A little bit of this and that

I have so much on my mind, I have not been sleeping well at all. It takes forever to break through the mroning fog to get going, besides all the planning I have to do about this move so I'm sending you to Balloon Juice for some stories I wanted to cover and didn't get around to posting.

I hear the rightwingers were horrified by this, but I think this was a good thing. Obama downplayed the National day of Prayer. Instead of staging a big showy photo-op over it, he just issued a proclamation and prayed in private as he is said to do daily. John's take on this is in line with mine.

And John Cole nearly brought tears to my eyes with his post on Arnold wanting to talk about decriminalizing pot. It's amazing that all of sudden this issue has become a topic of public conversation after all the years we in the reform community spent trying to bring it there, but what moved me was John's annoyance at some pundit treating it like a joke.

You may recall I spent an afternoon debating this with him in his comment section after the On-Line Town Hall event where it came up and Obama dismissed it lightly. John is now convinced that there is a serious case to be made for it. He's not a easy man to convince and it was so heartening to hear him say he understands the reformers' frustration with being treated like a bunch of idiot Cheech and Chong dopers.

And this story was just weird but illustrative of the state of our society right now. Conservative parents and their liberal kid clash over co-ed college housing. It's a typical case of overly involved parents using money to threaten their kid into compliance with their views. I was impressed with the daughter's willingness to stand up to them.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]