Kjellquist Blog

Ok, I smoke an occasional cigar. But Prince George’s County, MD has definitely gone off the deep end! No, they haven’t jumped on the tax-to-death or ban-everywhere band wagons; rather they mandate the number you must buy!
In November 2008 the county council passed an ordinance banning the legal (over age 18) sale of a single cigar. You must buy 5 cigars at a time! Don’t believe me, here is the Washington Post article. BTW, this is a county with a 2008 median household income of $71,696.

Tobacco stores that specialize in cigar sales, and often sell high-end cigars for as much as $5 apiece or more, are excluded from the legislation’s restrictions, as are other locations that are sometimes age-restricted, including golf courses, fraternal lodges, bars and restaurants.

Of course, the ordinance didn’t go unchallenged. Just this pass month Circuit Court Judge Sean Wallace ruled the law constitutional! I guess the legal definition of constitutional doesn’t include logical or effective!
The logic, if you can call it that, is to  “curb a growing trend among urban youths of using hollowed-out cigars to smoke marijuana.” The other goal is to “make it easier to charge someone possessing a cigar with a drug paraphernalia offense.”
An astute observation by a tobacco product distributor seems to summarize the obvious response to the law. He suggested that it would simply create a cottage industry of people who buy five packs and then sell them individually!
Everyone in MD should standby as the proponents of the Prince George’s ordinance are looking for a state law.

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I just finished one of the best history books I’ve ever read. I’ll bet you think you know pilgrim history, at least if you’re from New England. By now most people know that the story of the first Thanksgiving is mostly myth. Nathaniel Philbrick, in his book Mayflower, goes well beyond a simple correction of the common myths. He starts back in England and Holland setting the stage for the exodus of the Pilgrims from Leiden by way of England.

Philbrick then provides a well written account of the Pilgrims and their first years in New England. He focuses mostly on the hardships, community politics and interrelationship with the native Americans. Philbrick doesn’t stop at this point. He continues the story chronicling the remaining decades leading up to the devastating King Philip war. For most people the history of these early years of the settlement of New England will be new information. Even if you grew reading all those historical markers on New England roads, the early history of the native Americans as told by Philbrick will be quite an eye-opener.

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Nicholas Carr has written one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read in quite some time. It is a very well researched analysis on the impact of the Internet and the way we think. Carr is an excellent writer and communicates a serious concern without being alarmist (though perhaps it should be pretty alarming). Everyone who reads books, uses the Internet regularly and has children; MUST read this book! If it doesn’t provoke significant concern then read it again AND think about the book’s message.

The basic premise is that the human brain is very plastic (neuroplasticity) and even as adults it can be reshaped by repeated experience. The Internet is providing repeated “learning” experiences that result in our brains losing the ability to deeply contemplate complex issues (among other loses). Carr cites “deep reading” as an example. We (myself included) find it more and more difficult to focus on serious reading for extended periods. We find “deep reading” difficult because our brain has been programmed to skim and scan web pages that bombard us with an overload of messages to grab our attention in a matter of seconds. As a result, we’ve lost much of our ability to focus!

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