Despite seemingly incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, appearances actually still matter. Or more precisely, pretenses still do. At least in the small town of Carpinteria, which by now has become more a state of mind than an actual place.
Carpinterians are once again up in a full-frontal lather over cannabis, which is also a state of mind as much as an actual weed. As any fool can see, these states of mind have not been coexisting well in recent months; it seems there’s something about the smell. Which begs the question: What genius thought it made a spit’s lick of sense to arrange a posed photo of the superintendent of the Carpinteria school district — flanked by three school principals and a director of technology — out in the middle of a pot greenhouse with thousands of baby pot plants popping up, all wearing goofy grins and those even goofier professional pot-grower hats affixed with the pot company corporate logo, Glass House Farms? How does a photo like that — especially when published in Carpinteria’s hometown paper the Coastal View — not serve to further inflame Carpinteria’s already-too-raw sense of outrage over weed?
On what planet does this photo not make the subjects look like monkeys on a string?