"Not having everything builds character" Absolutely, Sawzaw. Less is more. So many of the highest achievers have come from very humble backgrounds and poor families. I think of people like Johnny Cash or Tina Turner. They came from very poor origins and had to work damn hard. That made them strong. The whole USA once had a very strong and independent population, because the frontier and country people grew up with not very much and they worked very hard for what they had.

That all vanished under a giant wave of consumerism and easy credit after WWII. It's really a shame what has happened in North America in the last 65 years...although it looked great when it first started rolling. I guess it is one of the cyclical ups and downs that all societies go through as a century or two rolls by.

Regarding pot legalization...well, I haven't got a wealth of statistics at my hands here, but I hate to think of several totally harmless, kind, and good people I know around here getting a criminal record just because some cop happens to stop by their place and find them in possession of a small amount of weed they're keeping for their own personal use. It would be a great miscarriage of justice if it happened.