How to Save the World or at least our economy...

While I should be studying for a test on Thursday, instead, I'm going to write the ingenious plan that will boost the American economy, provide money for the trillion dollar deficit, and generally make life a little better for all Americans. Here is my proposal:

Legalize marijuana.

I know that sounds like the voice of a deadhead speaking, but let me outline my plan for you, before you just shake your head.

To legalize marijuana, there would have to be some strict guidelines, akin to those we have set aside for tobacco and alcohol purchase and sales. Before I go into those proposed guidelines, let me tell you how this helps our government and economy.

TAXES. TAXES. TAXES.

Tax the crap out of it. People will buy it. According to the 2009 (found hereNSDUH http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k9NSDUH/2k9Results.htm#2.3 ) 18. 1 percent of adults aged 18-25 used marijuana in the last month, according to the survey. That's 2 in 10, not a bad number, especially when you consider that in 2007 the CDC reported that 19.8% of adults were cigarette smokers (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5745a2.htm). So clearly, issue number one is not whether or not people would actually purchase marijuana. So, sell it for a going rate, add a ten percent tax on it, and contribute that money to the bajillion dollar deficit our nation is currently faced with. After that is paid off, we stop spending money we don't have. period. Then, contribute that money to after school programs for your inner city and rural school children, put the focus on our future. Use the money to fund tutoring programs, peer mentor programs, drug abuse and domestic violence programs, anything and everything that can make this country better for our future, by focusing on the kids who will make it happen. Set aside a set amount every year to go into a "savings account" for the frivolous things our government likes to spend money on, like wars with no end. Once a system is established for spreading out the tax money among the school systems, take anything leftover and put it into homeless and convict rehabilitation (NOT PRISON), to make the present lives of those who want to do better, better.

Now that we have established how the money should be spent and where it would come from, let's talk about how it would create jobs and boost our economy.

Like any agrarian business, growing marijuana would require land, manufacturing plants, and a whole system, much like the tobacco industry has set up. This would boost jobs. You have plants opening up all over the place specifically for the manufacture and package of marijuana cigarettes or pipes--I don't know data on how many jobs that would bring in, but I would place a bet on the idea that it would be thousands--maybe more. It's important to note that in legalizing it, some very specific things would have to take place to keep the jobs from being outsourced quickly, the most important of these things is that it would not be legal to import or export marijuana. The only legal marijuana in the U.S. would be marijuana grown in the U.S. So you have fields that need planted, crops that need harvesting, technology that must be reinvented. And while we're at it, let's go ahead and take care of our environment some by including in the bill to pass the legalization of marijuana that any plant that is opened to produce marijuana to be eco-friendly (consult a couple of environmental engineers for this part of the bill). Also require the processing and harvesting of the plants to be as eco friendly as possible--use biodiesel in tractors and require the farmers of marijuana to find other innovative ways to make sure they do their part to keep the environment from being harmed.

Since we're so concerned about the harm of the environment, lets talk finally about the harm to people. I realize that smoking pot hurts people. Bad for your lungs and all. But, put warning labels on every package sold and make sure people are aware of the risks--it creates a whole market for marijuana free ads, just like the smoke free campaigns we see today, someone pays for that stuff and it's not taxpayers, generally.It's already illegal to drive under the influence, so that's taken care of. An amount would need to be included in the bill, say, no person without a permit for the manufacture, production, or growing of marijuana may have more than x amount at a time and if caught with more than that at one time, throw stiff monetary penalties at the offenders, because we don't need more people in jail, but we could certainly use their money. It would also be important to stipulate an age at which smoking would not be inappropriate, because clearly we do not need a bunch of high ten year olds running around.

So, this is just a rough idea about fixing our economy and making the world a better place. I'm sure there are holes in my argument that one can find. I'm sure there are people who will read this and shake their head and say no, no, no, no. No matter what the evidence says. And this may never come to a vote. It's just a common sense idea from a common sense person, that's all.

Growing Up In The Mountains

I grew up underneath pine trees and stars. I have red Georgia clay flowing in my veins next to sweet tea and the love of a beautiful, amazing, and strong family. As I've gotten older and "moved off the mountain" as people have called it before, I've come to realize that people have such a misconception of the place and the people who inhabit it.

I am not from Deliverance. Sure, if you're not from there and you've never been exposed to it's culture, you may not fit in and you may be looked upon as an outsider, but for the most part( I hesitate to say it's always true because there are exceptions to every rule.) no man rapes another man on the river for kicks and giggles. I've had friends, teachers, and employers alike comment on the rural community in the valley at the beginning of Appalachia where I grew up, most comments were ignorant or at best, misinformed. Here are a few of my favorites:

"you mean they let people come off that mountain up there!!??"--The guy from YourPie when he was interviewing me for a job.

I simply replied yes and purposely bombed the interview, because anyone who was amazed that I'd "made it off the mountain" just could never understand the person that I am.

"You're from that area that has all them snake handling churches, huh?" --A psychology professor at Young Harris

I had to explain to him, that in fact, the closest snake handling church I knew of was about a hour away and that I'd never actually seen someone handle a snake inside a church building. I went on to explain that most God fearing good Baptists and Methodists figured that if God made snakes poisonous, he made people smart enough to know better than to hold them. I mean, we do have Adam and Eve as a primary example for what sort of trouble snakes get you in.

"People in Appalachia don't know better than to ride horses and drink alcohol when they are 7 months pregnant." - A sociology professor at UGA

I beg to differ. I have brothers and sisters and cousins who almost all have children and I'm pretty sure they didn't drink or ride horses at 7 months pregnant. Besides, if we're as poor a region as this particular professor would have us believe, then who can afford either horses or alcohol anyways!!?

"Black people in the south are fat because they were slaves."-The same Sociology professor from before

-Actually, black people in the south are fat for the same reasons white people in the south are fat. We love sweet tea, sorghum syrup, fried everything, and anything with sugar, and then we refuse to get off our fat asses and do anything that would work off the fat that builds up. Fat doesn't discriminate.

"Everybody's inbred down there!!"-A friend I met in Yellowstone

People are more likely to be inbred in other, even more rural communities than mine. It's more likely that a family from say, rural Washington state or West Virginia or something would be inbred. Because as anyone from home can tell you, there is no shortage of who's cheating who around there. However, for the most part (again, that whole exception to the rule thing) any inbreeding to go on in Chattooga county, would be purely incidental and accidental. Nobody likes the idea of sleeping with a sister, brother, cousin, niece, nephew...you get the drift.

"I ______ your accent"-Everyone I've met outside of home

I've gotten to the point that I don't even acknowledge this comment for the most part anymore. Every region has a different accent. It just so happens that mine is thicker than most, which can be attributed to the fact that where I'm from is rural and doesn't have much flux as far as who goes in and comes out. Generally, people stay or go. So accents change very little. It's thick and it's slow and I don't apologize for it.

"Well, you sure are proud of it." -Lots of different people

You're right, I am. I'm proud of where I'm from. It's the sort of place where people don't go without the basic necessities. People don't go homeless. Kids don't go homeless. I won't say it doesn't have its share of problems and issues. Kids don't finish high school nearly enough and babies have babies too often, and drugs are everywhere. However, there are more educated people that come home all the time, and one day maybe, I'll be one of them. At the end of the day, it's a place I'm proud to call home. No matter what everyone else thinks of it.

The Application Process

I've written variations of the piece I'm about to write for you here several hundred times. It's one of my favorites.

Every single time my friends and I all get together, we all end up divided on a couple of couches and in the floor. As we've gotten older, most of them have divided up into couples. We don't even ask the guys if they would like to come and hang out or get together. We just assume that if best friend is coming, boyfriend will follow, like good boys do. It's not that I would ever begrudge any of my friends this happiness. To be honest, I'm absolutely thrilled that they continue to settle down and find guys who make them happy, because Lord knows with my friends, it takes a special, special man to love each and every one of them. That being besides the point, it takes no incredible deduction to discover that as the night winds down and everyone starts to cuddle, that there's a 5'2 green eyed southern till the day she dies homegrown girl sitting awkwardly by herself, gawking at the t.v. (mostly because ADHD is at bay when the t.v. is on...and Law and Order is just that great). And that girl is yours truly.

Now, generally, it doesn't bother me to play fifth wheel or third wheel or 7th wheel or whatever. My friends, completely comfortable with their sexuality, are happy to hold my hand, rub my back, and pretty much make everyone in the room think we could be a lesbian couple, except we're straight as a piece of railroad track in Kansas. Sometimes, though, it gets to me. I look at them all googly eyed over some piece of boy meat and I want my own.

Let me be honest in saying I'm picky. You can't be too short, too fat, too thin, too overbearing, not overbearing enough, and the list goes on for days. I also know, as a default, I shy away from commitment like the plague. I'm terrified of being tied down to one single person, even if it's only for a little while. That feels like putting chains on me and saying don't move or speak forever. Yeah, that would never, ever happen. So anyway, as a general rule to my pickyness, before you can be considered to apply for anything serious (and by serious I mean we go out more than once and texting is not our only mode of communication), you must meet some certain criteria that I'll shortly list below for you. After you have met said criteria, anyone who applies must then go through a series of exams that prove that they aren't, for lack of a better word 'chicken shit scared' of me. Now, that might sound like big talk, but let's be honest. I am an intimidating beauty of a girl, and if my beauty doesn't scare you, my honesty, sarcastic wit, and total disregard for how uncomfortable bodily functions can make people will. So, it will take a very, very, very, very, very special person to begin such a relationship with me. Ahh...relationship

I will now define relationship. Relationship: an increasingly less awkward attempt by a male and female to get to know each other through communication, be that bodily, spiritually, or the actual act of talking. As a relationship progresses, the less awkward it becomes until the relationship passes on into the we're serious about this shit stage. Communication can be but is not limited to body language, text, phone, and face to face conversations. However, as relationship moves out of the realm of really awkward, it is important to increase face time and decrease text time.

Now that we have my personal definition of relationship, let us describe what one needs to apply to the face that has a sticky note plastered to forehead that reads: terrified of commitment, loud, obnoxious, farts often, likes losers.

First, one needs a full set of front teeth. The back ones are not as important because they can't be seen. Chips in teeth are allowable as long as it's a chip. Not a rotten, nasty, excuse for a tooth that you can't or won't get pulled.

Second, personal hygiene is important. Bathing weekly or every other day, or every day is preferred. If weekly is the choice, please have good deodarant and cologne so you smell good anyways. Not brushing your front teeth, wearing clothes that stand up, and smelling worse than cat pee is highly frowned upon and will lead to a big fat deny.

Third, a personal attitude that reflects your beliefs is fine. Don't expect me to be playing Aunt Bea cleaning house and keeping the kitchen and fixing you a sandwich and sweet tea. I might be as sugary sweet as tea, but Lord if I can't be as mean as the devil himself. Referring to me as "your old lady", your "bitch", or anything else demeaning is grounds for burning your application at the stake.

Fourth, don't compliment me when I look like I just rolled out of bed and have the hangover from Hell. It won't get you anywhere except sitting on your butt outside. I don't care how greasy my hair gets, how bad my armpits look, or about that big, huge crater on my face. Okay, I do care about hairy armpits, call me out on that one. Other than that, you leave my personal hygiene to me, and only tell me I look amazing when I actually do, because I already have a big enough head about how good I look.

Now, if you know a man who could live up to these standards, let me at him. If you are a man who would like an application to be considered, leave it at the door, because I gave at the office.

I don't believe in a knight in shining armor. I believe in knowing what you want, when you want it, and going after it. Unless you are terrified of birds or clowns. Then you just need to lock yourself in a closet. Oh, and if you are terrified of commitment, then it should probably come to you. Which is precisely what anyone will have to do when they consider submitting an application to me.

-JoAnna

Out Into The Wild Blue Yonder...

Well, I'm headed to Montana in the morning. I don't know that I even have a place to sleep tomorrow night, but I'm going come Hell or high water. I don't know what awaits me there or what in the world I'll find myself doing, but Lord knows it's going to be an adventure and a half. I'm nervous but I'll survive. They don't have sweet tea out there though, so we'll see how that's going to go. The thing is, I know that no matter how nervous I am, I might as well do it while I can. I'm going to take advantage of the opportunities afforded me and not blink twice at saying I appreciate it. It's just that way. But the wild blue yonder isn't just off to the west for the summer...

It's more than just that. The wild blue yonder I find myself continuously galloping into is that of my future. One day, I'm so sure it holds a life at home with my whole family, a husband, kids, a house, white picket fence, the works. The next day, I want to turn and run the other way. I don't even know what I want to do when I graduate. I guess I'm just hoping something good will fall in my lap. I've gotten many things by just letting them fall right into my lap. I guess I figure that's how it's going to be forever. And it may very well be, who knows?

Anyways, that's just me wondering.

On another note, I'm learning we can't have control of every situation in our lives. You've got to let go and let God. If you let him, he'll put the pieces of the puzzle together. I'm not always the most religious person, but my Mama and Daddy did raise me up in the Baptist church, and I learned the stories, about Jesus and God, who died to save my sins, and who to pray to when I laid my head down at night. I'm finally beginning to understand that it's not always about what you want when you pray. It's about what's best. And if anybody knows what's best, it's the big man. Right now, I feel a little frustrated with that. I think he's giving me a pass to learn it the easy way or learn it the hard way, and if you know me, you know I'm hard headed, and you know if I don't do things the hard way I'm not satisfied. I might set myself up to fall flat on my face, but in the end, I guess getting back up makes me stronger.

I'm not going out west to meet a cowboy (who meets all the requirements I'll describe later), by the way. If, however, a cowboy rides on over on his horse and sweeps me up to the wild blue yonder...then don't look for me back in Georgia. I'll be a lost cause forever.

The "Southern" in Me

Yes ma'am. No ma'am. Amen. Thank you. Pass the gravy. Stay out of that mud. Fishing. Fried squash. Grits. Magnolia trees. Red dirt. No sir. You're welcome. Praise Jesus.

Manners, religion, food, and the environment that surrounds me has shaped me and formed me into the person I am. From the food I eat to the way I talk, my friends all lovingly refer to me as southern. It's a heritage I'm proud of (although I'm sure my ancestors are more of the simple farmer as opposed to the antebellum). My mama and daddy taught me manners and how to be polite. I know when to say excuse me, thank you, yes ma'am, no ma'am, and how to not chew with my mouth open. I know to hold the door for the elderly and to always treat those older than me with the utmost respect, after all, they've been here longer and probably know more. I've been raised in wooden pews with Dolly Parton dresses my Mama fought me into for years. I've been fishing and I can fry chicken. I know exactly what a Steel Magnolia is and I've been lucky enough to know a few. Yeah, I guess my life is pretty Southern fried.

When I think about the south, I don't think about the sprawling metropolitan area of Atlanta. I don't even consider the smog and dirt and the places where you can't see the stars for the city lights. I think about riding across Taylor's Ridge, with the windows rolled all the way down, and the radio turned way up. I think about sweet tea and my mama's pound cake. I remember the creek at my Mema's where I used to shed my socks and shoes in the summer and find cool relief from the July sun. It's a little bitty place where everybody knows my name, phone number, birthday, and how many times I've sneezed that day. It's not that anybody means anything by it, there's just not much else to do. The south is a rock house on a hill with a pond behind it and a yellow lab stretched out on the front porch, a lab named Purot(like the presidential candidate), a lab my daddy thought was dumb because it ran through screen doors and a lab my mama loved because her kids could ride it like a horse and it loved them anyways. It's stopping when you see a funeral processional and turning down your radio because it's respectful. My south is not being afraid at night when I have to run to Wal Mart. It's having the love of an entire family surround you, even when you've screwed up but good. The south is my great grandmother, with her snow white hair, napping in her chair on the screened in back porch. It's my Mema's potato salad and my Grandma's quilts. It's my Papa's old green Ford and snuff. It's where I'm home.

I'm not naive enough to believe that the south doesn't have it's problems, it's limits, it's issues that should be worked out. I'm wise enough, however, to know that to change some of those things is to change what the South is. Even as it progressively moves forward, it stays where it's at. It's like a good recipe, you don't add extra flour to chocolate chip cookies, it would make them hard. All you can do is add chocolate chips and make them a little sweeter. The south will never rise again and it will never be a perfect place for some. But, it's a quaint little reminder that while some things change, other things always stay the same. And sometimes, that's perfectly alright.

On Rape and Victim Blaming

As a woman in today's society, I've come to accept many things. I've learned that some men will never leave the toilet seat down. Some women will always judge you based on what your hair looks like at any given moment. Some people will tell you that you need to lose ten pounds and other people will tell you that you look great. Regardless, you have to be satisfied with you, and as a woman, look to make sure the toilet seat is down. However, there are certain things in society I refuse to accept. Period.

Let's talk about rape.

It's taboo. I shouldn't say it. How could I want to talk about rape? Oh, there's the word again. Considering 1 in 4 women in college report being sexually assaulted and every two minutes a woman is raped in the United States (http://www.feminist.com/antiviolence/facts.html), I'd say this is a pretty relevant topic. What frustrates me isn't the fact that rapes happen. I realize that there probably isn't a society in the world in which rape doesn't happen. However, I highly doubt that in most society's there is a twisted sort of support system for rapists and victims are left to deal with the emotional and physical problems created from such an attack with limited or no resources, depending on economic status.

Our society perpetuates many, many myths about rape. How many times have you read a story in the newspaper about how a girl goes out, girl drinks, girl meets boy, girl goes home with boy, and then details get fuzzy and the next morning the girl says she was raped? Many, many times I'm sure. How many times have you thought to yourself well, she got what was coming to her, should have been more responsible? This line of thinking absolutely blows my mind. You mean to tell me that as a woman, I'm not entitled to drink, find a boy that I like, bring him home with me, and then tell him no??? Why shouldn't I be allowed to do just that? With what the media tells us about sexually transmitted diseases and serial killers, shouldn't I be even more entitled to tell him no? So maybe I'm drunk and the word "NO" doesn't physically leave my mouth. Shouldn't the clawing, scratching, clinched thighs, and unreturned kisses be a general sign that I probably do not want to have sex?

So let's say I'm the woman in this scenario and I do bring a guy home and tell him no or otherwise show him through physical means that I do not want to have sex with him and he forces me to anyways. The next morning (as soon as I can get away) because I'm a big mouth who for a moment believed that justice could be done in a court system, I immediately go to the hospital, report I was raped, don't shower and then I'm subjected to a rape kit. That means I'm poked, prodded, and photographed for the record. Somebody checks under my fingernails to see if I scratched my rapist and then they bring in a police officer to ask me some questions. He asks me questions, for the sake of quick writing, I'll post the conversation in dialogue form:

P.O: Alright, can you tell me what happened?

Me: Well, I'd gone out to this bar with a couple of friends. Just a girls night out, ya know? (Officer nods head) So we're hanging out, we've done a few shots, and this guy comes up to me, starts throwing lines in my ear and stuff. Before I know it we're on the dance floor kissing and it's fine. Finally my girls are about to leave so I say, come on back to my house. My friends dropped us off and we popped open a bottle of wine. I was pretty tired, but he was acting like he was interested in more than dozing off. I went and changed clothes thinking maybe he wouldn't be acting that way when I got back. He started kissing me, which was fine. Then he started touching me through my clothes when I said, I'm not ready for that just yet. He nodded but kept pushing forward. I told him to stop and he laughed. I was holding my legs together and scratching at his chest trying to get him off of me and he wouldn't move. I was kind of drunk too and that made it harder to get him to understand. He just wouldn't stop.

P.O.: How many alcoholic drinks do you think you had last night?

Me: I don't know, 7, 8, no telling really. I didn't black out or anything. It just felt like even though I was fighting it didn't do me any good.

P.O.: Do you think the amount of alcohol in your system could have inhibited your ability to think clearly?

Me: Obviously, alcohol does that. If you're asking me do I think I told him no and let my body say yes, does it really matter. The fact is he had sex with me and I didn't want him to.

P.O.: Ma'am, I'm just trying to get the facts. Calm down.

Me: Sir, a man forced himself upon me and then into me. According to the literature they've given me, I feel pretty powerless over my body and everything else in my life, seeing as how it was all taken from me. Don't you dare tell me to calm down.

Okay, so you get the picture? Now, that's not saying that's a typical reaction to questions by a police officer, however, those are pretty typical questions, according to media reports involving incidents of rape. Even from the beginning of reporting a rape, a victim is questioned and inadvertently blame is placed upon her (the identifying "her" because 9 out of 10 rape victims are female(http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims). If she drank too much, she's asking for it or details are too fuzzy. Now, let's be fair, if anyone, not just a woman, has had so much to drink that details are fuzzy in their mind, chances are, they were in no condition to even consent to sex, much less have sex. It's her fault because she drank too much, wore her skirt too short, was considered promiscuous already. Now tell me, how does ANY of that give someone else the right to strip away a woman's right to say no?

In light of the Steeler's quarterback being accused (again) of rape and seeing the backlash against the girl who proclaimed such a thing, I'd say our society is in a pretty sad state. Now, I cannot say if this guy is guilty or not, but it's a sad day when because a girl has reported a rape she's called a gold digger, fame whore, and a dozen other names. Also, I'd like to point out that in the state of Georgia, if a person is intoxicated beyond the legal limit, they can't consent to sex, period. It's ridiculous that people have given that poor girl such a hard time she had to leave school. They blame her for bringing all of this on their beloved quarterback who has already been accused of rape once. How many other NFL quarterbacks have been accused twice of rape, by 2 completely different girls in 2 different states? But his story is more true than the girl who, to my knowledge, has never been in trouble, never cried foul before, and who's friends reported this guy's bodyguards wouldn't even let them in the door to check on their friend. But, he's a big star making millions so why not believe him over a poor college girl? That's the equivalent of saying O.J. didn't do it.

Now, I'm not even going to go into the politics of rape, why men rape, and all of the other crucial artifacts that go into explaining such a complicated subject. However, I am going to give you one absolute piece of information that, if taken far enough, can change the way we perceive rape victims.

Stop assuming because her skirt was too short, her drink was too full, her words were too explicit, her make up was too much, or her heels were too high that she was asking for it. If it was your wife, would she be "asking for it?" If it was your daughter, would she be asking for it? Your mom, your sister, your best friend, your girlfriend? No one ever asks to be raped. No one ever asks to be a victim, another statistic. We must change this attitude as a society so that our justice system can put away these offenders, rather than releasing them back out onto our streets (Only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. (http://www.rainn.org/statistics). As long as we perpetuate the myth that women deserve to be raped based on appearance, past transgressions, or any other number of things, our society supports the idea that rape is okay.

Chew on that.