Zetetical Society Meeting Notes

Is there anything more entertaining in the news this morning than the report that a the pizza shop owner who made the news last week for beating up two customers who complained about the calzone is a Mafia hit man from the Bonnano crime family who spending his time in the witness protection program managing a Florida pizza shop called Goomba’s.

You couldn’t make this stuff up, but mostly because of My Blue Heaven.

When I hit Asphalt Green this morning, Fox News was set up outside. I figured it was some anniversary of the gym or they wanted a shot of the sunrise. Sar informs me it was to interview swimmers about the Michael Phelps bong photo.

We’re fighting two wars and heading into an economic depression and someone cares that Michael Phelps smoked pot? It’s a boring drug that makes college students giggle and eat Doritos… It’s a pathetic drain on society as a whole to even keep the stuff illegal. In fact, Phelps smoking it puts the lie to just about every claim you see made about pot smokers except that they sound like pot smokers. If anything sets a bad example for the kids, as USA swimming claimed in rationalizing its suspension, it’s a country that puts people in jail and creates a violent underground economy over a drug that makes you want to take a nap.

There’s an interesting puritanical side to the current downturn. As the fake economy implodes and people cut back on discretionary spending and mumble about budgets and austerity, their vision of life gets a little more grey. It’s important to me that this not happen. It’s great that people might not be filling up McMansions with dime store plastic knick knacks, but Culture: the enjoyable stuff with the music and food and dancing and art and the gawky pot smoking swimmer/media village idiot, isn’t rooted in prosperity and shouldn’t so depend on the cold reality of the week’s budget. If we’re going to cut the extras out right now, let’s cut out the extra stupid laws and rules that waste our time. Enjoy the weekend. Hit a museum, listen to some new music, make some friends, read a book or something. People lived without the crap side of our culture for most of history.