it had been in the past, and recommending instead a program in Wisconsin called WHEDA, which stands […]
9/11, Ten Years Later
When the 9/11 attacks happened, ten years ago, we knew that we didn’t like it. But we in the Western World were forced to think about the delicate question of, if we were against this, what were we for? Were […]