Potpourri: Dec. 10, 2012
Police agencies boast that more than 700,000 marijuana plants with $1.5 billion street value have been destroyed this year in central Appalachia (West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee). If pot were legal, it might be the region's most valuable crop. Two states voted on Nov. 6 to decriminalize pot-puffing -- and a new Quinnipiac poll last week found that more than half of Americans now favor legalization.
***
Hub Foster, a 95-year-old Nebraska newspaper columnist, wrote: "According to the Mayan calendar, Dec. 21 will be the day the world ceases to exist. That certainly will solve Washington's problems about a fiscal cliff."
***
New NASA satellite photos show the nighttime side of Earth gleaming with electric lights. Some scientists say the planet has entered the "Anthropocene" geological epoch - a period when human activity is a major influence.
***
Openly gay TV star Ellen DeGeneres made a Christmas commercial for J.C. Penney. A fundamentalist group, the American Family Association, said its members are "offended" and called for a boycott of the retail chain. Apparently, AFA members are upset because gays exist. We wonder if a psychiatrist can explain their reaction.
***
Numbers nuts will notice that Wednesday will be 12/12/12. There won't be another triple-number date for nearly 90 years -- on Jan. 1, 2101.
***
In retrospect, this year's Republican presidential primary seemed like a circus. Columnist Timothy Egan says the GOP "put forth crackpots like Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and the morally elastic Newt Gingrich."
***
Back in the 1960s, Kyung Won Lee was a Korean-born Gazette reporter who exposed political corruption in West Virginia's deep-south coal counties. Now he's retired, in his 80s, in California. The WVU Alumni Association just nominated Lee for its highest honor, inclusion in the Academy of Distinguished Alumni.
Police agencies boast that more than 700,000 marijuana plants with $1.5 billion street value have been destroyed this year in central Appalachia (West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee). If pot were legal, it might be the region's most valuable crop. Two states voted on Nov. 6 to decriminalize pot-puffing -- and a new Quinnipiac poll last week found that more than half of Americans now favor legalization.
***
Hub Foster, a 95-year-old Nebraska newspaper columnist, wrote: "According to the Mayan calendar, Dec. 21 will be the day the world ceases to exist. That certainly will solve Washington's problems about a fiscal cliff."
***
New NASA satellite photos show the nighttime side of Earth gleaming with electric lights. Some scientists say the planet has entered the "Anthropocene" geological epoch - a period when human activity is a major influence.
***
Openly gay TV star Ellen DeGeneres made a Christmas commercial for J.C. Penney. A fundamentalist group, the American Family Association, said its members are "offended" and called for a boycott of the retail chain. Apparently, AFA members are upset because gays exist. We wonder if a psychiatrist can explain their reaction.
***
Numbers nuts will notice that Wednesday will be 12/12/12. There won't be another triple-number date for nearly 90 years -- on Jan. 1, 2101.
***
In retrospect, this year's Republican presidential primary seemed like a circus. Columnist Timothy Egan says the GOP "put forth crackpots like Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and the morally elastic Newt Gingrich."
***
Back in the 1960s, Kyung Won Lee was a Korean-born Gazette reporter who exposed political corruption in West Virginia's deep-south coal counties. Now he's retired, in his 80s, in California. The WVU Alumni Association just nominated Lee for its highest honor, inclusion in the Academy of Distinguished Alumni.
Get Connected