chollaball.net

I firmly support monthly birthdays!  G firmly supports closing her eyes and waiting for presents.

$4 from Big Lots

its a kickboard. A KICKBOARD. Not a keyboard.

never leave cake behind!

After not swimming in the pool for a week, G got right in with me without her wings and set immediately to doggie-paddling.  She had no issues relearning or handling fear.  She swam the week before in Rocky Point, but in a new pool and her being challenged aplenty by the ocean, we did not want to push her without her wings.  Much like I often ride something familiar to reinforce lessons from riding something scary, her break from swimming lessons seemed to make her braver, as she did not panic when she was dipping under or struggling to reach safety.  Each attempt she went further and further, and you could see the confidence grow on her as she focused on moving rather than her face going under.  By the end of our afternoon she was having me pull her under to touch the bottom with her feet.  By the next day she was going down the slide without wings, and then letting us pull her down face-first to touch the bottom with her hands, after which she surfaced and got to safety by herself.

120 degrees

The cheese was my brain, boiled from the heat by the finish. What in the hell convinced me to do this ride with an expected high of 113 is probably testimony to the fact that my brain was cheese before I even got on the bike.  I was carrying a 2-day dehydration hangover, the result of a Wedneday NR where I got punished by my buddy Dustin, lost some tools when my pack’s zipper came open due to all the slack from the bladder being emptied, and subsequently went out again at 5am 2 mornings later looking for them.   I found them 8 miles from home, still sitting in the trail where they fell.  Hardly anyone else was stupid enough to venture out in this heat wave.  Coming down the Mine Trail at 6:15am, the descent was all in shade and the evap effect from the river made it downright chilly for the most refreshing 2 minutes of the week, but that was a distant memory when I rolled out at 4:40am the next day to push onward in my preparations for the Crazy 88.

The ride was sluggish from the start, but a hard deadline of 8:55 so Beckie could take Kila and Turtle to the vet, and the gratuitous weight of a camera provided motivation.  The last hour when you finally come out of the mountains and still have 20 miles til the end averaged about 23 mph over the gradual downhill, and left me with shakes as the temperature rose over 105.

historic church buttressed up against the Superstitions


thick desert fauna lines the route

century plants still in bloom at the top, looking back down into the basin

beginning of the descent off the mesa from the end of the pavement. lots of other riders out today

coming back down into Canyon Lake on the ride home

smiling cause the final climb out of the lake is almost over, 1.5 hrs to go

I’ve been very pissed off and political lately. All the morality and hypocrisy I’ve been swallowing in AZ’s DUI and pot laws has made me pay a lot of attention to gun laws, since their regulation (or lack-of) is zealously defended on the basis of personal freedom, and this eye on freedom seems to have been put out when it comes to drinking and driving.  You can get a DUI in AZ by having your keys within 50 feet of your car.  Go to a bar, call a cab, fetch your laptop from your car, go to jail.  Move car seats around in your driveway with the front doors closed and the back doors and trunk open and your keys on the ground and a beer on the roof, go to jail.  Yet at the same time we are considering a law in AZ to do away with all licensing requirements for a CCW.   Just last week there was an article in the Republic about a guy who brought one to India, and then was dumbfounded when he got busted.

I can’t get behind the NRA zealots since their arguments are almost all about philosophy without any nod toward the reality of guns in society.  Too many of them sound like they have never read the Constitution, and just want to blow shit up.   Too many of the anti-gun people cite only crime stats without any respect for the idea of a free society.  They ignore stats that suggest violent crimes are worse when outlawing guns leaves only guns in the hands of outlaws.  I spent some time reading some websites on either side of the debate, and all I can conclude is that both sides are completely and totally full of shit.  What none of them seemed to provide is an analysis of the situation in a technical and economic context, prior to getting all wrapped up in morality.

When I did stand-up a long time ago I had a pretty funny bit about how the Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment when the only gun was a ball-and-powder musket, and I’d do a little move where I pretend to shoot, then use the mic stand as a prop to imitate packing the powder back down as your prepared to reload.  Hilarity ensued.  The technical limitations and lack of range and accuracy made a musket a very poor choice for an offensive weapon.  It was probably among the most expensive possessions a man owned, right up there with his horse and saddle.  People lived in filth, guns jammed, powder didn’t light, the bullet store was half a day’s ride into town or something you made in your barn smelting metal from old nails you pulled out of a horseshoe and burned over a fire lit by a tree you chopped.  That’s the baseline of the 2nd Amendment.

A bit of research online suggests that in 1875 a Colt Peacemaker cost about 1 month’s wages for the average man.  It may have been better maintained and better manufactured, but I would think the average cowboy riding around on dirt roads and frontier kicked it full of dust while it was strapped to his waist or saddle all day long.  To tolerate the conditions it had to operate in, the gun must have sacrificed range and accuracy, and you still hear how guns regularly jammed.  My camera spends one day at the beach and a little piece of grit gets trapped in a small ratcheting mechanism and destroys it.  My bike in the back of my truck travelling 10 miles down a dirt road needs a wipe down.  8 hours of riding and my drivetrain ghosts shifts mercilessly.  The conditions had to affect the gun’s use, and while 6 shots and a better rifles certainly become more offensive in function, you also hear about people barely hitting 50 yards.  Lack of sights and well made bullets etc all realistically were limits.   I am no expert, and will not pretend to be one, but it seems a no-brainer the average use was not in an ideal laboratory setting.

As per wikipedia and the 2005 census, the average male income in the US was $39,400.  2 minutes shopping online found an AK47 for $1000, AR-15 for $1200, and a 9mm for $300.  In real dollar terms, you can get the 15 shot 9mm with better accuracy and firepower for 1/10th the cost of the 1875 Peacemaker. Factor in the ease of obtaining guns and supplies, cleaner conditions and ease of service, and the gun today is a totally different tool than the gun of the Revolutionary War.

As a libertarian i think guns should be legal, but the data argues in favor intelligent, evolving regulation that balances the goal of freedom with the reality of modern society.

and now for the obligatory “why do you hate America?”

REPEAT

This weekend marked my 29th and 30th rides in Rocky Point over the last 3 years.  I am the foremost authority on riding there, heck even Scott (the most encyclopedic trail guy I know) once asked me for gpx’s of the area.  This isn’t saying much, since I am also the only rider down there…just call me the Outlaw Josey Wales.

not quite alone

The new Homeland Security requirements for passports to Mexico are killing our rentals, and even friends have been unable to come with us. But my posts on RP are among the most trafficked on my blog, so the interest is there. Its kinda cool to be the only one showing Rocky Point’s scenes, and its kept me trawling for new pictures. The weekend did not disappoint as I explored the shipyard, though without a friend I was unable to get pics of riding down the gangplanks!  The vids of the staircases were the best I could manage by myself.

My shiny bike is playing havoc on the camera’s autofocus.  But I also think my new Canon Powershot 1100 is a step back from the Powershot 1000 it replaced – not like I know jack about cameras, just seems to have trouble handling intense brightness and contrast.

All weekend we balanced having fun and avoiding heatstroke.  You couldn’t walk on the sand without shoes, but the water was fantastic and no jelly fish.  I bought a bunch of kites for G, and much fun was had.  We also used the pool at The Village for the first time – the security guard lives in the house across the street from us, owned by the woman who sold us our window coverings.  So a little friendly chatting along with us knowing a few owners and we escaped the heat in their excellent pool each night.  The EZ UP was indispensable.

how is it Beckie spends exactly 14 seconds flying the kite with G and gets the best pic?

Poor Alana got sunburned from barely 10 minutes of exposure even with sunscreen on.  We all were feeling pretty fried by Sunday, so spent the day on the balcony where I *gasp* read a book for the first time in forever.  An osprey flew so close to us we could see the mottled color of his wings and the prey still wriggling in his talons.

osprey nest on the pole centered in this picture, taken without zoom from our balcony

taken from the street right under the nest

Cafe society shudders!  George Braque laughs! Museum curators gnash their teeth since they must now display that picture of the dogs playing poker!  Chollaball wallows in his overpriced liberal arts education!  This was a tragic loss to the art world, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Why do you write or paint or create, if you are not getting paid?  For yourself? For attention and self-esteem?  The inevitable answer is some of both, otherwise why bother having a website when you could just have a diary?

The creative undertaking must be personal, but the appreciation and attention adds to the satisfaction for me, not because I need validation, but because the idea becomes more powerful when its appreciated by others like-minded. The audience, even if anonymous and never encountered, inspires me to surround the kernel of creativity with rigor and discipline and honesty, to make the glimmer of a good idea into a nice piece of work, to achieve by the struggle for quality the genuine catharsis we seek when we create.

Recently I have written some fantastic posts, and kept them private.  The writing and research and sincerity are among the best I’ve ever done.  Its been essential to keeping me from totally losing my shit.  And I want to share it. Some things however, shouldn’t be public. This is not my day job, and often on the internet there is nothing to gain and much to lose.

After he became wildly successful, did Picasso need an audience? Maybe his puppy was all the audience he needed.

This post is a proxy for those I can not publish.

If something is to stay in the memory it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory.

Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges…all this has its origin in the instinct that realized that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics.

The severity of the penal code provides an especially significant measure of the degree of effort needed to overcome forgetfulness and to impose a few primitive demands of social existence.

–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, 2nd essay, section 3

The other day G put her stuffed animal in the sink, after Beckie told her not to.  Then I told her not to, and she did it to another one.  So I scolded her and shrugged her off.  She threw a fit and cried with shame for 5-10 minutes.  Beckie tried to calm her, and that usually works but this time did not, until finally I told her it was ok just don’t do it again.  Then she chilled.

I knew this wait was making her upset, but its just like teaching her to climb the monkeybars, she has to take some hits to learn. Punishment to a child, where it can be infused with an emotional connection, can be tempered.  The feelings G has to the victim — in this case, me — internalizes the sense of wrong and enhances the impact of the punishment such that it need not be extreme.  A society, however, can only offer a conceptual and anonymous connection to the victims of most crimes.   For its punishments to be effective as revenge and deterrent, it must inculcate in the perpetrator an appreciation for an abstract wrong and an abstract victim.  It must replace emotions and empathy with common currencies – time, money, and most of all cruelty – to develop a notion of right and wrong.

The average person who has no experience with the criminal justice system and its role of building deterrents out of abstractions may be unmoved by the idea of penalties, and they do not understand their full severity until the awful weight of the rule of law is pressing down upon them.  By then the deterrent is only useful for future violations.  What remains is vengeance, and a brutal, blunt, yet effective means of establishing a morality for those who lack it.

I think of this every time I think of getting busted. I had no appreciation for Arizona’s status as the toughest state in the nation on DUI, the mandatory minimums, or their role in crafting a behavioral model for society. I think how minor my transgression really was, how close I was to home, how quiet the street was at midnight, how i was not reckless, and how I was cooperative and polite with the cops.

My lawyer wrote me: “Both Officers indicated that you were incredibly polite and both were impressed with how honest you were with them in every aspect of your case. Unfortunately, the City of Mesa prosecutors will not give any weight to this information.“

I wasn’t blowing a .20 and driving a boat home from the lake on a holiday weekend. I got caught by a fluke, no one was close to harmed, and had things been just a bit different I might have been let go. The cops kinda felt bad about busting me, were as easy on me as i was on them, and wished me well with my new daughter.  Even the state-approved instructor at my mandatory Traffic Survival School felt there should be a lesser-charge that reflects the actual danger posed by my infraction.

Singular, monolithic, uncompromising.

It seems unfair, overkill, and impossible to separate the motivations for reform and revenge from the cash cow its become.  But it is effective.  I will never drink and drive again.  The punishments are too severe to ever risk it, and their punitive effects go far beyond what is listed on paper.  Each one comes with so much overhead and bullshit that the reality of its impact far exceeds its description.  My punishments, in no particular order:

• Traffic Survival School – 8 hrs at the reasonable price of only $50.  At least the instructor was low-key, and acknowledged that he was trying to teach us a few things while paying his own bills.  The 8 hrs did not include research, travel, phone calls, follow up, and carrying the certificate with me in the car due to the very real fear that the DMV will not have properly processed my paperwork.

• 30 Days Suspended License, 60 Days Restricted – Thank gawd my suspension started at the end of April instead of the end of June, since I was on my bike so much I came to hate it.  The commuter became my ride of choice while the Heckler’s tires went flat and my participation in the South Mountain Park Steward Program waned.  My knees ached, my back was sore, and I was unable to get to regular yoga classes or my chiropractor.  My license is also maxed out on points for 2 years, so any minor moving violation during that window and I’m handed another suspension for 3-12 months.  There are fees to reinstate your license, which are about $50 to the current best of my knowledge.  Who knows?  Announcements from the DMV for every step of the process, all of which have been confusing, dense, and stressful to wonder if they are being properly interpreted.  After my conviction, I received another notice that my license was being suspended, requiring a panicked phone call with long hold times to get clarification that the DMV had just made a mistake on this one triggered by Mesa’s resolution to my case, though no written clarification  from the DMV ever came. to me    All steps involve hoops to complete, and you have very little guarantee that what you are being told and what you expect to happen is actually happening in a timely manner.  I rode my bike to the DMV after my 30 days were up to get my restricted license enabled, only to find the next day that they had automatically mailed it to me anyway.  Its the ultimate bureaucracy, and you are at its mercy.  This is going to continue for years as I fulfill reporting requirements for the interlock.   If you get caught out of compliance, the fault is completely yours as the DMV has no auditing and no accountability unless you get a lawyer to an administrative hearing.  All of which again puts the burden back on me to follow up and confirm every requirement.   The only silver lining is that the DMV is quite good at handling this since they do it so often.  What none of this can describe is how it took away from me my precious mornings with Genevieve, for awhile my love of my bikes, and my ability to contribute to our household.  The few attempts I made to go shopping with the bike trailer were hardly worth the effort, and only Beckie’s infinite patience and empathy from having her own brushes with the law many years ago made this bearable.

• Interlock for 1 year – It will cost about $1k for a year’s rental and maintenance.  Monthly trips for calibration of my device will be required, and I will have to ensure proper reporting back to the DMV is occurring.  These people have thus far been very friendly, realizing what a fine line there is  separating them from being a target of your anger.  Its actually not their fault – they are just supplying a state-created demand.  None of which will help me if the item gets stolen out of my car and I have to deal with reinstallation and new reporting.  The upside – who wants to steal a car with an interlock? The unit is also not foolproof – mouthwash could trigger it, a ripe banana could trigger it, and about 5 positives will lock it out and require a rescue from the agency to come get my car running.  Its not intended to be a BAC tester, its intended to be a BAC preventer.  There is also the possibility that anyone but me driving the car will actually be committing a crime, but neither the DMV nor the interlock company could confirm this info that I got from my Traffic School Instructor.  So for a year every time I start the car I will have to rinse my mouth with cool water and suck on a plastic dick, hunched down so none of my neighbors or co-workers see me.  And about every 20 minutes driving I will have to blow into it again.  You’d think I’d get a break on insurance that first year, cause there is no possible way I can drink and drive, but that won’t happen.  I bought an extra license before the suspension came, so when I need to present ID to anyone but a cop  I won’t have to deal with the humiliation of it saying INTERLOCK in bold letters.

• Jail Time – you pay for your own Tent City stay.  There is an annoying amount of travel and processing for your bid, and if you have to come and go for work furloughs, I can’t imagine how your life is anything other than work and jail and back again.  My 24 hrs stay required about 6 additional hours of bullshit and abuse.

• DUI lawyer -I’ve paid about 3k, and I really am not sure I got any benefit out of it.  Would you have gone it alone? At least I got 1% back on my credit card.

• The paperwork and the courts – I’ve made probably 10 trips downtown to file for paperwork, pick up my paperwork, pick up the rest of my paperwork cause they willingly deliver it to you piecemeal though it does no good until all reports from the cops and the lab are assembled into one package.  Appearances in courts are mandatory for the defendant even if your lawyer is filing for a sure-to-be-approved continuance, since the courts specifically seek to inconvenience the defendants such that their lawyers will not file frivolous motions.  Getting through the metal detectors at the West Mesa Municipal Court with bike shoes and bike tools is a chore, packing your suit into your camelback is another.  By the second trip i just wore khakis and a collared shirt, since my presentability had no bearing on the outcome anyway.

• Fines – Almost 2k.  $500 fine to support prisons, even though my class I misdemeanor specifically can not be punished by a prison term.

• Counseling – 2 screenings at $75 and $60, the first to get my license moved from suspended to restricted, where they did not tell me correctly if this service would also be good for my case with the City of Mesa, though I did ask. Mesa ordered me to go to another screening agency, where they grasped at any straws I offhandedly mentioned to justify my 36-hr assignment and their ~$400 class fees. When I called them on their embellishments to my history, and asked for the 16 hr minimum, they quickly shifted gears and said 1) my entire history was fair game, so a blackout I might have had 17 years ago in college was relevant to my 39-yr old attitudes, and 2) my one decision to drive warranted the 36 hrs. That is as many hours as a college course! What is 36 hrs of bullshit from a poorly-paid recovering alcoholic going to teach me that all the rest of these punishments hasn’t? Then they subcontracted me out to another agency where I paid another orientation fee of $35 before I actually start my 36 hrs. The above does not address the brainwashing and bullshit I’ve had to swallow thus far, only half way through my hours – it will be the subject of another post.  I spent the better part of a workday researching my health insurance’s requirements for getting this counseling covered, only to find out that the counseling Agency does not provide the type of paperwork the health insurance requires.  So according to the experts I have a problem, but they will not alleviate the effects of my problem by letting my health insurance pay for it!  $450 would cover a lot of cab rides.  I spent several more hours preparing a request for coverage with the documentation that I did have, and to my amazement health insurance picked up 80% of the tab after i sent them a 25 page fax of documents and receipts.

• Insurance – This cost me about $700 a year extra for 3 years, but at least the searching revealed some companies that will provide coverage for not significantly more than what I was paying previously.

• Police profiling – This you will never hear anyone admit to, except almost everyone in my counseling sessions including the counselors.  Cops will scan license plates and target those that come back with the registered owner having had a DUI.  So I’ve kept the hitch rack on the car for a year straight, figuring this minor civil offense will be worth a fine or two if it keeps cops from hassling me.   My driving behavior, my drinking behavior, have both undergone genuine and dramatic changes and I am a better citizen for it, but who knows if that will obscure the big fat scarlet target on my back.  Nothing will allay the paranoia I feel for at least 2 years til my license cools down.

• Shame, embarrassment, humiliation, or just running from confrontation like a dog that’s been beaten – About 5 of my friends knew about this initially, and without their kind words and positive reinforcement I would have surely sunk into depression.  I hide my dirty little secret from my coworkers, my neighbors, my family.  According to the counselors 1 in 4 people in AZ will receive a DUI – 1 in 4 – yet I still feel like a pariah.

Total of all this with insurance will be almost 10k. Every time I get mad, I struggle to point my anger back at myself:  I was the one who fucked up, no one else.  But its really hard to acknowledge one’s guilt and mistakes when the penalties and consequences are so out-of-line with the effects.  Nonetheless, what choice do I have?  The only good to come out of this is if it never happens again.

Would I be so motivated to never let this happen again if it only cost me 1k, some points on my license, and a 30-day suspension?  Honestly, no.  Would I have been motivated enough…yes, probably.  Having no car and 2 little kids for a month in summer in AZ, then paranoia that every time I do take them to daycare might be construed as a violation of my restricted license, can have quite an effect on your attitude.  And having had a sample, this very same punishment for a second offense would be more than enough to deter me.  As is, if this ever happens again, I’m looking at 30 days in jail, loss of license for a year, 30k in expenses and probably 2x all the above list.  Presently if I get any moving violation for 2 yrs I lose my license for 3-12 months. AZ’s no limit DUID laws and impaired to the slightest degree laws are the 9th circle, so obscure and impossible to imagine, so Kafka-esque, yet so frightening knowing that now my license plate is being scanned and profiled by any cop with nothing better to do.

One has only to look at our former codes of punishment to understand what effort it costs on this earth to breed a “nation of thinkers.”  — Friedrich Nietzsche

She’s also managed to turn herself over, hurl herself out of a bouncy chair, and get her legs caught in the sides of her crib.  So pants-straps and bumpers have worked their way back into the rotation.  Lacking thorough documentation, I can’t tell if Alana is on pace with G in her physical development.   But it seems that this is where things suddenly started to evolve and G morphed from blob to personhood.  I feel like I have not invested as much time in Alana’s physicality as I did with G.  A constant worry is if we are preparing her for health and success as responsibly as we did with G, or if her physicality will be doomed by the curse of the youngest.   Every time I plan on increasing my efforts on her behalf, I get bored with her poditudality or distracted by G.

Beckie must have been reading my mind, since she set up the bouncer the same day I started writing this.  We have a vid of G from July 10, and she is well ahead of Alana.  But a lot can happen in 2 weeks.

Angry and scared with some new-found knowledge of AZ’s “Zero Tolerance Per Se” and “Impaired to the Slightest Degree” laws, I wrote this letter to Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Hello Dr. Nadelmann and Team,

I am sure you do not remember me, but I was an undergrad student of yours at Princeton in 1992.  Your class was one of the best I attended, and I have followed the DPA closely for almost 5 years.

I recently learned about a law in Arizona (where I’ve lived for almost 15 years) that merits re-evaluation.  If a person is found with any metabolite of marijuana in their system while driving, they can be convicted of DUI.  The drug could have been active weeks before.  The law is documented below in Arizona Revised Statute 28-1381:

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/28/01381.htm

My nightmare scenario is this: I get rear-ended with my kids in the car.  The officer runs my record, sees I have a ticket for running a red-light (AZ also leads the nation in photo-enforcement cameras), profiles me as a problem driver and orders a blood test due to the accident.  It comes up positive due to pot smoked weeks prior, and now I face felony DUI for being under the influence with minors in the car.

I am opposed to driving under the influence.  But this law is practically carte blanche to turn usage into DUI.  AZ has the toughest DUI laws in the country and a very red\Mormon\family-values population that makes a jury trial a very scary proposition.

I have written my representatives about this law.  But the political climate in AZ is not friendly towards any easing of DUI or marijuana laws.  Unfortunately, most of us only find out about these laws after attending Traffic School due to photo enforcement, and by then we are labeled as criminals in denial.

I hope this unfair and punitive law gets the attention of your organization, and would appreciate any suggestions for raising awareness and opposition to it.

Keep up the good work!

I also wrote to State Senator Chuck Gray and Representatives Kirk Adams and Rich Crandall.

I’ve lived in District 19 for 9 years, and recently attended Traffic Survival School due to a photo-enforcement ticket for running a red light. I learned some great lessons about becoming a better driver and the tremendous harms DUI causes on our roads. I am now more firmly than ever opposed to DUI. But I disagree with ARS 28-1381, sections A-1 and A-3. These clauses make it a criminal DUI if one is impaired to the slightest degree, or one has any metabolite of a restricted substance in one’s system. Again, I am completely opposed to DUI, but these laws are too restrictive to personal freedom and turn sensible law-abiding people into criminals. The notion that a .01 BAC due to one beer during an hour-long dinner, or a vicodin weeks earlier from a dentist appointment could result in a DUI is very unsettling. Responsible consumption and responsible use of prescription drugs is legal and should not put a law-abiding person at risk for the tremendous penalties of DUI comparable to someone with a BAC of .14.

Please continue to support laws that vigorously deter and penalize DUI, but remain sensible about turning ordinary responsible people into criminals.

Fuck lotta good these letters will probably do when all 3 legislators are Mormon, very very overtly Mormon, and months later I have never gotten even a stock reply from any of them. When you read member profiles, how they often run unopposed since even the Dems think they own these seats,  see their campaign billboards showing off their large white families, read their voting records regarding issues that are very local to you, and look at how some of these laws overly penalize non-issues…its impossible not to think that they are using political offices to promote a morality. Makes me seriously think about moving to Colorado, or at least Scottsdale.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a response from Dr. Nadelmann, in which he described work DPA did opposing a similar law in Ohio.  He forwarded my information to members of the organization in Ohio and New Mexico, as well as representatives for NORML.  Unfortunately, a Senior Policy Analyst from NORML also replied, saying that AZ’s law was among the first and toughest in the nation, and there is little to believe there is a receptive legislative climate for change, citing our state’s regulartory history.  Yeah, I figured that out too.

Its a catch-22.  The Mormons strongly influence AZ (latest I’ve read say they are 3% of the populace and 13% of the legislators), and because of that, no national organizations feel its a good battle ground compared to California or Colorado or Minnesota.  Those of us in AZ are used to the climate, which is probably our first mistake.   I will not vote for a Mormon legislator again, period.  I haven’t in years based legitimately on different politics, but this is now my single-issue. Its hard to say that without sounding racist; I’m uncomfortable re-reading it. I hope no one is offended, but instead challenged to think about what it means to have just laws in a free society, where laws end and morality begins, and why one group has managed to be so over-represented in government? I respect anyone’s beliefs,  and I have many excellent Mormon friends and neighbors and co-workers and riding buds and guys I played Ultimate with – smart, friendly, educated and tolerant. Just like most of *my* friends.  And that pretty much explains it: there are good people and assholes in every group.  Some groups have more assholes, especially when they are empowered, and the facts speak for themselves about members of the LDS as governors.  For an historically oppressed group, the LDS likes to dictate morality when in power, and this is all about morality and not at all about impairment.   Meanwhile the best strategy is to absolutely not drive with any alcohol to allow probable cause, drive gently (something I have been training myself to do in AZ’s photo-radar wacky system), and if given a blood test give them no reason to look for pot.  And then hire a really convincing lawyer.

If you feel similarly, email your reps or donate to the  DPA, or raise awareness about these issues. Most people do not know about this law, and most people would not agree if they did.  Its not about drug use or drinking responsibly, its about government terror tactics.  This is not the act of a free country.