Living on different planets

Some odd stuff has been taking place recently within my field of view.

Some people might think by reading the official documents of government in North America that cannabis is illegal. Yet at the same time there are dispensaries in many places where you can on a good day acquire some of the stuff. People come on the radio and talk about the cannabis business on the basis of being financial consultants to the cannabis industry. And did I say that not every day is a good day for acquiring cannabis? On the good days you can walk into a store and buy it if you can cite medical necessity. On a bad day the cops will break down the door of your favourite dispensary and arrest people because they are selling food spiked with cannabis without proper zoning approval. Police raids to uphold zoning regulations! That must be a new one. These cops don't seem to be aware that the federal government is going to legalize cannabis in short order. Or maybe they do and that's the whole point of their actions.

Then there are the federal Conservatives who met this past weekend and took their opposition to same-sex marriage out of their official statement of policy. There was a lot of fuss made about whether this is a good idea and whether people who believed in the traditional definition of marriage would leave the party. As one scoffer shouted out at the convention, with "where would they go?" Said scoffer had a point since marriage equality has been the law of the land for over a decade now.

The traditional marriage supporters seem to think that people care about what their documents said. Thousands of gay couples have married in the past decade. The conservative policy statements, the forthright anti-gay marriage one and the present one which leaves the issue unaddressed, neither of them say what should be done about those existing marriages. So we get to guess: was this all posturing for the rubes, or did the champions of traditional marriage really think that they lived on a planet where saying marriage equality was no good might make it go away? Well even the rubes aren't buying it. Someone quoted a 75-year-old grandmother in Cape Breton as saying "we don't care about that stuff." Reflect that this lady is about the right age to have taken part in the Summer of Love, if she was adventurous.

The great battle continues in Egypt

Ever since Muslim armies took control of Egypt, the relationship between Muslim governors and Christians has been a source of controversy. As Aljazeera English points out in this video report, the practical answer to such problems -- pretty typical of most empires at most times -- that the conquered people should be allowed to maintain their own customs under their own (religious) leaders, this answer can be a problem itself.

Note: the church architecture, Christian art, and ecclesiastical costume. I've never seen them so clearly...