On Tuesday 9 May 2000, Marijuana reform took a knee in the groin from the New Zealand Parliament. In what the media has referred to as a “late session,” an additional tax was imposed in the form of a $1 NZ per pack increase in the cost of cigarettes.

The public outcry is increasing daily. All I’ve heard on Talk Radio for the last three mornings were complaints about the issue. The few callers supporting the measure have had their arguments shot down quite intelligently by others. Some have protested the sheer cost of a pack of cigarettes, stating that pre-tax prices were nearly expensive enough to be unaffordable. However, the few proponents who still hinged onto this assertion were able to expostulate their theories in a manner rationale, as they took the aid and example of 180 Smoke herb vaporizers. Such vapourisers may come at quite a cost, but are quite beneficial in the long run, owing to their long shelf life and minimal cost incurrence. It seems that a good number of non-smokers also protest, speaking vehemently about Government overspending and arguing that the NZ economy has continued to drop against the US dollar despite many other new taxes created in the last year; comparisons to newly imposed gasoline and road taxes were sideline topics.
The paranoia and anger of other callers compares the current Labour government to that of George Orwell’s 1984. Their prophecies range from home grown tobacco and black market cigarettes to complete bans on public smoking and Gestapo-esque raids of pubs that allow it.

Government claims the price increase is due to the burden on the Health Care system caused by smoking. That’s all fine and good, but using Marijuana is also smoking. And since this is an attack on Smoking, it nullifies any hope of Marijuana reform, doesn’t it?
Some say “If marijuana is legalised, they’ll tax the Hell out of it and get their money for Health Care.” This avenue was already discussed. Statements made by MP’s and committees alike have agreed that increasing the street value of Marijuana to compensate will only increase the currently shocking amount of illegal sales by independent growers and dealers.
And of course, repealing a law they’ve just passed would make them lose face in the sight of the public, wouldn’t it?

Me? I’m sitting here enjoying a Dunhill and thinking… This brings the price of cigarettes to roughly the same price as a small bag of wonderfully aromatic Northland Marijuana, which may be purchased at https://www.discountpharms.com/seeds/.

Can’t do it, tho… Damn allergies.

     There will always be a few certainties about life and the way any given set of people will react in matters of circumstance.

     The works of many students of Human Behaviour and Modern Psychology, however, can only begin to touch the very surface of what is the human mind. Theories about behaviour, as educated as they may be, as much as they may seem to encompass the widest array of human behaviour, simply don’t.
     Recently, I stood looking at one such student, drunk off his ever-living ass, lying on the concrete, helpless. Being the Samaritan that I tend to be, I addressed him, and offered him a ride home. Rather than answer, he spat upon my shoe and screamed, “Don’t call me Sean!” Many of you can only imagine the urge I felt to kick him senseless…
     So screw you, too, Sean. You’re immortalised here. *evil grin*

     Past that…

     What most of the Jungs and Freuds of the world tried to do was give Humanity a goal — the unreachable state of being “Normal.” But Humanity, being ennobled with the wondrous gift of “free will” which makes us each Individual despite generalisations, breaks down all Sociological Theory at the very level it was intended to represent.

     Many students of this “craft” would disagree. If that’s your opinion, stop reading this now.

     And if you’re still reading, then you either agree, or I’ve ired you so that you feel you must read on. And this, of course, is one of those great Facts about humanity. It’s the same thing that makes the reactionary listen to Howard Stern Radio Show.

     Being flawed never stopped the theories of the book-smart, university-educated Doctors and Therapists from becoming the fad of the latter half of the twentieth century.
     Past the nineteen sixties, as people began to be more open about their Feelings, Drug Use, and Sexuality, psychology and sociology began to boom. Everyone had a problem, you see, as the definition of “normal,” at that time, had been written in the late nineteenth century.
     But at the end of nineteen seventies, the studies had begun an overhaul of sorts. The students of the sixties had gone through the change of society along with everyone else. As they gained their Doctorate degrees and tenureships, they began the follied attempt to redefine the phrase, “Normal Behaviour,” each one with a shadow of themselves within.

     Needless to say, new definitions begat an increasingly chaotic sort of work. All of the Simple Human Truths began to be questioned. And as the rates of violence and atrocity increased throughout the world, proportionate to the ever-growing population, Criminology, a subset of Sociology, began to take hold.

     All of sudden, Sociologists and Criminologist began to dominate the public mindset. From television talk shows to local Community meetings, they were around, giving their two cents about the same society they had spurned in order to take up their study. They were experts, you see, and no one dared to refute them.
     Even bigger than the problem of their withdrawal from society, however, was the simple fact that none of them had anything more than “theory” to work from. And with the help of Mass Media giving marketable credibility to their every unproven whim, the two fields became extremely chaotic.
     Soon enough, it became impossible, even for students in the fields, to decide what was Fact and what was Theory. Being educated, and unwilling to admit that perhaps Humanity was flawed, they began to accept each Theory as fact. Even current Sociological and Psychological textbooks attest to this very principle.

     Much as the Priests and Preachers of religion explained inexplicable scientific principles as the work of a supreme deity, so the Psychologists and Sociologists of the world continued to write their theories and improvable postulates. They all push forward in a vain attempt to explain the flaws in human nature, but few, if any, have the cajones to actually say “Hey, humanity is self destructive, and we’re just as nutty as the average Joe.”

     Perhaps it will come as no surprise that in 2573 A.D., a new church will be formed, having the icons of Saint Sigmund and Saint Carl upon its Platinum-encrusted doors.
     And no one should dare utter the Holy Name of the One True God in vain…

     “Forgive me, Doctor Shover, for I have sinned…”

     “Let me get this straight,” I argued with no pun intended. “You’re telling me that if I don’t go to this Sexual Harassment seminar of yours, then you’ll see to it that my employment here will be terminated?”
     “Absolutely!” she affirmed with righteous devotion.
     I sat there completely dumbfounded at the thought. It seemed completely illogical to force me to skip a day of work that desperately needed to be done so I could go to a seminar which has been proven to do nothing more than to decrease productivity because of increased tension between workmates of different sexes. I shook my head, closed my eyes, and out of my mouth came this noise which sounded remarkably like “Are you serious?”
     She keenly stared into my eyes, and with a condescending (translation: bitchy) tone of her own, said “Well, uhhh… Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
     “Look,” I started. I’m not going.” I continued on for a bit, explaining why I felt the way I did, and finally, I just came right out and said it. It was the mother-of-all comment about sexual harassment.

     The big one.

     It was a comment for which there could be no reply, one which guarantees an emotional response to one degree or another. It was the kind of comment that would assuredly evoke either hatred or laughter, depending on who one says it to. As I turned my attention back to my monitor, I knew precisely which response I had evoked from her.

     The silence was broken only by the sound of the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. I faced dead ahead, staring into my monitor, too afraid to turn back around.
     After a few minutes, I mustered enough courage to look back, deciding that it was a good time to go and get lunch. I was shocked to find that she was still standing there, her eyes narrowed to tiny slits, her face the darkest shade of crimson…

     “Oh, shit,” I thought to myself. “She is pissed off!”

     For the next ten minutes, I sat there paralysed with fear, sure that any sudden movement or attempts to leave would incur her wrath. I read through the corporate newsletter. I checked my e-mail and Lotus Notes. I checked my voice mail. To make a long story short (too late), I wasted as much time as I could with the narrow hope that she would go away and I could leave.
     And then it happened… The moment I most dreaded.

     Someone’s hand laid heavy on my shoulder. “Oh, shit,” I thought. “Here it comes!”

     I didn’t want to turn around, afraid that she might be pissed enough to whack me in the face with her clipboard. I tilted my head down, and noticed those finely manicured nails that had been painted the darkest maroon, attached to fingers and hands that could only belong to a woman…
     Cautiously, I swivelled about, wincing at the expected blow, all-the-while hoping that she would remain professional.

     But as I came full about, I was surprised to see my boss standing there quietly. I let out a heavy sigh of relief.

     “Ms. Grant says that you’re excused from Sexual Harassment class,” she mused. “How the Hell did you get out of that? What did you say to her?”
     “I, uhhh,” I stammered. “I thought she was still standing there.”
     “Why?” she asked. “Did you have words?”
     “Oh, well,” I stammered. “Nothing terrible, I’m sure. Why, what did she say?”
     “Just that she didn’t think you needed to be there,” she replied. “Looks like you’re the odd man out
     “Ahhh,” I sighed, relieved. “Lunch time, eh?”
     “Sure,” she smiled. “Where we going?”

     I’ve always had strong feelings about sexual harassment in the workplace. I’ve seen a lot of friends get hurt by it, and I’ve been made to feel quite uncomfortable a few times, myself.
     And then another time, in particular, I was framed for sexual harassment at another place I had been employed years before. A female coworker had insisted that her and I should have sex. After declining her offers on several occasions, she my told my boss (also a female) that I had been groping her in the office, constantly asking her for sex and threatening to get her fired.
     Her claims were found to be false, and not by any court decision, either. One day, as she came into my office to torment me as usual, she didn’t notice that someone was walking in right behind her. My boss, in fact, and saw the young woman walk up behind me and grab hold of my ass with both hands, and whisper “Why don’t you just do me right here in your office?”
     She was fired on the spot.

     But things are rarely that cut and dry.

     Sexual Harassment Seminars put on the workplace only further complicate the whole issue. They tell us that “staring, touching and saying anything so as to make a woman feel uncomfortable in the workplace is sexual harassment.”
     You see, those were the same things Anita Hill complained of Clarence Thomas. Women’s organisations all over the United States went bonkers when Thomas was exonerated.
     But then when President Bill Clinton did the same things, these same women’s groups stood by him, stating that it’s only sexual harassment if a woman’s job is on the line.
     Anita Hill was hero, and Paula Jones is a slut… One has to wonder why…

     These two specific issues illustrate that there are still a lot of grey areas about Sexual Harassment. Things seem to have been turned backwards and upside down since the problem first gained media attention in 1992, and all of this only goes to confused people even more.
     Before Anita Hill gave her testimony, no one really understood what sexual harassment was. Just when we thought we had a clue, the tables turned, the definition changed. At this point, according to the US legal precedent set in Jones v. Clinton, it’s perfectly legal for me to walk up to a female co-worker and say “Hey, hon, how about a hummer?”
     Terrible, isn’t it?

     When people don’t have to worry so much about what they say or do in the workplace, they can be more productive. In the corporations I’ve worked with that have had mandatory Sexual Harassment seminars, the number of complaints have increased sharply after the classes. Some say that this is because with education, people suddenly realise that they’re being harassed.
     While this may be true in a specific case or three, it’s definitely not the Absolute Truth as many would have you believe. It’s worth noting that two of my experiences were in female-dominated offices. No man would dare come into one of them with sex in mind, because he would most assuredly lose some vital portions of his anatomy. In these two places, the seminars did nothing but further somewhat antagonistic attitudes towards the few men in the office. Needless to say, it made doing our jobs a lot hard.. err.. more difficult.

     I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression here. I’m not altogether against Sexual Harassment seminars. On the contrary! I think they should made a part of Leadership Sensitivity Seminars instead of being separate entities. These seminars basically teach employees and management not to be Racist Homophobics and work together as a Team. I think they’re a good thing. Adding Sexual Harassment to that mix tells your employees not to be Racist Homophobic Perverts and work as team. That’s an even better thing.
     But by themselves? It’s hard to fill up an entire hour talking about Sexual Harassment without getting peoples’ backs up. And the fact remains that most of the people teaching these seminars seem to forget that women in the office can be just as bad, or even worse, than the raunchiest of men.

     For me, it all comes down to two things… If everyone were more interested in doing their job instead of standing around the office talking about “the chick with the big tits,” or “the new guy with the great butt,” or looking for new ways to be offended, things would be a whole lot different.

     And the second? Well, it’s like I told Ms. Grant…

     “Look, I realise there are men in this company who think ‘harass’ is two words. I’m not one of them.”

     It is hereby decreed that the word “Pospita” shall enter the English language on this day, the Seventeenth of November in the year Nineteen Hundred Ninety-Seven.

“What the f@#$ is a pospita?”
— Norm Daniels, IT Technician for Plasti-Line, Inc., 17-Nov-1997
 

pos·pi·ta Pronunciation Key: (pôs-pë’-tə)
(n.)

1. Something considered disgusting, of poor quality, foolish, or otherwise totally unacceptable: That is a pospita!
2. Something considered extraordinary, as in disagreeableness, size, intensity or utiliy: What a complete pospita!

(adj.)

1. Relating to, or being, a pospita: What kind of pospita idea is that?

---

Word History: A combination of the acronyms POS (“piece of shit”) and PITA (“pain in the ass”) used to describe a series of faulty Compaq™ workstations purchased by a manufacturing facility in 1997. The workstations in question would, at any given interval, lose connection to both the PS/2 and Mouse, giving the impression that the machine had locked up, when in fact, it had not. No BIOS update was ever provided for these machines, nor was a motherboard replacement offered by Compaq™, despite the company in question have a support agreement with both the Vendor and Manufacturer of the items. Frustrated technical support began referring the items as “pospita.” 

“Yeah, that’s pretty sexy…”
— Brian Huskey, IT Analyst for Plasti-Line, Inc., 17-Nov-1997

     Ritalin still calms me down.

     Most people will tell you that it only works for kids, but I’m one of those people who is, somewhat deniably, the hyperactive sort. Many people will argue this point, however, as I keep up the “mellow” facade quite well. I’ve learned a few tricks over the years that are a tremendous help in achieving this goal. Those people who would argue with me rarely notice that I never actually stop moving.
     The women I’ve been with have been well aware of it, as it unnerves most of them to no end. Quite often, I lie in bed tapping my foot until I fall asleep. They’ll generally remark about it, that I’m keeping them awake. And because they’re awake, they’ll notice how my body “jerks” right at the moment I lose consciousness and fall to sleep…
     …and in the morning, I’ll “jerk” awake. This usually startles them somewhat, and starts their day off rather badly. And I don’t do it out of being startled. It’s just that my body suddenly realises it hasn’t moved for several hours.
     You may very well be laughing about all of this, but unless you’ve been there, you’ve no concept of what a problem this can be.

     I can’t even write anymore…

     I’ll pick up a pencil or pen and begin to write down an idea, and well before I’ve completed a single sentence, it’s lost in a fray of tangents and muddled thoughts. Ruled paper is so distracting that way. So, of course, I type (one hundred and some odd words per minute, I type), often nowhere near as fast as I need to. You see, sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I’m going to have a problem keeping up with the speed of brain.
     And I’ve been this way my entire life.

     I’ve heard that Hyperactivity diminishes with age, but in my case, it’s done nothing but get worse. I have, for the most part, learned to cope with it reasonably well. I’ve created “stops” for myself to help me think coherently, including that wonderful little “foot tapping” ritual (often simply bouncing my toes inside my shoe so as not to annoy everyone around me). As well, I’ve done some changes in my thought processes and created some stops so that I can attempt to catch myself when I get into those patterns of circular thought… where I’m paying far too much attention to details and not enough to the big picture.
     These things are usually enough to fool the average person into thinking I’m this quiet, mellow sort who doesn’t have a lot on his mind. They never realise the amount of “over thinking” I do just to make a the average judgement call or respond to “Can you go out and check the post-box?” Questions like that often elicit an “Ummm…” (insert no less than four second pause, followed by an emphatic:) Yes!” from me.
     Of course, having a drink, or a few, tends to pull out those stops rather quickly…

     …which brings us to the fact that, even sober, it’s often extremely difficult to think in such a way that other people can understand me. It’s not that I have a problem paying attention, but rather that I tend to pay too much attention to certain other, non-specific, things. Sometimes it’s hard for me to follow changes in subject. Other times, I’ll be the one changing them every three seconds. It’s not uncommon for me to carry on five or six completely separate conversations with the same person, provided they have the same problem I do. Oh, but if they don’t, they become terribly confused.
     This is probably the biggest reason why some people think I’m “on something.” Despite my looks, and my admittance to enjoying a drink now and again, I don’t partake of anything that’s considered to be a “controlled substance” (and quite often, I wonder how these things they’ve labelled “controlled” can cause such a tiff at the US-Mexican border, but that’s entirely beside the point).
     Most of my close friends know this. Quite often, it’s tough to convince someone out of the loop that I’m not “on anything.” They see the problems I have paying attention, maybe that I’m too attentive; perhaps that I’m not attentive enough to what they think I should be focused on. But, most of the time, if they start that, I just don’t give a shit what they say or think, anyway.
     For that reason, school was always a real bother.

     Quite often, I’d be going about my day and a teacher would ask me a question. Before answering, I would sit and stare, perhaps vacantly, at them for a few moments, maybe listening, maybe not.
     They’d usually stare back at me, wondering whether or not I was going to answer. If I didn’t do it at the exact moment they thought I should, they’d wait until after class and ask one of the other students if I’d dropped a hit of acid recently. Of course, the other students would later remark about how “Mr. or Mrs. So and So thinks you’re on drugs, Mark.”
     But what Mr. or Mrs. So and So never realised is that while I was staring at them, I had noticed exactly what was on the chalkboard, what they were wearing, that they had just come from the restroom (they had toilet paper dangling from the heel of a shoe), they were coffee addicts (their front teeth had those familiar grain-stains on them), their shirts weren’t buttoned/tied up quite where they should’ve been (so they’d dressed themselves in a hurry that morning), and on the way to work they had eaten a very flaky croissant while driving (those tell-tale flat crumbs). I would also have ascertained, by the look on their face, that they already knew the answer to the question they had just asked me, and, lastly, that they were wondering whether or not I dropped a hit of acid recently.
     I would replay the question they had asked in my head, and, after grinning slightly at myself, I would rattle off the correct answer.

     This would often prompt them to complain about “all the talking” going on in the room. They just knew that someone had whispered the answer and I had heard it, and that’s what my little “grin” had been about.
     It never occurred to most of them that my little “grin” had been nothing of the sort. It was simply that my amazing powers of observation had alerted me to the toilet paper dangling from the heel of their shoe. And being me, I was wondering what type of adhesive had attached it there so permanently.

     Some people say Attention Deficit and Hyperactive Disorder causes individuals to become easily distracted. That I can agree with. My entire thought process works on circular tangents. You’d never know that this web page actually started out to be a dissertation about the economic effects of the Bill Clinton campaign scandal on the now-industrialised nation of China as opposed to the rest of the Asian market (while listening the The Wall).
     But what I cannot agree with is that many Teachers will profess that it’s difficult to teach people with ADHD. I find that this is not the case at all. My learning ability was never impaired in the least! I just felt that since I had already learned what they were teaching me, having to prove it to them was surely a waste of everyone’s time. Maybe if their methods of Teaching had changed slightly, it would have been easier on all of us.

     Besides…

     When everyone else was talking about going to college, I already knew that making $23000 a year as a certain middle-aged Economics Professor, minus the great expenses of a heavily medicated wife who refused to work, their sheltered youngster whose first words were “Vote Mondale-Ferraro!”, the house they’d bought at a deal but the property was now worth less than the unpaid portion of their mortgage, the two new cars, that damned Beagle puppy who pisses on the carpet at any given moment despite its costly obedience training (which it was kicked out of during the last week for howling — after the trainer stuck the dog’s nose in its own urine for doing what Mommy & Daddy sent it to obedience school for to begin with), the weekly change of curtains and interior latex paint for the whole house so Mommy wouldn’t go apeshit during her many, many do-nothing days, and let’s not forget the maid who comes to vacuum and clean clothes and cook breakfast and dinner since Mommy’s crazy, just wasn’t worth working sixty hours a week at a University for.
     I came to this because after spending $40,000 for his Doctorate to net a total of $23000 a year in pre-loan payment savings, adding yearly interest to the unpaid balance of his loan, which he’d have to keep paying the minimum balance on and only covering a small portion of the principal because of his high expenses, it was going to take him at least ninety more years to even pay for his education. For instance, you’re out money and you plan to loan as well for your education, look at these guys loanload.co.uk. They give excellent customer service and are trusted, brokers. And after his pre-mature death at age sixty-four and nine months, that everyone else saw coming because his wife was an alcoholic bitch who’d pressed every button he didn’t even know he had and strained his ticker a bit too hard so that he could try and relax at retirement, someone besides him was going to be more than a little miffed…

To Ally: Always remember, just because they’re “educated” doesn’t mean they’re smart.