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Drug tests for welfare recipients

What a great idea. And I know that being a fair and non-vindictive sort, West Virginia lawmaker Craig Blair will also start demanding drug testing for everyone who receives government handouts — from tax breaks to bailouts to states that take more from the federal tax system than they contribute to it.

And while we’re at it, maybe the members of the West Virginia legislature will all submit to a drug test before enacting this law. Just to show that if welfare recipients who get handouts for doing nothing must be drug-free then politicians who get handouts for doing nothing also must be drug-free.

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Media Bob

Is this mug worth five bucks a month?

Hell yes.

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Books Music Bob

An ode to nonagenarians

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, perhaps my favorite Beat poet after Gary Snyder, turns 90 today. And Pete Seger hits 90 on May 3. Literary Kicks has a nice tribute to these American icons. I hope we get to enjoy their genius for many years to come.

One of my few “brushes with greatness,” as David Letterman calls them, came at the Chautauqua Institution in New York back in the mid-’80s, where I had the “privilege” of urinating next to Pete Seger. If I’m not mistaken, he and Arlo Guthrie played that night, and Arlo resurrected Alice’s Restaurant after a long hiatus. I think there was a candlelight vigil against U.S. actions in