LEGALIZE PROSPERITY

I live in Rhode Island, a state as populated as the city of Amsterdam. Yet Rhode Island is run like a state and not a city and that’s why many of the 39 separate cities and towns in the state are going broke.

It's the twenty first century and it’s time for Rhode Island to run the state like a city. One mayor, one police department, one fire department, one school department, and a city council. The state can't afford to patch holes in the leaking economy because municipal debt is threatening to plunge these separate duchy's into financial catastrophe.

I hear all kinds of claptrap about reducing benefits and pensions to retirees. That doesn't fix the situation. Jobs do.

Manufacturing is not coming back to Rhode Island. The mill buildings that once supported blue collar workers are now lofts or condos. The roads in the state are crumbling with potholes six inches deep. A friend of mine who travels all over the country says the roads in Rhode Island are the worst he's ever driven on.

Massachusetts is going full tilt into casino gambling which will suck even more money from the smallest state. Legalizing casino gambling in Rhode Island at this point is mute. The state had its chance years ago but blew it off. Massachusetts has more money, more panache, and in Boston alone, a more cosmopolitan vibe for casino gambling than Rhode Island has.

The solutions to our financial problems are to downsize the state into one unit of government services instead of 39 different ones and to legalize the possession of, the growing of, and the selling of soft drugs. We're already a medical marijuana state. Though the Feds would go ballistic, the transition to full legalization for Rhode Island would be seamless. I expect more than 100 million dollars would fill state coffers after just one year of legalization.

The first state to legalize soft drugs will reap billions in the long run. If Rhode Island is the first to do it, we'll put people back to work building a second airport, growing the product, working in the hospitality industry, and of course opening and operating soft drug cafes much like Amsterdam has done.

If anyone has a better idea how to keep the 11th state in the union from going broke, I'd like to hear it. I'd like to hear how you plan to bring in hundreds of million dollars in revenue after just one year. I'd like to hear how you plan to fill the empty office buildings and deserted strip malls. I'd like to know how you plan to put most of the unemployed back to work. I'd like to know how cutting back on government services and benefits, as some suggest, gets us anywhere.

This is a bold move, but not without consequences.  We'll be hassled by Federal agents and edicts that could withhold Federal funds from the state. But so what? There aren't enough Federal agents to police us and if they want to withhold Federal funds, go ahead. We'll have so much money and so many jobs that people will be lined up from here to Palm Beach to get into this place. Also, along with legalization, we reduce criminal involvement significantly.

If the state is serious about solving their financial dilemma, then full legalization of soft drugs is an immediate way to get us out of debt and into prosperity. Soft drugs are not addictive. They don't cause long term health problems. They don't ruin people’s lives. In fact, in Amsterdam, employees of coffeshops have a marijuana and hashish allowance which means in some cases they can smoke up to five grams a week or more on the house.

The Amsterdam experiment with soft drugs has proved conclusively that not only does it reduce the crime rate; it supplies the city with huge amounts of revenue. Hotels are filled year around. even in the most miserable months of winter.

Someday the silly laws prohibiting soft drugs will vaporize nationwide simply because a younger generation of activists is determined to take these laws off the books. Rhode Island is in critical financial condition. The solution is simple. All it takes is the guts and the initiative to do it.

       THE NEXT ONE

If you could change whatever it is you're doing now to make a living, what would it be?

I'd be a surgeon. I love the art of surgery and the precision and skill it demands. I'd drive a race car. Formula One or Indy car. I'd write books, I'd direct or act. I'd be a psychoanalyst.  I'd be a criminal defense attorney. I'd race cars, operate on peoples colons, diagnose their madness, direct films, and keep people out of jail.

Some of the things we'd like to do take far more education and application than we imagine. We think of the glory and not the guts. We think we can just slip into the driver's seat of our imaginations and zoom off into a different job or career.

Whatever you're doing now to make a living may have been achieved by being an unobtrusive social citizen. That is, the ground never rumbled under your feet. You stayed away from confrontation and choose concentration.  Or you've been a neurotic, argumentative, psychotic like me who am bounced up and down on life like a nine year old on a trampoline.

I tripped into the broadcasting business. It wasn't a goal because I didn't have any goals. I was like a kite. High and turbulent, bucking the wind, surfing the breeze. .

I never had any life goals other than pursuing happiness and dancing while the music was being played. I didn't always succeed, but the journey was certainly worth the work.

Think about all the different things you'd like to do to make a living that also make you happy and if you can merge the two of them you'll never have to work another day in your life in this incarnation I'm on the radio. In my next, I'm in the courtroom, operating room, or in my office listening to other people’s madness while curing my own.

This life gives us clues to our next one. Think about what it is you've learned in this life and take it with you into the next. That's why we're here. To gather nuts in May.

My guru said it best." Your eyes are the windows through which the universe views itself."

Think about that and what it is you'd enjoy doing in this life and the next one. After all, changes are just one more heartbeat and one more eye blink away.

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       JERSEY I.D.

Do women wearing football jerseys turn men on? Do men wearing football jerseys turn women on?

When I think about whether or not a woman in a football jersey would turn me on, it makes me feel kind of creepy. When I'm in the supermarket and see a woman in a Patriots jersey, I wonder about her life outside of the produce aisle. Obviously she enjoys football games. Or maybe not. Maybe she wears it because it turns her husband on? A naked women wearing nothing but a football jersey might have that effect.

But what does that say about her husband or boyfriend? He's making love with a woman who’s wearing a bright XXL jersey with Vince Wilfork's name and number on the back of it.

Maybe it's the colors of the jerseys that turn men on? Studies show that a man's testosterone levels rise when his favorite football team wins a game. Seeing a woman wearing his team's colors could be a turn on or at least feels like a turn on depending on the total package. Obviously, an old hag with no teeth gumming a handful of wet tortilla chips and hot sauce while wearing a Pats jersey isn't going to do the job but Jennifer Anniston just might.

What if a man put on a Brady jersey and walked around in it with nothing else on? What if he watched the game that way, his bare legs resting on the ottoman? Would that turn a woman on? Would she be reminded of Brady's good looks and conjure up some sort of football fantasy scene or would the guy simply look like a tool?

I see a lot of men wearing expensive football jerseys in public who appear to be lonely and detached. They sit at the bar with a beer for a friend while they savor the game. Usually they're hunched over in their favorite stool and only come to life when their team scores. Then they go back to simply gazing at the television screen hovering over the bar.

I'm not turned on by a woman wearing an oversized football jersey and I doubt very much whether she'd be turned on if I showed up with Welker's name on my back. Then again, football jerseys are designed to look good on almost anyone. The contrasting colors also attract attention to the wearer, bringing them some measure of identity even if it's a lonely one.