Polenta

Polenta gives me gas. But I love polenta. I got a tube of it last time I went grocery shopping, at Winco in Salem. Yesterday, I ate a polenta burger for lunch. Last night, it was polenta and green onions, sauteed. Tonight for dinner, polenta sauteed briefly with broccoli and white onions. I really do love that stuff!

I'm grinding up almonds for almond butter tonight also. I can't eat peanut butter. It has always made me feel awful for days afterwards, even though I like it. So I switched to fresh almond butter, that I make, partially using the meat grinder I got at a thrift store for a few bucks. That was a very very useful purchase! I add dates to the almond butter which give it a great taste. Sometimes, I add pumpkin seeds, too. Because I love them.

Today, I heard on the news, that California is considering its options with its budget deficit. One option they are considering is to legalize and tax pot sales. After all, it is a huge industry in California, like everywhere, but no taxes are ever paid on the pot and the money goes to support violent Mexican drug cartels.

Some argue it would only increase drug use. Well, drug use is a person's choice. If someone wants to ruin their lives with drugs, why not make money off their personal choices, rather than that money going to drug lords? That's my reasoning anyhow. It would be almost comical, to take away the livlihood of those violent beasts.

I can see them, all paranoid, darkened eyes, milling around in day labor areas, waiting to be hired by a drug lord, only none ever come. Or, holding up signs on the street, "Unemployed Drug Cartel Enforcer, Please Help."

Nobody wants to see more drug use in America. We have plenty in every tiny town and big city. But that's going on anyhow. The long war on drugs has done nothing to stem the tide of drugs in. No social awareness campaigns or parenting has stemmed the tide of eager escapees from society, willing to smoke up or snort or shoot anything into their bodies. So why shouldn't the rest of society, who has done nothing but pay out for the massive costs associated with various addictions and wars against them, not make some bucks on it for a change?

Legalize pot. Regulate it's production. And tax it big time. Watch the cartels dealing pot crumble. Boy, that would be something. There'd still be black market undersold nontaxed pot trying to sneak through, I'm sure. You'd have to undersell the costs of black market production and transport I guess. You'd have to somehow work around the lawsuit freaks, who, if they got addicted or did something stupid on pot, would want to sue the government for legalizing it. There are always those types out there.

I saw on the news a story about a young black mother of two, who just bought her own home in Detroit, for.......$1100. Good for her. She looked so happy. What a good thing bad times for the housing market handed her. It was a beautiful story.

I'm going to have to slow down on the polenta consumption. It's cheap and I like it and it mixes well with almost anything, particularly vegees.