In which we volunteer our services for the betterment of public safety

Texas lawmakers thought they were clear: The bill they overwhelmingly passed allowing the growth and sale of hemp had nothing to do with legalizing pot[….] But since Gov. Greg Abbott signed the measure into law in June, county prosecutors around Texas have been dropping some marijuana possession charges and declining to file new ones, saying they do not have the time or the laboratory equipment needed to distinguish between legal hemp and illegal pot. – New York Times, July 19 2019

A CRIME LAB SOMEWHERE IN THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS

SAMPLE 1: Hemp.

SAMPLE 2: Hemp.

SAMPLE 3: Okay, I just want to say 2 quick things.  First of all, this stuff is totally hemp. Secondly, I have awesome respect for you guys in uniform. And not just, like, the normal police you see driving around in their cars or even on bicycles sometimes? but also like the state troopers and the Texas Rangers.  Well, the law kind, not the baseball kind, cause they really suck this year. I don’t know what those idiots up in Arlington think they’re doing? but that trade was really messed up. Do you like baseball?

SAMPLE 4: Hemp.

SAMPLE 5: Y’all are doing a wonderful job, like every time I get in a car crash? But it wasn’t my fault cause there was a branch and stuff in front of the stop sign. Except the times where you shoot someone without a really really good reason. I’m sorry, okay, but that is like, totally unacceptable. Is there like a snack machine around here? What? Oh yeah, this is hemp, dude, like send it back to the rope factory!

SAMPLE 6: This is pot, I don’t care what the guy said, lock him up. No, I’m good. Next.

SAMPLE 7: I love whatever it is you’re playing over the sound system! Do you know the name of the band? It’s just the ventilation system? Well you should like record it and make a video! Like you could be in your uniforms but all friendly and stuff. Like, uh huh, uh huh, IT’S NOT ABOUT THE WEAPON, WE SERVIN’ AND PROTECTIN’. Right? I could really go for some cold cherry Kool Aid right now. Oh right, hemp, yeah, absolutely.

SAMPLE 8: Hey, you guys want a hit? It’s just hemp, but it’s still pretty awesome!

Once again, we perform a public service, free of charge.

1. Never drink Coke or other soft drink with dinner.  Acceptable beverages are: water, wine, beer, or iced tea.  Never drink a Coke with lunch unless you are a professional model, sitting outside, drinking from a glass bottle with a straw. Coke is never acceptable for breakfast unless your breakfast consists of a bearclaw, in which case I have nothing to say to you anyway.

2. Never place ketchup on a hot dog or mayonnaise on a hamburger. Have some respect for the food and for yourself.  If you are stranded on a desert island with only hamburgers and a jar of mayonnaise, carefully unscrew the jar and dump the mayonnaise in the sea, taking care not to poison any fish.  Rinse the jar (if it’s ‘Dijonnaise’ then also urinate into it to make absolutely certain no trace of toxic material remains), dry it thoroughly, and put a note in it asking someone for god’s sake to send you some mustard.

3. Only discuss art and politics with people who already agree with you. When it’s all over there will be fewer hard feelings and exactly the same number of changed minds as if you had actually argued with someone.

4. If you are dancing with a partner, do not chew gum. It makes you appear as though you wish you were somewhere else. I’m talking to you, ladies. Unless you actually wish you were somewhere else. Message received.

5. Do ask someone how they are. Do not under any circumstances ask anyone if they are having an awesome day.

6. If you really must tell a “how I got stuck at the airport” type story, keep it under 45 seconds. No, 30. I’m begging you.

7. Who are the coolest people, like, ever? People like Harry Belafonte, James Bond, Joan Baez, Gloria Steinem, Marlon Brando, maybe.  And can you imagine any one of them in public looking down at a tiny screen they’re holding with both hands and giggling like an idiot?

8. Never serve wine to guests that costs less than $10 or more than $25.  If more, guests will feel obliged to praise it. If you want to serve $100 wine, then buy a $5 bottle, dump it out (or drink it), and pour the good stuff into the cheap bottle. When your guests express astonishment at your oenological acumen, assume a slightly irritated expression and say, “I will never understand why people will pay a hundred dollars for swill.”

9. Phrases to forget: “Cool beans!” “It’s all good!” “We need to have a national conversation.”

10. Do not base your behavior on some idiot’s list.

As we celebrate Independence Day here in the Garden of Eaton (located, naturally, somewhere in Texas) we find that it’s a good time to think about how to think about our “Founding Fathers”, and in particular George Washington, “Father of our Country”. A brave soldier, a wise and daring general.  A farmer-warrior-citizen. A popular, far-seeing statesman whose decision not to run for a third term as president set the example for peaceful transitions of power ever since.  An actual hero if there ever was one. That’s the story I got in elementary school, and as far as it goes, it’s true.

The problem is where that story doesn’t go.  George also owned slaves, that is, other human beings whom he bought and sold and forced to labor for his benefit.  (Somehow they forgot this part of the story in my school.) Does that make him a monster?

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all slavery is monstrous. (If you disagree with this, we have nothing more to discuss.  Goodbye and enjoy whatever revisionist delusional propaganda turns you on.) And by definition, a monster is someone who does monstrous things. Washington was a slave owner, was aware of what he was doing, and had to be familiar with abolitionist opinion that could have and should have clued him in to the evil he was doing.  Yet he continued to own slaves for as long as he lived.  He was every bit a monster as someone who, for example, doesn’t particularly hate Jews but sees nothing wrong in borrowing a few hundred from a concentration camp to work for free as prisoners in his factory. Would any of us build monuments and name states and cities after that guy?  No.  And I can’t escape the conclusion that George was a monster. A heroic monster.  A monstrous hero.

Now, I happen to believe in degrees of monstrosity, or evil. At least Washington went to some pains to ensure that his slaves would be released upon his death, unlike his wife, the saintly (so we were taught) Martha, who owned slaves in her own right, slaves whose descendants eventually ended up belonging to the wife of a certain Robert E. Lee.  Maybe that takes just a shave off of his evilness.  And we have all of his heroic feats.  In the evil-saint spectrum from, say, Adolph Hitler (or Jefferson Davis) representing the extreme limit of the former, and Dr. Martin Luther King (the purest latter-day representation I know of an American life lived in imitation of Christ) the latter, I propose that Washington falls about in the middle.

So now what?  Should we rename Washington, D.C. to M.L. King, D.C.? (Or better yet, M.L. King, D.N.A. – District of Native America?) Do we rename the Washington Monument as Harriet Tubman Tower? Washington State to Cesar Chavez State?  Washington Square to Susan B. Anthony Square? Take the old slaver off the dollar (and the quarter) and replace him with James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and/or Michael Schwerner?  I for one don’t think these are ridiculous ideas. But they kind of evade the important point. We need to be clear-eyed about who our “heroes” were and what they did, clear with ourselves and with our children.  We have to appreciate the sacrifices they made, their enormous accomplishments political, practical and intellectual, while acknowledging the enduring harm they inflicted on our fellow Americans.  And think twice about giving them pride of place in our pantheon of heroes.