Locks and life.

I got nothing done Monday because I got locked out of my house and car. Yep, I was industrious enough to sign on to a medical marijuana lobby day in Annapolis, and as I left on time and in my best suit, and made it out the door with everything, except my keys.




In my last post I mentioned being a stoner. This seems like a classic short term memory blanch, I probably shouldn't have smoked so much pot before I left for Annapolis. Wait, I didn't. No dope to smoke, hence no smoking dope. (No that wasn't a typing short term memory blanch, I was illustrating a point, you stoner.) But without marijuana, how would such a mistake get made?

There's what a stoner's supposed to be like:

http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/stoners/default.aspx


Then there's what a stoner is:

This is me, I'm a stoner.

You're probably saying "But Bailey, you're well dressed, clean and upright, not what the linked video said a stoner would be like." It's ok if you're not saying this, because if you were you'd be talking to yourself, or at least saying something random to that other person in the room.

My point is that the broad stereotype that was financed with your tax dollars is not totally accurate. In fact, it's hardly accutare at all. I was active, clean, presentable, and motivated, all things that "Dr." Puck told you I would not be. Yet failure to bring my keys embodies the situation, and solidifies my stereotype.

I won't act like every pot user is sterilized Olympic athlete in formalwear. Barack Obama won't act like all black guys are punctual, socially content farmers who have little dicks. Ellen DeGeneres won't act like all gays are macho prudes who hate Bette Midler. And Dick Cheney had better never act like all Republicans are poor, bi-racial Muslims. Like it or not stoners, blacks, gays, and Republicans need to accept that some of their ilk share the negative virtures that everyone else keeps stereotyping them with. Stereotypes don't come from nowhere, some stoners are lazy (w00t), some blacks live chronically behind schedule, some gays are effeminent clothes horses, and some republicans are old money bigots. We take the worst of the traits we see and focus on them, building the rest of the opinion around it.

So if it's so innacurate why fixate on it? Good question, thanks me! I fixate solely because the stereotype is being popularized with my money (with your money too, but it's up to you to get mad about that). If Exxon Mobile thinks kids need to hear this type of narrow thinking, fine. If Pizza Hut wants to scare folks with manipulated stats, whatever. But when the government spends money they took from hard working people (and me, who is not yet working) to give you psuedo-official, quasi-factual directives about who to hate or fear, I start to get concerned. The government doesn't make videos telling kids why all terrorists are the same (yet) it lets the gravity of their actions (and the hype of cable news) do the talking.

It's the beginning of the end when our government teaches kids who the bad guys are (stunting the development of the childrens own ability to detect bullshit). But obviously they've been doing it for years, the end had already begun. But don't worry, from now on the end of the world has my blog, so everything is safe.