2D or Not 2D

History sometimes coalesces around a few serendipitous events that momentarily converge to divulge a deeper social meaning. And so we witness today upon our national stage the spontaneous juxtaposition of the micro with the macro - the portentous with the inane. Can it be purely coincidental that Obamacare, legalized pot and the revival of big screen 3D pictures pop their Orwellian heads through our Spenglerian door collectively at just this precise moment in history? Maleficently imbued within this seemingly unrelated trio we could very well be witnessing a newly minted triumvirate for mass social control. Marijuana has clearly become the Soma* drug of modern America, lifting spirits and minds away from the arduous reality of the daily grind while simultaneously softening the wills and self-direction of its habitual users. At long last, Saint Alice B Toklas be praised, it looks like we’re going to finally have legalized pot in California, in all likelihood releasing a tide of similar legislation across the country as the billions of deperately needed tax dollars begin to flow into the coffers of our most profligate and fiscally irresponsible legislatures. But really, doesn’t it seems oddly convenient that the incipient smell of our nation’s first state sanctioned cannabis wafts woefully just as millions of Americans are propping cheap 3-D glasses on their soon to be collectively stoned and health-subsidized noses escaping into the fantasy world of Avatar ( Beam me up James C. to enviro-nirvana ), Alice in Wonderland ( Isn’t there a hookah smoking caterpillar in there somewhere? ) and Clash of the Titans ( Who needs God, let alone Gods )? Let's get 'em all stoned and send them off to see the latest politically correct Hollywood flaptrap!

And now with Obamacare it won’t be long before we can get Uncle Sam to pick up the tab for our prescription medical marijuana. After all, isn't marijuana abuse a disease like any addiction? How can it be purely accidental all this happening under the stewardship of our first self-admitted President that inhaled? Don’t you think health insurance should be required to cover my Zig-Zag rolling papers and bong pipes? Do you think it's possible that somewhere in that two thousand page health care bill there's a subsidy for Hollywood or 3D movie production? ( Hell, details are still leaking out what's in this thing ) Damn it all, I have a right to get high and see first-run 3-D pictures in Cinemax to relieve my clinical depression caused by my Bush-induced two and half years on unemployment through no fault of my own! I just can’t make up my mind whether I’d ultimately rather get high and live my state subsidized virtual life in the 3-D Pandora or the more visually passe’ 2-D Tolkien Hobbit's Shire?** Maybe I should ask my Facebook friends?

Do pot smokers ever get paranoid that the government they previously feared was going to bust them is now almost encouraging them to get stoned? What a long strange trip it's been.....

*Soma was the mythical drug prognosticated by Aldous Huxley in his famous dystopic novel Brave New World
** Damn I hope Peter Jackson's new Hobbit film is in 3D. That would really help to take my mind off my negative home equity!

M.D.T.