Your History Lesson for the Week

Inquisitive Liz:

If I could pay for only the cable I use, I could save hundreds of dollars a year. I love the History Channel. I think my favorite fad in History television is the reenactment pieces that accompany almost every show. Some of these segments are so well produced it's like watching a movie instead of a history lesson. They do this to make people like me feel better about being a dork.

Through my avid television watching, I have learned things they don't teach you in elementary school. For example, ancient Greek men had young boy lovers (knew that) that were mentored and groomed by the older man; it was more complicated than "sex", it was an established societal norm- kind of like an apprenticeship . Women had homosexual relationships too. And everyone was OK with that.

3,000 years later, we are debating if people have the right to choose their own sex partners and arguments are made about how "unnatural" or "sinful" homosexual relationships are. What happened? Where was the switch that made being gay taboo? The one thing that stands out to me is that homosexuality has existed for a very long time. If it has existed since, basically, the dawn of man and since gay people don't get to choose any more than any one else who they are attracted to, I don't understand how this issue is controversial, a question of ethics, or a sign of the sinful ways of mankind.

Cannabis used to be grown in this country and used for all sorts of things, including smoking, until (recently) in the twenties or thirties when some huge newspaper baron decided to publish reports about the "harmful, crazy affects" of marijuana. It appears that he had invested in some pharmaceuticals and that marijuana, the natural alternative, was in direct competition to his product.

Last week a woman in California sued the government to allow her to use marijuana to help ease the pain she suffers due to a brain tumor and stimulate her appetite. She lost. The courts said that although she can use pot because of California state law, if she is prosecuted federally, she may do jail time. WTF? She is a 41 year old mother with kids who will soon die because of this tumor. She can get marijuana at a low cost and it's the best and most natural thing she's found to help her. The influence of these newspaper articles and the power of money has changed the course of our country and, in cases like this, we are doing things that just don't make sense. Let the woman roll a fattie!

I think we believe that we are much more advanced than we really are. My BFF told me that she recently learned that plants communicate to each other. If a dangerous bug attacks one plant, it emits signals to the plants around it that a predator is in the hiz-ouse and the neighboring plants begin prepping for their own chemical assault against the harmful intruder. That will make you think twice before eating a salad.

My point is that there are a lot of lessons out there that we haven't learned. Sometimes the truth is right before us, yet we refuse to see it. We lay down and take a lot of things that we shouldn't. We accept things that simply do not make sense. I'd love to know what they'll say about us in the year 2500. Will they think of us as ignorant barbarians (like we mistakenly do with anyone not born after 1940)? What do we believe today that will be laughable to them? Is there any chance that I'll see a gay, pot smoking president in my lifetime?

What do we believe today that doesn't make sense to you? Rant on...