The Poor Man Institute

…if Akon was singing the hook.  If Rihanna, Beyonce and Shakira were dancing in the video. And life made a shred of fucking sense:

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities…

This time I mean it: go read the rest.  But this time you don’t need me to tell you that.

I have officially been rendered quaint.  Quaintified. 

Lo, but a few measly weeks ago, I was left mouth slightly agape at the fact that the GOP was citing the opinions of TV meteorologists as to the science of global warming.  We can certainly quibble as to whether any GOP anti-intellectual ass-hattery should shock anyone at this point, but that one got to me. 

Was it any worse than Jesus riding dinosaurs?  No, but then, it seemed more dangerous in a way, because of its delivery and packaging.  I mean, these are people that appear regularly on the TV, which in America means people of wisdom to be respected.  Harder to dismiss than religious zealotry.

Yet asking TV personalities - whose job it is to recite daily weather patterns, and offer a guess as to the coming week’s highs and lows - what they think about global climate science is just jam-a-spike-through-your-temple levels of stupid.  It crossed a new frontier in terms of mainstreaming Teh Dumb.

Or so I thought.

But we are living in a world that is outpacing me in its back-assward march to nowhere in particular, fast.  Just today I learn that the GOP is turning to Joe the Plumber Reporter Douchebag Economist for advice on what form of economic stimulus would be most efficacious at this most dire of junctures. 

A fucking mediocre, unlicensed plumber has become the GOP’s go-to guy on all matters journalistic and economic – not to mention that little Middle East peace doohickey.  Surely we can expect him to pontificate on climate science to a rapt audience in the near future:

When GOP congressional aides gather Tuesday morning for a meeting of the Conservative Working Group, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher – more commonly known as Joe the Plumber — will be their featured guest. This group is an organization of conservative Capitol Hill staffers who meet regularly to chart GOP strategy for the week.

Wurzelbacher, who became a household name during the presidential election, will be focusing his talk on the proposed stimulus package. He’s apparently not a fan of the economic rescue package, according to members of the group.

To all my friends/acquaintances/random passers by: you have my express written permission to kill me.  I only ask that you make it quick.  And in that vein, that you attempt the feat without consulting the Dalai Lama for his expert opinion on the deadly arts.