#if I had a dime for every time during the pandemic I was certain I was going to die I would be able to afford rent

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Spent the past 2 days giving myself a panic attack multiple times a day because I was sure I had COVID and was going to die because I was experiencing some mild cold/flu symptoms but also sometimes my chest hurt (sure I had been doing chest and ab exercising and overworking myself and also having panic attacks and pushing myself a bit too hard in working out and I have a history of asthma) but I was scared to take a test but I just took one and it’s negative and suddenly now my symptoms seem to have lessened

[themomsandthecity]

Hear Me Out: Potty Training Actually Brought My Family Closer Together

Long before I ever had a kid, and even before I seriously considered going on this parenthood journey, the idea of potty training loomed in my mind like a messy, stinky bridge that I never wanted to cross. Poop contained in a diaper? Sure, I could handle it. A little rogue pee on the pants? Fine. But a free-for-all of bathroom activities all over the house? Nope, not for me. The thing is, after two-and-a-half years (and change) of wrestling my wild crocodile child onto a changing pad, I knew it was time to ditch the diapers. And yet, removing all excrement-catching barriers on a toddler who's favorite word was "NO!" seemed like a bad idea. Worst case scenario? It was going to be a literal sh*t show. But like many things in life, sometimes you just have to rip off the bandaid (or in this case the diapers). Spoiler alert: It was messy, there was crying (mostly from me), but it was also, dare I say, fun? Preparing for Life After Diapers After watching an entire potty-training video course and reading a 274-page book dedicated to this topic alone, I'll be honest, I still felt unprepared. As a person with anxiety, the messaging around potty training can be a lot. It can feel like, if you don't follow certain steps to the letter, your kid will wear diapers for eternity. (I can confidently say now that's not true!) All of it is hard and amazing and the best thing ever, but it's still, well, hard. After doing my research, the next step was enlisting my husband in this operation. Up until this point, we'd managed to get through some dark stuff - becoming parents in a global pandemic, a year of no sleep, nannies quitting on a dime, picky eating, epic tantrums, and a whole lot of figuring out how to interact with each other in this new chaos of family life. All of it is hard and amazing and the best thing ever, but it's still, well, hard. And like so many parents, my husband and I have a tendency to slip into the habits of exhausted people. We'll stare at our phones instead of talking, or take turns entertaining our kid to give the other person a break, or zone out in front of the TV during the precious few hours of adult time we have at night. But potty training was going to require us to work together and be super present and engaged for hours (and days) at a time. Related: 7 Tips and Tricks For Potty Training Success Here's why: most modern day potty-training advice will tell you to set aside a three-day weekend for the process. As you go through the phases of naked, commando, and short outings with your kiddo, experts will tell you that you need to be laser-focused on every wiggle, toot, or potential pee-pee dance that could indicate your kid is about to unleash everywhere. Practically, that means you can't be scrolling TikTok and watching your kid. Read: no phones, no TV, no distractions to get through the hell that is Day 1 of potty training. So, with that in mind, we set a weekend. Embracing the Mess I'll admit, I'm a bit of a catastrophizer. I imagine the worst, but still secretly hope for the best. Needless to say, I had a pretty robust idea of what the worst case scenario looked like as we woke up for our first day of no diapers. Unfortunately, the first few hours of Day 1 were exactly as hard as I imagined. Without going into too much detail, I was ready to throw in the towel by lunch. But, by the afternoon we'd made a crucial decision - take this show outside. We set up the training potty in a shady spot, brought out some toys and lounge chairs, and let the party unfold. Turns out, that was exactly what we all needed. It took the pressure off and allowed us to relax, which is when the potty learning really began. As soon as I stepped out to run an errand, my husband texted me: Pee in the potty success! From that moment, I knew we could do this. We didn't have to have it perfect in one day, or even three. There was progress, and that's all that mattered. By Day 2 we… https://www.popsugar.com/family/potty-training-family-bonding-49289401?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[ksbwnotes]

Chapter 7

Ahhh next chapter is...going to brutalize my soul...

1. At first glance, this does seem really stupid, but it fits--especially with Bum’s mentality

Bum is about to do something super scary. He is going to try and run away from a serial killer with two broken legs. Like. That is fucking terrifying. Trying to do something to calm himself down before he leaves makes sense, even if it’s something as unimportant as trying to change clothes. 

And it will also make him stand out less, which will cause less people to stare at him and question him, which would make him even more nervous. After the ordeal he went through, the last thing he wants to deal with is the judgmental stares of strangers. 

This is also a way for him to keep Sangwoo’s secret safe. It doesn’t even seem to occur to him to rat out Sangwoo, which...that can say multiple things about him. He obviously still holds affection for Sangwoo (or, well, not Sangwoo but the sweet treatment he can sometimes get from Sangwoo), so he doesn’t want to see Sangwoo in jail. 

He also probably doesn’t really...care about the murders Sangwoo committed. He feels morally repulsed about it, which is why he can’t do it himself even under dire circumstances that would warrant these measures, but on a personal level, that part doesn’t bother him so much as the fact that it’s Sangwoo doing the killing. I honestly believe that if Sangwoo treated Bum lovingly and was exclusive with him, Bum would’ve accepted Sangwoo’s serial killer tendencies and made sure there was no way Sangwoo could get caught.

2. Yes, why don’t we fkkn pull out the dead bodies, my clothes might be in there somewhere

What the fuck Bum, oh my god. OTL  

Or maybe Bum subconsciously knows his mind is playing tricks on him and that it’s fake. Or maybe he really does think it could be real, but he doesn’t want it to be, so he opens up to make sure. 

But what weirds me out the most is the fact that Bum doesn’t actually...respond when he seemingly pulls out an arm and dismembered limbs fall out. No desire to vomit. No horror. Only, he’s more confused and grossed out, but he seems more...detached from the situation than anything else.  Which is even weirder when I consider how Bum is very vividly/visually piecing together how these clothes once belonged to women who were alive.

3. Honestly, I really want to know more about Sangwoo as a serial killer

Heeyyyy CEO girl’s undies are there too.

Here, we have clothes from what I can assume are the clothes of all the women Sangwoo murdered. But the moment Bum enters the picture, we don’t see anything explicit like Sangwoo bringing home women to kill them. So it makes these clothes have this air of...mystery. Like. If these are from old kills, we can assume that Sangwoo already put them through the laundry, so why are they in the laundry again? And if they are new kills, then why the heck isn’t there any explicit mentions of them, cuz Koogi isn’t the type to shy away from that?

If the former, I can assume that, maybe, Sangwoo is planning to dress Bum up in these clothes then try and fuck him in it. This might be the ‘reward’ he was thinking up had Bum not crossed the line. Actually...oh my god, this might be a mix of girls he has killed in the past + his mom’s clothes...Sangwoo...

ANYWAYS, in the latter...so, this is more or less through Bum’s eyes, so the lack of portrayal for Sangwoo’s kills could reflect Bum’s denial. He doesn’t want to see it happening, doesn’t want to connect the killing with Sangwoo--especially since it drives home just how close he is to getting killed by Sangwoo--so we don’t get to see that in his narrative. 

4. God, this man does not have a good life doesn’t he

Bum is obviously conflicted. No matter what he chooses, it’s hell for him either way. The choices here is either the devil he has known for years--one he knows that he can survive--or an entirely unknown devil that can give him what he wants, but most likely before that devil kills him.

[As an aside, honestly, I’d probably stay with Sangwoo if those were my only two choices...Sangwoo seems like he can be manipulated if you can play his game right and there could even be some merit to keeping him together. But with Bum’s uncle, we’d both be in a losing game because he’s useless. However, I won’t deny that uncle here is the safest choice, even if I don’t get anything out of it in the end]

5. Goddamn Koogi, fkkn applaud you

Seriously, the way Koogi portrays Bum’s thought processes are amazing. 

So, Bum obviously has some...sort of psychotic disorder because these visual and auditory hallucinations are another level. The thing is, Bum also seems to know very well that they aren’t real. With psychosis, the person usually can’t discern it from reality. In a way, it becomes their reality. Sangwoo seems to match this definition more actually, but I can’t say for sure because we haven’t gotten the in-depth look into his hallucinations like Bum here.

Anyways, going on, rather than a psychotic break from reality, it’s more like this is Bum’s way of parsing out his thoughts because, for whatever reason, he’s unable to think them through internally. Which fits with how indecisive he can be and how his actions can change on a dime. 

Bum is a more...instinctual person. Like how Sangwoo seems to react in real time to his surroundings and situations, Bum reacts based on learned habits, like a broken record on repeat. It makes it difficult for him to adapt to situations unless he has, in some way, experienced it before. Both of them respond instinctually, but for Sangwoo, it’s with calculated anger, him trying to come up on top and make it so that he can never feel powerless.

But for Bum, he responds sexually. I don’t know if his uncle has always been sexually abusing him because if not, then I’m not sure where Bum’s hypersexuality comes from--unless it came due to not having any sexual experience until his uncle raped him later in life. 

Either way, since Bum believes he has literally nothing to offer but his body--and it can also give him pleasure in the meanwhile, which is probably the only times he gets a dopamine release--that is Bum’s primary response.

6. Oooffff Bum’s thoughts in literally plain view

Bum is still holding onto his image of Sangwoo, as well as the sweet moments he had with him. Because that is obviously what Bum wants, more than anything. But the thing is, Bum knows that Sangwoo doesn’t actually love him. Sangwoo will end up killing him if he crosses the line--not just the metaphorical one Sangwoo ‘carved’ on the wooden floor. But every single line that Sangwoo draws up in the future as well. 

With his uncle, if he crosses the line, then what he gets is a beating, but for the most part, he’s ignored. He’s able to go outside. If he keeps to himself, his uncle won’t care about him outside of whatever physical ‘sessions’. But with Sangwoo, if he crosses the line, then he’s useless. Killing him will be give Sangwoo more entertainment than keeping him alive. And there are so many lines Bum can’t cross, to a point where he won’t be able to live a life. With his uncle, it’s just about surviving certain moments. With Sangwoo, it’s about surviving second by second. Especially since he knows Sangwoo is a serial killer, so I think subconsciously, Bum knows Sangwoo can’t keep him alive if he doesn’t follow the rules.

7. Oh, wow, scratch my earlier comment, so Bum actually did have a psychotic break lol

...Though, it’s still like Bum knows that something is off about what he’s seeing. 

He’s never had qualms about screaming for his life. We yell at Sangwoo not to break his leg, he whines about his broken leg, he complains to Sangwoo when being washed in the tub, and in the next chapter, he even calls Sangwoo a motherfucker. 

So...why is it that, when he’s about to be killed, he doesn’t yell out to Sangwoo or beg to him?  

Yes, he’s visually hallucinating (or whatever term is suppose to apply here arjgoerjgoe) time being faster than it actually is, but it’s still as if a part of him knows that it isn’t Sangwoo in front of him. It’s like he’s lost in his visualizations of a story where Sangwoo does kill him, like the visceral reaction a watcher has to a horror movie they get too into.

8. Wow, this really shows a more...attached reaction to leaving Sangwoo

Quietly bidding adieu to Sangwoo’s presence gives this feeling that Bum doesn’t actually want to leave. But he also wants to survive. It’s similar to how suicidal people don’t want die, they just want to escape the pain. 

9. How people reacted once the shutdown ended lololol

Oh god imagine if KS happened during the pandemic O_O

ANYWAYS. The fact that Bum doesn’t fkkn check to see if Sangwoo is there. The fact that he doesn’t keep a hand on the door handle so that he could close the door. The fact that he doesn’t do it slowly and quietly. 

No seriously, so many times and this one is probably the worst. Bum continuously does things that make it seem like he wants to get caught. It’s like he doesn’t fully commit to his plan. 

It’s more like...instead of wanting to escape, he just wants to see the outside world. He wants to go outside again. He doesn’t want to get beaten and have his life threatened an inch of his life. But, again, he doesn’t want to actually leave. 

So when he sees Sangwoo sitting there, he doesn’t...do anything. It’s like his instinct is to stay where Sangwoo is. Even in the face of being outside, the first thing he does is appeal to Sangwoo, THEN to crawl away begging for help when he realizes that this will be his last time being able to go outside. 

But again, first instinct was to beg for Sangwoo’s forgiveness. In that triad of instincts, Bum’s is sexual first, social second, with fkkn self-preservation as his blind oh my god. 

10. Uh wait

Is Sangwoo even singing?  Or is he just listening to music right now??  I’d say more on this, but there’ll be a LOT to unpack in the next chapter, so I’ll just end it here.

[starksbarberco]

Running a Business During a Pandemic

There is no question that the pandemic is the stiffest challenge a small business like ours has (and will) ever face. I’ve been telling my franchisees things like “you can’t fall off the floor” to motivate them and keep their spirits high ☺️. But there is something everyone should realize about the pandemic and how it affects certain sectors of small business; there are clear-cut winners and losers. It’s an unfortunate thing but it’s the reality of today’s world where we struggle with issues like inequality. Where one business fails, inevitably another one succeeds and that is how disruption occurs. In our case, being able to take appointments and having very clean and minimalistic designed barber shops has been a huge advantage. Our stores are not eclectic and busy looking, nor are they old and unruly. We have receptionists cleaning in between services and the neighbourhood barber shops don’t. The appearance of being extremely clean became a huge priority for customers overnight. As far as appointments go, many of our competitors from old school barber shops to budget brands simply can’t take appointments because it doesn’t fit their business model. Ask yourself, would you want to drive down to the barber shop and stick your head in the door just to be told to wait in your car? Typically, people sit in the store and wonder “am I next or is it the guy next to me?” Another advantage we have relates to capacity limits. Because our stores are bigger, and our barber chairs are six feet apart we can operate at max capacity under the public health guidelines. The reality is with a barber shop, unlike something like a restaurant, they all have a similar number of chairs and in this case, smaller stores were at a disadvantage. If the old school barber shop is only 500 square feet and they can’t keep people social distanced, they might only be able to run three chairs at a time instead of five. Now think about the wage subsidy. For businesses like Starks with payroll, we qualify for the subsidy, and it has a tremendous impact. When we reopened after a lockdown, we would see a gold rush of clients and because the subsidy looks back 3 months (during a lockdown period) almost 90% of the wage costs are absorbed by the government. We see an incredible amount of business in the first two weeks after a lockdown and although it doesn’t make up for the closure, it helps a lot. Almost all the old school barber shops either rent chairs or pay commission to their staff. Their “employees” are considered independent contractors and they can’t get a dime from the federal wage subsidy. 

In normal times it might not be as easy to win someone’s business from the incumbent neighbourhood shop that they’ve supported for years. But when it comes to people’s personal safety, if you have the right solution, you’re going to get a shot at their business. When they decide to give us a shot, they enjoy those modern elements like booking on a mobile app and being taken right when they walk in. They get a relaxing wash before their haircut and a nice massage after and think it might be time for a permanent change. For the extra $5-$10 that Starks charges, we’ve probably won them over with those value ads. As much as this sounds like a story of fortune, the reality is we’ve been disrupting these barber shops long before the pandemic. Our commitment to involve ourselves in the communities we do business in, supporting local causes, sports teams and fundraisers is another way we get an edge. Typically, the old school barber shop is friendly and nostalgic, but does little marketing or purposeful work in the community outside of cutting hair. 

I’ve been noticing these covid winner/loser parallels in different areas of small business and through different franchise systems. It seems that the forward-thinking ones are really capturing market share as we vault faster into the digital age. I remember listening to one of the more accomplished people in the world of franchising speak at the beginning of the pandemic. He’s a Harvard Business School graduate and has over 1500 franchised units globally under his watch. He said “the consumer will change forever when this is over. Don’t wait for things to ‘go back to normal’ make sure you anticipate change.” Boy was he right, and this was last April when everyone was still seeing stars and wondering what happened over the last few weeks. I took his advice and in 2020 we launched our mobile booking app which has been a huge hit with customers. 

Times change and so do businesses, but this was a shock to the system. Perhaps we needed it to prepare us for the future where disruption will occur faster and faster as technology continues to evolve. Lucky for us people will always need a haircut. Now that said and as with any business, they’ll always be someone trying to eat our lunch. 

I typically write these blogs very spontaneously based on whatever comes to mind. I feel its a very authentic way to share my thoughts. When I started off here, I didn’t think I would have painted such a rosy picture of the pandemic, especially after starting off by saying this was the stiffest challenge we’ve ever faced. There’s no question we’ve had to endure a lot. The closures first and foremost, but also having to change the way we service clients, try and protect people when it seemed impossible to do so; has all been very difficult. All that said, any challenge in life is only as difficult to handle as the attitude you approach it with. My default attitude is always positive. I left my corporate career 10 years ago and got into the hair business with no experience, no business plan, and no money (LOL). If I had to peg success to one thing it would be attitude. I guess that’s why this blog took a positive turn right away. If there’s any takeaway so far from this experience on a business level, its that business leaders need to be prepared for anything. When that “anything” comes, you need to attack it with positivity and anticipate change. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes about attitude…

“Every single problem that you have in your life, is the seed of an opportunity”

- Deepack Chopra 

Steve Tallis is a thought leader in men’s grooming and franchising. He routinely contributes to style and business publications to promote wellness and the growing brand he co-founded almost ten years ago. For more information head to StarksBarberCompany.com.

[clairemclaire]

Since covid, this really makes me think and appreciate all lives mattered during before pandemic, going through this covid-19 ill seasons.. it's been all along a year and this honestly painfully exhausting and draining...

Game of thrones

And i miss so much every single one and every dead or lively creature in the land outside, out the world that I am now living in....

Since covid, I have learned about many things about I could have not learnt in class and in certain circumstances, but what I truly consider and one dime of deem is my own speculation how it was all before it happened..

Ever since, I watched game of thrones, now the view I see outside of the world is very changing, but in a small and a big way, one of us dying and living. Maybe if it was less than of surviving than being grateful and more cherishing than surviving?

What if there never had been any volunteered of medical staffs to patients and let it die alone in dark times

Like the fight between the Night king and other seven kingdoms and we are now living in verses 1 to death of covid against Night king. Hahahaha

[omfgtrump]

No, I won’t Be Going

Watching the drama of The Don’s refusal to concede unfold, I struggled to find a way to organize my thoughts.

We did learn that The Don believed he was the “golden goose” for Fox News and wants to destroy all the eggs he produced for them because they called Arizona for Biden and had the nerve to call the election for Biden. Now that’s a fight I would pay to see. Maybe that’s what the 3rd season of “Succession” (the HBO series based on Rupert Murdoch and his media empire), should be.

I also heard the word non-zero used for the first time in my life in reference to one of The Don’s frivolous lawsuits. The Don’s lawyer was arguing that there weren’t poll workers observing in certain polling places. When the judge pushed the lawyer on that nonsense he actually said: “There were nonzero people in that room,” a tactic that seemed straight out of “Alice in Wonderland.” Was that a planned strategy to confuse the judge? “Of course,” said the judge, “nonzero people, makes perfect sense to me. Your case is uphelddown. “What,” said the lawyer, “do we win or lose?”

We also got to see Rudy G. go so low he now lives in the sewer. Do you see the look in his eyes? Someone should find the rabid dog that bit him (or the dog he bit?) before it finds another victim. There was Rudy pushing the president’s case at a press conference at “The Four Seasons.”

Rumor has it that Rudy was trying to increase the crowd size so he thought if he announced the press conference was taking place at the Four Seasons (the swanky hotel in downtown Philadelphia), reporters would think: That’s kind of posh, maybe they’ll serve martinis and caviar.

Instead they found themselves in a parking lot in North Philadelphia in front of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, which was buttressed by a sex shop, a crematorium, and a jail. When asked why he chose this spot, rumor has it he replied: “I thought it was perfect. Sex sells, there is so much death going around from that annoying virus and well jail, that’s where we are going if we don’t turn these election results around.”

You have to love the owners of Four Seasons Total Landscaping as they capitalized on the publicity and created t-shirts like Lawn and Order and Make America Rake Again. The Don was so impressed with their capacity to monetize the situation that he called the owner to inquire if he wanted to be part of his Treasury Department during his second term.

But it gets better. The freak show included a passionate plea from Daryl Brooks, who claimed he was a poll worker and wasn’t given access to watch the counting of the votes. Turns out Daryl had a somewhat checkered past as he was incarcerated in the 1990s on charges of sexual assault, lewdnes,s and endangering the welfare of a minor for exposing himself to two girls ages 7 and 11. Frankly, not the kind of guy you want looking too closely at anything.

It would all be deliciously absurd if it wasn’t so devastating and amoral. The attention on The Don’s antics while the pandemic surges makes it feel like we are living in yes, you got it, an alternate reality. ICU’s across the nation reaching capacity, medical staff overworked and traumatized, the number of cases moving toward 200,000/day-a death march of catastrophic proportions. Meanwhile The Don is having a tantrum and Republicans are placating him as usual.

What is The Don thinking. No one knows for sure but here are my thoughts in verse. Hope you enjoy it

No I won’t be going!

No, I won’t be going No I won’t, Those dumb poll workers Don’t know how to count the vote.

Oh my Lord, oh my Lord This election is a fraud, But I have a true North Star His name is William Barr.

Mitch is my bitch And Lindsey is so flimsy, The G.O.P is now the D.J.T they jump at my every whimsy.

70 million know That I am the way am the dope, fuck the Pope, Have more swagger than Mick Jagger.

Democracy, meh, Such hypocrisy it is, I am clever as a cat And will be your beloved autocrat.

So listen MAGA people, It will all be okay, I will find a way out of this mess, I’ve consulted O.J.

Rudy G. will take them down Don’t mind those who say he’s a clown, He is a man of great reason, Don’t mind the sex offender you saw at the Four Seasons.

They say I am brooding, They say I am down, But it’s just a ploy, I’m readying to burn the house down.

So let me say it again, I won’t go, I won’t go, This rodeo is staying Let’s begin the 2nd season of this show.

We got such good ratings We put Fox News on the map  But those losers betrayed me When it is said and done, will see who’s the sap.

We will fight to the finish So give me your last dime, Cause they’re going to defund the police, We are running out of time.

All the proof you need is in their VP She’s black, she’s an immigrant, She’s a minority, A real enemy.

This is our country, The land of the free, Let blacks in your hood You’ll see where you’ll be.

And those cases that are rising, Don’t believe their math, They are fucking with your mind Leading you down a false path.

It’s all a ploy to make me look bad Oh, those poor TV pundits looking so sad They’re all such losers for taking me to task Fuck them, say no when they say wear a mask.

So let me say it again, I won’t go, I won’t go, This rodeo is staying Let’s begin the 2nd season of this show.

And if for some reason, They cancel the 2nd season, I’ll be back with a roar And whip their butts in 2024.

“Who says there is a law that if you have been convicted of a crime you can’t run for president?“

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[supremekalmllc]

New Post has been published on https://supremekalm.com/will-cannabis-businesses-get-federal-coronavirus-money-probably-not/

Will Cannabis Businesses Get Federal Coronavirus Money? Probably Not.

Right now, economic times are tough for almost every single American and individual business in this country, large or small. Unemployment is at depression-era levels, and companies are doing whatever they can to cut costs and save employees while the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. Unless you haven’t been paying attention, the Feds took historic steps to pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Actâ€), which provides limited financial relief to individuals and businesses to try to remedy the financial havoc caused by the pandemic. Specifically, CARES Act provides $2 trillion in funding to businesses and individuals affect by COVID-19. Namely, $500 billion will be allocated to large corporations and $350 billion will be given out in the form of small business loans geared towards maintaining employment numbers and economic stability. Billions of dollars in debt relief for existing business loans are also available. While all of this sounds great (although the roll out of the program has not been the smoothest), cannabis businesses and even ancillary cannabis businesses won’t see a dime of this federal financial relief.

Where cannabis businesses remain federally illegal (because cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act), they are not eligible to get any benefits under the CARES Act. Additionally, federal illegality prevents cannabis businesses from receiving newly created “disaster loans†from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act. (The SBA determined back in 2018 that cannabis businesses wouldn’t be eligible to receive federal loans). Notably, where hemp is no longer a Schedule I controlled substance, those businesses are likely free to take advantage of the foregoing federal relief (though it’s dicier for hemp-CBD businesses that violate the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act).

For an industry that’s created thousands of jobs and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in local, state, and federal tax revenue, to be left out of the CARES Act is fundamentally unfair. Federal law “is what it is†when it comes to cannabis, but the Feds have made significant exceptions for the cannabis industry before. For example, the NLRB had no problem going after cannabis business employers engaged in violations of labor and employment laws. The SEC allows cannabis ancillary businesses to be traded over the counter. FinCEN instituted guidelines to allow for cannabis business to secure bank accounts under certain circumstances even though such activity clearly constitutes money laundering under the Bank Secrecy Act. And the Department of Justice has at times instituted enforcement criteria to remain entirely hands off when it comes to prosecuting state licensed cannabis business owners under federal law (see, e.g., the 2013 Cole Memo) and even Native American Tribes (see the 2014 Wilkinson Statement).

Whether the Feds like it or not, state legal cannabis is a growing part of the country’s economy that doesn’t deserve the financial snub it’s getting under the CARES Act. And the Feds have in no way been consistent about enforcement unless it comes to towing certain political lines around the failed War on Drugs (in my opinion). What’s also incredibly illuminating here is that states on the whole have pronounced medical cannabis (and in some cases adult-use cannabis) businesses to be “essential†and that they’re allowed to remain open during COVID-19 under multiple state and local stay-at-home orders (see, e.g., California).

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Feds will need to engage in a second-round stimulus package to save businesses in the U.S. from the financial disaster caused by COVID-19. And this time around Representative Ed Perlmutter from Colorado is going to bat for cannabis businesses to get some recognition for these federal funds. Per Marijuana Moment:

On a town hall call with small businesses in his Colorado district [last week], Perlmutter was asked by the executive director of a top marijuana company whether the cannabis market has any hope of becoming eligible for federal loan and lending programs, as businesses that work with marijuana directly or indirectly are currently excluded from [SBA] benefits.

In response, Perlmutter stated:

We have prepared legislation that we hope will be in the next package. Probably not the one that’s being discussed right now, but we’ve asked for legislation to allow for banking, for SBA lending, for testing to be part of the next package . . . Whether we’re going to get it, whether we can get the Senate to finally get off of their fannies and pass it, I don’t know. But you can rest assured that the issue you raised is front and center.

And according to Perlmutter, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is on board with the proposal that cannabis businesses at least get access to banking under any future stimulus package. Only time will tell if this much-needed financial assistance will come through for cannabis and ancillary cannabis businesses. The likely truth, though, is that the cannabis industry will not be bailed out by the Feds. The Feds pick and choose when they want to let up on the industry, and federal cannabis funding probably isn’t high on Congress’s list of to-dos.

Unfortunately, for essential cannabis businesses (and for the hundreds of thousands of patients and adult-use customers who opt to forego accessing the illegal cannabis market), they will likely have to do their best to support themselves for the worst case financial scenario, or they will have to lean on their local and/or state governments for financial aid. While Representative Perlmutter’s goals are noble and on the right side of history, the politics around the federal illegality of cannabis will likely stymie any financial assistance during COVID-19.

The post Will Cannabis Businesses Get Federal Coronavirus Money? Probably Not. appeared first on Harris Bricken.

[realtalk-princeton]

Prefrosh here. Why should I go to Princeton? What exciting about Pton made u wanna go?

Response from Sulpicia:

I’m going to start off by saying that Princeton is not for everyone. It may not offer the major you want, or you may want to double major and that’s not possible. You might not like living in a small town, and would prefer to be in a more traditional college town/small city/big city. You may want to be in a place with more interaction between your school and other schools, which doesn’t really exist at Princeton. You might want to go to a bigger school or a smaller one, or one that specializes in a certain thing. As great as (I think) Princeton is, it is not and will never be all things for all people, and I don’t know why you should go to Princeton, because I don’t know you. In a lot of ways, I think of it as a “total experience”; between the academic demands, relatively isolated campus, and the fact that most students are the same age and work on campus, you do feel isolated, both from the wider world and even the community outside of the college. For me, this ended up not being a huge problem, but I think it is at the heart of what a lot of people don’t like about Princeton.

While I can’t tell you why you should go to Princeton, I can tell you why I and people I know went to Princeton and why I continue to like it. A lot of this really drills down to the fact that Princeton has so much more money than almost every other university in the world, and devotes so much more of that money to undergrads that anywhere else (I think). For most people, Princeton was the best financial aid offer they got, and money is often a big reason that people end up choosing the university. Additionally, Princeton is pretty special imo in the number of internship programs it fosters; while friends at other schools had a hard time getting summer internships, I was able to do a paid Princeton-affiliated program every summer. There are also so many summer study opportunities (which are inconsistently covered by financial aid but can be mostly or entirely paid for) and other enrichment opportunities.

During the year, you’ll also get the chance to do so many things on Princeton’s dime, from seeing incredible speakers and performances, traveling (I went to Greece and Princeton paid for it, and many classes have domestic or international field trips), learning from world experts, getting far, far too many free t-shirts, and doing a lot of fun activities. The number of things you can do on this campus is just obscene, and you really can do whatever you set your sights on.

Academically, it’s certainly challenging, but you will grow a lot as a student and researcher. There are outstanding professors everywhere, but I think at Princeton because there’s more money to go around people have (relatively) less terrible teaching loads and can give you more of their teaching/mentoring energy. The problems of academia don’t stop at Princeton’s gates, but the quality of instruction I have received (I’m in a humanities department) has been really high, and I’ve also receive a lot of support from faculty as I applied to graduate school, which I would not have done if Princeton had not showed me that doing something like that was a possibility for me. This also doesn’t really affect you as a prefrosh but the library system here is also unbelievable, and I am so immensely grateful for the access to literally anything I might want, barring mass pandemic.

The school is also very small for a research university, and so you do get a more personal residential life experience; I also really like all the student groups here and have found them to be pretty community-oriented. In particular, the residential college system is how I made some of the best friends I have had in my entire life, so I feel incredibly grateful to have come here.

For a lot of personal reasons my choice to come to Princeton was somewhat fraught and I doubted myself for a long time, but at the end of the day I look back on my four years and know that I would not be the person I am today intellectually, socially, etc. if I had not come here. I can’t see the person I would have become if I’d gone another way, but I’m really happy with where I’m at now, I will always be grateful to Princeton for what it has given me, and my experience has somehow made the fact that our school colors are orange and black acceptable to me.