Aniekan Udofia Energizes DC Walls

Aniekan works on his latest mural

I recently began taking a course in TV Production from DCTV, the public access TV station in Washington, DC. Our project is to make a short segment on Aniekan Udofia, a young American mural artist who grew up in Nigeria.

Aniekan has created numerous murals around town and other places in the country, such as New Orleans. This mural was commissioned for the City Dept. of Parks and Recreation at a public swimming pool near the Eastern Market.

Aniekan has a remarkable talent. He learned to make murals with aerosol paint by hanging out with taggers. He is largely self-taught, but he makes a formidable teacher.

Aniekan grew up in Nigeria but came to America to become a magazine illustrator. His illustrations are excellent, but he had to learn the craft from the criticism of magazine art directors. His murals, on the other hand, are world class.

Aniekan's web page is at http://www.aniekanudofia.com/1/.

Our segment for DCTV will air sometime after the class is over in September.

DC Marijuana Decriminatlization: Chris Hayes drinks the Kool-Aid

Chris Hayes recently did a segment on his nightly show in which he discussed the Marijuana decriminalization bill currently before the DC City Council. I have discussed this issue in depth in a previous post. Hayes did his usual professional job of discussing the bill before falling into the error of believing the bill's backers' propaganda (also known as drinking the Kool-Aid).

Hayes mentioned that the bill would decriminalize simple possession of Marijuana and that the proponents of the bill claim they have the 10 votes to override a mayoral veto if it comes. He did not mention that the police department supports this bill and that the police make 9.000 arrests each year for simple possession. I estimate that each arrest nets the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) $8,500. So 9,000 completely useless arrests net the MPD up to $76 million a year. 1 Another way to put that is that the MPD receives $76 million from the city and taxpayers of DC for its activities arresting people for simple possession of marijuana. Any way you put it, that's a lot of wasted money.

The MPD has a substantial vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and they support decriminalization, not legalization. While questioning the Police representative at the hearing, Marion Barry brought out the point that while possession might be legal, possession for sale would still be a felony, and possession for sale could apply to any amount of marijuana, even a single joint. So decriminalization would open up a different way for DC Police to harass its citizens: by charging a person with possession for sale, the police would still get a felony arrest and the individual arrested would still be injected into the court system.

Furthermore, there would still be a fine of $100 for simple possession of marijuana. Many, if not most, of the people arrested by the police for possession are poor. For them, a fine that steep would be difficult to pay, and there they are injected into the criminal justice system again.

I applaud Chris for bringing this issue to the attention of the public. He should also discuss the merits of legalization, which could save the city more than $76 million a year, because incarceration of convicted users comes from the Department of Corrections, not the police department.

1. The figure of $76 million is based on the total budget of the MPD, $410 million in 2012, divided by the number of arrests (48,000), then multiplied by the number of arrests for simple possession of drugs. This is a very rough estimate, yet it still does not include the costs of incarceration for people who are imprisoned for simple possession.

Marijuana: The Harmless Weed

National Lawyer's Guild Testimony before the District of Columbia Board of Directors opposing the marijuana decriminalization bill, Section 102 (D.C. Official Code § 48-901.02)

For nearly a century in the city of Washington, DC, police have been arresting people for holding, smoking, or selling marijuana. The fact that the majority of these people are African-Americans is well-known. People who are in no sense of the word criminals have been sent to prison, sometimes for substantial sentences.

During the past 30 years, the situation has gotten worse. The country has been in the grip of law-and-order mania. Rather than look at the root causes of crime—poverty, discrimination, racism—our lawmakers have decided to put more people in jail, as if that would solve anything. It wouldn't solve anything because people who smoke marijuana are not criminals in the first place. The law makes them criminals, just as racial profiling makes people criminals.

There is a strong connection between racial profiling and marijuana. Studies of New York City's stop-and-frisk laws show that the most frequent result of stop-and-frisk is the discovery of small amounts of marijuana. Police target African-Americans, search them, and find marijuana. The discovery of even a small amount of marijuana may result in an arrest and a court appearance. For a person without the money to pay a lawyer, this could be a serious problem with life-long repercussions.

Now the DC City Council has come to its senses. They now realize there is something fundamentally wrong with punishing recreational use of a harmless—or even frequently beneficial—plant. But this bill is not the answer. It will decriminalize marijuana, but provides no place to legally obtain it. People who traffic in marijuana will still be criminals. Prices for the stuff will still be steep black market prices, reflecting the enormous risks taken by those who smuggle it and sell it.

This bill is a half-way measure, like permitting gay couples to have a civil union license but not a marriage license. That idea was so silly that a wave of laughter has already swept it from the books in more than 20 states. The proposed law on marijuana is equally silly, but it is also extremely harmful, since it retains criminal penalties for sale of marijuana and continues sending non-violent criminals to prison.

This approach has almost the same effect as the “safety valve bill” proposed by the conservative bill mill ALEC and supported by arch conservative David Koch. Rand Paul is sponsoring that bill in the U. S. Senate, S.B. 609. Surely this City Council can come up with something better than that!

This bill is no compromise measure. It leaves intact the system of injustice that has led to mass incarceration and open warfare in our streets during the shameful war on drugs, which is actually a war on our own citizens. Once we recognize that marijuana is not a harmful drug and that people who use it are no more dangerous than the millions who have a few beers while watching Sunday football games, we have no choice but to legalize it, fully and unconditionally.

There is an alternative to this bill, one which is much better for the community. This other bill addresses the real issues of drug use. This alternative bill was introduced by David Grosso. If enacted, Grosso's bill would levy a tax of 10 percent on recreational marijuana and a tax of 6 percent on medical marijuana. It would also authorize the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration to issue licenses to recreational marijuana stores.

This alternative bill would save money the District now wastes imprisoning non-violent drug offenders. It would end the black market in marijuana and let marijuana users purchase the stuff from places that do not also sell Methamphetamine and Cocaine. This is especially important for our youths, who find it easier to buy illicit drugs than alcohol. We should take this opportunity to end the irrational drug policies of the past and start building a new, saner society.

Thank you for listening to us speak on this important issue.

DC Diary: American Indian museum celebrates diversity and creativity

I visited the wonderful Museum of the American Indian on the Mall last Monday. This museum does not concentrate on the history of the American Indian, though the American people should definitely learn more about that. Instead, it concentrates on present-day American Indians and their vibrant culture.

I particularly like the art of the Northwest Coast tribes. These indigenous people lived along the Pacific coast of America from the California border to Alaska. They are noted for their totem poles, which feature elaborate stylized figures of animals and humans. Their style is unique and instantly recognizable.

The store at the Museum is stuffed with beautiful and unusual merchandise. I noticed two neckties with beautiful Tlingit designs on them. I considered buying one for a few moments, but then realized that I couldn't wear them at work in DC. Then I began to wonder why.

America is filled with different cultures. Tlingit art is attractive, but so is Navajo pottery from the Southwest. Mexico has a large number of distinct cultures, each with its own style of art and manner of dress. Yet when you walk about DC on a weekday, all you will see is dark suits and plain ties.

I come from California, where I worked for years in the computer industry. The required uniform there is informal, depending on the company, but sometimes nothing more than shorts and a tee-shirt. The engineers there have dressed like that for decades.

About 1981, an employee from IBM arrived at Microsoft's office in Redmond to inquire about buying an operating system for a new desktop computer. He was met at the door by a young man in a sweater. He assumed the man was the office boy, but he was wrong. The man was Bill Gates, not yet a household name, but already the head of Microsoft. In Silicon Valley today, if you are talking to a man in a suit, you can assume he doesn't know anything about the product.

Many managers in DC require their employees to wear expensive, uncomfortable clothes. They expect women to wear high-heeled shoes, although everyone knows that style of shoe causes degenerative arthritis and other painful conditions. Many women wear athletic shoes during their commute and carry their high-heeled shoes in a bag.

Men employed in DC likewise must wear heavy leather shoes, tight collars and tight neckties. Boring neckties.

America has been successful because of its diversity. Freedom of thought produces innovations in science and industry. Rigid and conformist thinking brings stagnation and regression.

America after World War II was a forward-looking country with great energy and a belief in itself. President Truman installed the Marshall plan, an innovative policy that brought Europe from starvation to prosperity in just five years. The Marshall plan was unique in history because it gave loans to nations that America had just defeated in war.

President Eisenhower championed the interstate highway system, which was begun in 1956 with $25 billion in federal funding, equivalent to $214 billion in 2013 dollars. The interstate system eventually cost $450 billion and has been called the largest public works project since the pyramids.

John F. Kennedy proposed a space exploration plan in 1961 that would put a man on the moon within 10 years. The Apollo project cost $158 billion in 2013 dollars.

Today, there is no similar program. America is in the grip of a spiritual malaise. We do not believe in the ability of government to do anything positive, despite the unquestioned success enjoyed by each of the 3 projects mentioned above.

Americans do not believe in science, despite the accomplishments of the Space program and the enormous wealth created by the electronics and computer industries. Americans know that these things exist, but they seem ignorant of the fact that government created them with the assistance of the scientific community.

Americans today would never approve the Marshall plan, which gave American money to foreign governments, despite the fact that the plan led to a prosperous and peaceful Europe. Somehow we have lost the ability to see beyond the price of something and recognize its value.

In line with America's failure of vision, our government employees must all wear the same fashions (from the 1940s) and espouse ideas that went out of fashion when their clothes did. They must all think prescribed thoughts and reject any new ideas.

They must not wear comfortable shoes or neckties with Tlingit designs.