Legal Vices and Their Champions

I was recently asked to write sample newspaper columns, 700 words each or thereabouts, as a way of auditioning, if you will, for an opening at a local paper. They didn't hire me, which is OK - it turns out that they wanted someone well connected to the local political scene, and that's not me.

I've printed two of the sample columns below. The editor wanted my take on local issues. In light of the media coverage lately of Harry Reid's take on prostitution, and John Ensign's take on Harry's position (which, in my opinion, boiled down to "I won't take a stand, because then someone would disagree with me, and I'm trying to rebuild my credibility before I run for office again, hoping everyone will have forgotten the whole infidelity/bribery/misuse of funds and influence thing so I can return to office,") I thought I'd put my two cents out there.

Let's keep in mind, 700 words didn't give me enough space to address the whining about what the supposedly crushing loss of brothel revenue would mean. First and foremost, whenever anyone says that without the brothels and their fees, the rural economies would be crippled, the schools will close, there will be fewer police officers, firefighters, apple pie, baseball and everything good, I feel like saying, "You're so right. There are no rural counties anywhere else in the other 49 states and the District of Columbia that manage to function without brothel income." Give me a break. And for the rest of my feelings, see my take on legalized marijuana. The arguments are interchangeable.

**************************************

I have lived in Nevada for my entire life – I was born at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center. I can sing "Home Means Nevada" and mean it. I am not here by default; I am here because I choose to be. Still, I cannot shake the feeling that occasionally overwhelms me that Nevadans do a good job of embarrassing themselves and the rest of us. I'm not talking about John Ensign, although I admit that his latest fiasco had me fuming, "Oh, thanks so much for making the rest of us look wonderful!" I mean some of our laws and policies that make me cringe.

I swear, the ink wasn't dry on the law allowing brothels to advertise before the tops of every taxicab in town were covered with glowing ads, ads I had to explain to my youngest child. I do not want to discuss the offered services with small children.

It's bad enough to live somewhere where I've seen, for my entire life, things like Yellow Pages ads for brothels that screamed, "It's legal here!" and "Private airstrip and limousines!" but now I have to endure ridiculous and even misleading advertising campaigns. Mind you, I don't want to see sex acts described 40 feet high, but I was astonished by the choices of words on the brothel billboards. One of the first ones I saw advertised a brothel on the way to a popular boating spot as a "deli." Truly! Can you imagine a family on the way to the reservoir pulling over hoping to buy potato salad and ham sandwiches?

"Resort and spa!" says one description. I've stayed at resorts, but I've always done so with my kids, and I doubt that many of their activities and services are available at a brothel. I doubt that I could get a facial there.

Even when they attempt to be a bit more accurate, I resent having to explain terms like "cage dance" to my kids. Would it be possible to simply say, "Adult entertainment; must be 21"?

I used to look around Las Vegas and say, "At least Reno doesn't do that," but the distinction is getting smaller. Strip club ads used to be one of those things, but no more.

Visiting my daughter at college in Las Vegas and being treated to huge billboards with buttocks hanging out of thongs was one of those cringe inducing experiences. How can any reasonable human possibly be OK with that? Don't give me a lecture about the beauty of the human form and how sexuality is not shameful. I'm not going to discuss my personal life with you, but let me assure you that my opinion is not about shame. It's about appropriateness. Would you clip your nails at the dinner table, or discuss your finances with a department store clerk or have your postman make discipline decisions for your kids? Of course not. It's not appropriate. Plus, the fact that the body is beautiful, sacred and made by God is the very reason that your buttocks, or mine, should not be on display for everyone to see. Do we all remember the Biblical warning not to cast pearls before swine, and what that means?

Remember when The Men's Club opened downtown, and to appease those who opposed it, they promised that the words "girl" or "girls" would never be used in their ads? How long did that last? (Does anyone even remember that there was opposition?)

I'd rather live without these services nearby, but since that's unlikely, can we please have some decorum?

********************************************************

 

There's a reason for the old adage, "Know your audience." It's applicable in politics, advertising, dinner table conversation – just about any situation you can imagine. Frequently I find that people are neglecting to consider their audience when speaking to me about recreational marijuana legalization. They invariably say, "It's no different than alcohol," leaving me having to remind them, "You do remember that I don't drink?"

By "don't drink," I mean never have. At age 12, I joined (without my parents, but with their consent) a religion that forbids alcohol. I went through my teen years without feeling a need to question that wisdom or push those boundaries. I cannot imagine a circumstance occurring in my adult years that would make me change my mind.

The number of people who say to me, "Not even wine?" staggers me - like I'll say, "Oh, of course I have WINE! I'm not a zealot!" I once truly offended a relative. We were eating dinner at her house, and she was splashing wine into the gravy. I asked if she could possibly set some aside without wine. She glared at me – she considers advising the cook to be a capital offense anyway – and snapped, "All the alcohol burns off in cooking. You can't even taste it." She was not prepared for my response, but she should have seen it coming: "If you can't even taste it, why put it in?" Whether you find alcohol to be unacceptable morally, like me, or are a recovering addict, like many of my friends, no alcohol means no alcohol.

For the record, even though I eat meat, I provide vegetarian entrees when I host vegetarians. When my son invited a Muslim classmate to his birthday party during Ramadan, I waited until after sunset to serve the (cheese) pizza. It's just common courtesy.

I did not grow up on a sheltered commune somewhere. I was born in Reno; I graduated from Reed High in Sparks. I've spent my life the same places everyone around me has. I just never indulged.

I'm not the only one. I can introduce you to dozens of people, older, younger and the same age as myself, with similar stories. A thirty-something friend just posted on his Facebook page, " So I was standing in a circle of 7-8 guys today and discovered that I was the only one in the group who had never done crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, hash, mushrooms, Ecstasy, marijuana, OxyContin, alcohol or cigarettes."

So, clearly, I am not your target audience for discussions of how marijuana is equal to alcohol – or nicotine or anything else legal.

Occasionally, I actually have to trot out statistics on alcohol related disease, crime, auto accidents and the like before people will concede that I may have a valid point. Let's not even discuss stupid, cringeworthy, wish-it-never happened moments and the societal costs of drinking.

The same goes for smoking. Do I honestly have to point out the disease quotient of smoking, the toll it takes on health and wellbeing? Please tell me I don't, that it's all understood. Telling me it will be "regulated" isn't a big plus. Alcohol and tobacco are regulated.

I have to resort to sarcasm when someone says, "tax revenue." Oh, there's MONEY to be made? Why didn't you say so? You know what else makes lots of money? Child porn! Heroin! We gotta jump on those opportunities! There's a world of unexplored possibilities!

Now, here's my dilemma. Even the history impaired should be aware of the violence and corruption of the Prohibition era. Humans don't handle being told "no" very well. Oh, what to do?

Compatibility, or Lack Thereof

On paper, my husband and I are not a good match. Oh, sure, our astrological signs, at least as far as the Chinese are concerned, are compatible, but most indicators say otherwise. We'd been married for only a few months when I took one of those magazine quizzes designed to tell you compatibility based on background comparison. It rated our compatibility as low and our chances of staying together as "grim." Honestly! We got a good chuckle out of that.

There are many ways to classify people. For instance, some people's sensory awareness is high, some people's is low, and most people fall in the middle. Of course, mine is high and his is low. I swear, I have the hearing of a dog - many supposedly ordinary sounds are absolutely painful. Sirens are misery. Loud, shrill or sudden sounds don't just startle me, they honestly hurt. I can't drive next to a motorcycle without plugging my ears. Things my husband can't smell drive me to distraction. My beloved, on the other hand, is just this side of oblivious. Tapping his arm to get his attention has to escalate to an almost bruising level before he finally notices and gives you a distracted, "Hmm?" I find large crowds, loud music and flashing lights to be absolutely exhausting; he finds them to be exhilarating and energizing. Just as I'm ready to collapse in a heap of fatigue, he's just getting revved up. The longer an unpleasant sound - say, an alarm - goes on, the more it shreds my nerves, while the more time it sounds, the more my husband relegates it to background, white noise and finally fails to even register it.

"Shut that thing up!" I'll yell, and he'll look at me, puzzled - "What thing?"

The problem with this is that he tends to think I'm overreacting to any given scenario, while I find him to have all the sensitivity of a rock. This also bodes badly for long term cohabitation.

He likes his beef practically still mooing; I like mine almost turned to leather. He would happily have bread or rolls with every meal; I tend to forget that bread exists unless I'm making a sandwich. He likes to sleep in a cold room; I prefer mine almost hot. He loves having a fan blowing on him; I hate the sensation of wind on my skin. I can't even sleep with my head on my arms, because my breathing blows the hair on my arms and makes me miserable.

Have you ever taken the "What Color Are You?" test, and read about your personality? Dan is a yellow who very much wants to be a red. I used to test at 60% blue, 40 % white, but as I get older I test more as 60% white, 40 % blue. I think I have 1 red and 1 yellow answer on my entire test.

Watching us make a joint decision is either comical or infuriating. The only reason I entertain any idea is to make and act on a decision. I want the time weighing options to be brief, and feel that it exists only as a stepping stone to taking action. Not Dan; for him, the entire point is weighing options. He can happily weigh options for literally years. Making an actual decision causes him stress, and acting on it causes even more stress, because, as he sees it, you've now "eliminated all your options." He cannot imagine why I spend all my time actively trying to eliminate options. I cannot imagine why he is willing to spend enormous amounts of time and energy thinking about anything unless he intends to do something about it.

The more important, and the more permanent, a decision is, the more it ties him in knots. He will happily spend x number of dollars on a restaurant meal, but balk at spending the exact same amount on clothing because if he buys something physical, he'll be "stuck with it," whereas if he has a lousy meal, well, he can rectify that in a matter of hours.

He is afraid that any decision he makes might be the wrong one. I find this to be fear of commitment of the most profound sort. I think that very few questions even have a wrong answer - who cares if you get the brown one or the green one, as long as you get one? If you're going on vacation, you absolutely must pick a destination, or you're going nowhere. Most of life is not "Sophie's Choice."

Whenever we've bought a house, I have been unable to imagine signing the papers unless I can imagine being 90 years old in the house. The very first time we bought a place, I had a one year old and one on the way, and I checked out what high school they'd be going to and where the bus stop was. We were still packing up the apartment when Dan started saying, "When we sell this house..." It exhausted me to even think about. "We don't even live there yet! How can you think about selling it?" He was baffled. "Do you want to be stuck there forever? Don't you want something nicer?"

Occasionally, someone will ask me how Dan ever got married or had children. Some of them aren't quite sure whether or not to believe my answer, which is that he was able to because he didn't think it would be permanent. Between the belief he grew up with that monogamy is unnatural to his belief that no one was ever actually going to like him enough to live with him long term, he figured it was pretty much a done deal that one day he'd come home to an empty house. That was OK by him - he took an "it'll be fun while it lasts" approach.

I, on the other hand, was crystal clear on the fact that marrying this man meant that some day I might be changing his adult diapers. I certainly didn't plan on having children with a weekend dad.

After a few years, adding kids and mortgages to the mix, it dawned on him that we were always there when he came home. Don't get me wrong, there are absolute deal breakers that would have me out so fast that I didn't even stop to pack, and he knows what they are, but in their absence I'm in it for the long haul. He had never bothered to make a long term decision, assuming that he wouldn't have to. Now, and from his point of view, very suddenly, he had to make a permanent, lasting, no do-overs decision. Was this the life he wanted, or wasn't it?

It freaked him out. He lost his mind a little. (Especially since he'd always thought, for reasons unclear even to him, that he'd be dead long before he reached middle age.)

After deciding that he really did want this life and this family, he was almost giddy. I have to admit, my reaction was more that he was coming late to the party. Nice of you to finally show up, hon, we've all been waiting for you.

I asked him, years later, what in the world he'd been thinking. "Nobody stayed married," he said, pointing out that he'd come of age in the late 70s. I have to admit, society's track record in this regard is not sterling, and the 70s didn't do much to help.

Fast forward: our next wedding anniversary will be our 25th. It's not actually that much different than the 24th or 26th or any other number, really, but I still think it's a big deal. In a few weeks, we will climb on a cruise ship with all of our children and our son in law, who'll be celebrating his first wedding anniversary with our daughter. We'll go to the Bahamas, snorkel, eat too much and get sunburned. It will be well deserved.

Happy anniversary, Dan, and many more to come.

(Yeah, we enjoyed that cruise.)