Days 376-380 – June 18-22 – One while we’re out…

Number of days in Amsterdam – 376-380

Number of days without a bike theft – 372-376

Days since it last rained – 0

Gearing up for Glad Rooster’s first record, check this out.

Ozzy may have played guitar with his teeth, but Kitten plays drums with her gums…

By the time you read this, we’ll be in Umbria, perhaps strolling through the market, or maybe drinking vino on the terrace. Hopefully we’ll be having a great time.

As always happens in the week leading up to a trip, the days are consumed with doubling the work loads, so it’s no waiting for us when we get home. This was true as always, but a few things arose that bear notice.

With just 135 murders so far this past year, Detroit has lost its position as the most dangerous city in the US, losing to Flint, another Michigan city. Ah well, there’s always next year, and at least we’re keeping it local…

Here, there were protests against the new weed legislation.

As it stands, marijuana is legal for all practical purposes. It’s not quite legal, but I’m not quibbling this. The fact is that a tourist can come to Amsterdam, go to the coffeeshop, and get pot.

New legislation is going to change that.

Under the new laws, coffeeshops wil only be open to members, and only Dutch residents will be able to but memberships. It will become an establishment closed to tourists.

Now I find stones American tourists to be annoying and embarrassing. I have quickly learned that I’m not a big fan of many tourists. That being said, this law is a bad idea.

OK, so you get a lot of weed tourism in the ‘Dam. That means tourists come explicitly to get high. Tourists spend a lot of money, and weed tourists don’t just spend it at the coffeeshops. They spend it at hostels, chip stands, pizza stands, falafel stands, kebab places and cheesy souvenir stands that sell things with pot leaves on them.

Should this law pass, it really won’t stop the weed tourism. People will still come to get it, but illegally.

Now, a tourist comes, and they go to a coffeehouse and they buy pot in a sanctioned transaction. Eliminate this, and another step is added. This step requires another person. That person is a drug dealer.

Under the new law, an added element comes into play, and that element is a dangerous one. It will most likely be a Dutch “entrepreneur” who buys pot for resale at a profit. This creates crime where there was none before, and allows for the simple creation of a criminal element.

With the current market open and regulated, the worst thing encountered are stoned Americans stumbling down the streets. Under new laws, you’ll have stupid stoned Americans out looking for drug dealers.

It just doesn’t make sense to me.

In other news, I learned that if a baby has a diaper blowout inside of a nightgown while she’s squirming around on the playmat and nobody notices, it makes a big mess inside that nightgown.

As if that visual isn’t bad enough, my new column on Amsterdam Mamas is up, and it’s a doozy about a serious international incident that occurred while we were in Paris. It’s pretty gruesome.

Now, if you need something to cleanse away all this bad juju, here’s a dog in a shirt.

Ciao!