The sale and commercialization of CBD products has become an important topic within the U.S., one that’s left an economical and cultural footprint that will only grow in the coming years.
This CBD trend has led to the appearance of all sorts of products and activities that users are enthralled with; the cannabis compound has a place in dinner parties, body care products, and dog treats. It was only a matter of time before the hotel business joined in and provided some options of their own. Standard Hotels are offering CBD treats in their mini bars. And now, theNYC Jame Hotel offers gourmet multi-course CBD experience for guests.
“We’re always researching new ways to offer a relaxing experience,” says James LaRusso, PR Director of the hotel. “CBD extract is proven to have calming effects, easing anxiety and stress in most who consume it. We knew the medicinal properties of this culinary offering would allow us to extend a special calming experience to our guests.”
Despite the fact that restaurants and bars in different areas of California and Seattle have been banned from including CBD in their menus, The James NoMad hasn’t encountered any problems in that regard — not yet at least. The hotel’s CBD menus are included in all of their rooms and guests can order whatever they want from them, just like regular room service. They also offer CBD infused beauty products in the shape of lotions and bath salts that guests can request on any given day.
Celebrity cannabis chef Andrea Drummer, who’s written a cookbook and was voted as one of the top 10 cannabis chefs in the U.S., was in charge of designing a menu that could satisfy all sorts of customers. She worked closely with the hotel and decided to incorporate a variety of items, including high end dishes, granola bars, tater tots, and even dog treats. “Our hotel is pet friendly,” says LaRusso. “We’ve had many guests say this is such a great way to calm their dog at night when in a new setting.”
Photos courtesy of James Hotel NY.
When asked about Drummer and why the hotel decided to get involved with her, LaRusso said that she had a lot of experience and expertise with cannabis and that her vision aligned with the hotel’s. “Andrea designed the menu in two parts: the multi-course tasting menu and an offering of snacks and amenities. Dishes on the tasting menu include everything from savory meatballs to a decadent ice cream sundae, while our snack menu offers a range of tasty portable treats to eat in room or take on the go.”
By steering clear of brownies and stereotypical cannabis treats, the James Hotel has managed to differentiate themselves from competitors, providing an experience that’s unlike any other and that has been very positively received by hotel guests and cannabis experts. “Other hotels or dining establishments almost poke fun of CBD,” says LaRusso. “Our experience is very different and very gourmet.”
With legalization passed and ready to open its doors to the public in Canada, many big time acquisitions and investments have either happened or are happening. Huge amounts of money are exchanging hands and the beauty of it all is that, with cannabis legalized, banks, accountants, money managers and stock mavens are digging their hands in and saying, “Let’s go!”
Constellation Brands, which brings us the likes of Corona, Modelo and Pacifico beers, has invested heavily in the Canadian mega-cultivation operation, Canopy Growth. They got started with a 9.9 percent stake last October, then a third of the brand was bought up by them in June. Many on Wall Street are predicting a full acquisition at some point.
But what about cannabis based growth in the U.S.? We know that it’s a burgeoning market set up to make billions in the coming years, but with marijuana remaining federally illegal, truly enormous acquisitions like the ones being made in Canada are still off on the horizon.
Sure, the U.S.’s MedMen just bought up Treadwell Nursery in Florida for over $50 million, but that’s about the size of it. Other U.S. companies are also making acquisitions in the cannabis sector, but the theme seems to be more along the lines of, “Let’s try to be ready to compete when the big dogs come in,” rather than “The big dogs are here.”
And this may be a very good thing for diversity of market down the line.
Strategic partnerships are happening, from product companies merging with their distribution systems, grow operations and packaging gurus to large dispensaries absorbing smaller, potentially struggling mom and pot shops. It seems that when larger scale cannabis deals are made in this tender moment in U.S. history, there is a much better chance of traditions being upheld and of people’s original ideas living on throughout the changes that will come with bigger business.
When the U.S. does legalize it federally and ends the vestiges its of a deadly and sadly petty Drug War, not only will venture capitalists and idea persons be investing and inventing, it will be a whole new world, packed with mega-conglomerates with their major investments; large mergers and acquisitions will change the landscape of cannabis business in the blink of an eye.
It’s up to everyone already embedded in the marijuana movement, the people who got us here and the listeners who have learned from them to keep cannabis honest, no matter how big it gets. We’ll always want access to compassionate care, plant flowers, full plant extracts and the myriad of goodies from salves to edibles that come with a legalized landscape and big money inevitably coming in should facilitate that, not phase it out.
The latest tech business that’s trying to reap the benefits of cryptocurrency is Line, a Japanese messaging app that allows users to text and call each other internationally.
TechCrunch reports that the app will launch a cryptocurrency token called Link, that’ll allow users to purchase stickers, webtoons, and other services within the app. Instead of having users purchase cryptocoins, Line will award Link coins to users when they complete certain activities.
“Over the last seven years, Line was able to grow into a global service because of our users, and now with Link, we wanted to build a user-friendly reward system that gives back to our users. With Link, we would like to continue developing as a user participation-based platform, one that rewards and shares added value through the introduction of easy-to-use apps for people’s daily lives,” says Line CEO Takeshi Idezawa.
Line will release 800 million Link tokens to users all over the world, and will retain 200 million for themselves. This reserve of tokens will be used later on or will be expanded upon depending on the growth and success of the cryptocoin. Line has encountered some trouble when competing with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and dozens of other messaging apps that provide similar features and benefits, so with the creation of this coin the company hopes to give their users some exclusive privileges that will encourage them to use the app more frequently.
While it’s a cool idea to try something new that differentiates your product from all the other ones on the market, it’s been a notoriously poor year for cryptocurrencies of all sorts. While Line’s motivations are placed in the right place, all of this work and faith in a developing technology may result in nothing.
If Drake’s beef with Meek Mill was a long-dormant, friendly volcano that erupted and calcified in quick passing, the feud Aubrey Graham has maintained with Pusha T, Kanye West, and the Kardashians is like an oscillating forest fire, attaching itself to whatever possible kindling to continue its flame. Even Kim, who is obsessed with controlling her narrative at all costs, has even been pulled into addressing all the rumors swirling around.
The beef memorably peaked with Pusha T’s “The Story of Adidon,” which included cover art of Drake in blackface and the iconic line, “You are hiding a child, let that boy come home.” At that point it seem the beef was poised to consume hip-hop’s every-available timber, but legendary Houston hip-hop mogul J. Prince “pulled” Drake from any further escalation. Kanye added on Twitter that he was calling the beef “dead” too.
But I don’t know about that! Small snipes from Drake aside, the beef’s ugly zombie corpse has reanimated thanks to…Nick Cannon? Yes, Mr. Wild ’N Out went on Complex’s “Everyday Struggle” show and speculated with DJ Akademiks that Drake had particularly damning news about Kanye and company—a romantic relationship between Drake and Kim that happened in the past.
“I think Drake smashed Kim K,” Akademiks bluntly said. Cannon added that it’s not “that far off of a concept.”
It explains why Kanye was eager to end the beef, in both Akademik’s and Cannon’s opinions. It also explains J. Prince’s cryptic comments when he called off Drake, as he mentioned that Drizzy had recorded a “diss track,” but J. Prince refused its release because it would’ve gone scorched earth on everyone.
A pertinent reminder: Cannon actually dated Kim as far back as 2006. So he does have some possible insight into the matter. “There’s something real personal Drake holds over that whole family, that he’s like, ‘y’all don’t want me to let this out,’” he said.
Though the theory has circulated, Kim shot down the rumors as quickly as possible in a comment on the Shade Room’s Instagram. Sources close to Kim also strongly denied the rumors to TMZ. Where this is all going, who knows, but Drake just followed Kim on Instagram to stir the pot some more. Surely this isn’t the last we’ll hear about it.
It has been nine months since U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memo, a non-binding set a guidelines that allowed states to experiment with legal marijuana, and everyone from leaders in Congress to pot advocates are still babbling on about it. But, despite the recent development of the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee, a group established to reverse public opinion on cannabis in America, no significant changes in federal marijuana enforcement have come from this action.
Nevertheless, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, who has been mostly anti-marijuana during her time on Capitol Hill, recently told the Spokesman-Review that while she still has “concerns” about recreational marijuana, she is “against” Sessions’ decision to toss the Cole Memo in the trash. “We get to see the laboratories of democracy at work,” she said.
Yet, McMorris Rodger still isn’t willing to tender her support for a measure designed to end marijuana prohibition at the national level. She told the new source that she needed “more information” before taking that leap.
Still, cannabis advocates like Tom Angell believe the comments made by McMorris Rodgers signal progress in the grand scheme of national cannabis reform. Since the Congresswoman chairs the House Republican Conference and is “responsible for electing the House Republican leadership, approving GOP Member committee assignments, managing leadership-driven floor debates, and executing a communications strategy, she may, perhaps, use her position to assist in putting more pro-pot leadership in place and bring about some real developments for the issue.
But that is highly unlikely.
The Congresswoman’s latest interview may imply a change of heart with respect to marijuana, yet McMorris Rodgers is no friend to cannabis. She is not a true fan of recreational marijuana. This skepticism, she says, is over “the impact it may have on children.”
Not only that, but she has consistently voted against allowing doctors with Veterans Affairs to discuss medical marijuana with their patients. She has also voted against banking protections and industrial hemp.
But it’s an election year and she represents one of the first states to fully legalize marijuana – a $1 billion industry statewide. For her to even suggest that she sides with Attorney General Sessions’ decision to eliminate the Cole Memo from the equation would be political suicide. If that’s no enough, her opponent Democrat Lisa
Brown is in favor of implementing a taxed and regulated marijuana market nationwide.
“But it is nonetheless remarkable that a Republican lawmaker outranked by only the speaker, majority leader and majority whip would call into question a major move by a presidential administration of her own party to rescind cannabis protections instituted by the former Democratic administration,” Angell wrote. “And it is notable, in light of her voting record and the position of other GOP House leaders, that she would voice even tempered support for letting states implement their marijuana laws without federal interference.”
We’re not buying it. After all, actions speak louder than words. Until the Congresswoman’s voting record shows that she is ready to embrace marijuana, not continue to sandbag it, she should be considered one of the enemies. If she is reelected, lets watch and see how she proceeds with the issue once it comes time to get down to business again on Capitol Hill. We’re betting the same McMorris Rodgers anti-pot rhetoric is to come.
The state of Texas smelled like “Jersey Shore Night” at an early aughts nightclub over the weekend, after a semi truck carrying loads of Axe body spray caught fire and exploded.
Officials in Belton, Texas say the truck carrying the odorous product caught fire about 4 a.m. Friday morning, causing the cans of Axe to ignite and launch across both directions of Interstate 35, creating a bottleneck for about eight hours.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. However, the number of nostril casualties has not been reported.
Jodi Wheatley, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Transportation, told CNN Sunday three lanes and both shoulders on the section of I-35 will need to be removed and replaced because of the intensity of the fire.
FIRE VIDEO: Viewer David Clauder sent us this video from the fire on I-35 this morning.
“After a sudden turn of events, the Conners are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before. This iconic family — Dan, Jackie, Darlene, Becky and D.J. — grapples with parenthood, dating, an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America. Through it all, the fights, the coupon cutting, the hand-me-downs, the breakdowns — with love, humor and perseverance, the family prevails.”
She says, “People have been making things up about our relationship for 20 years. “And even though the designer and soccer player are used to the gossip, their kids aren’t. Victoria said, “But these things have a wider effect on the people around us, and that’s unfair.”
A new, very important study out of the University of Texas at Austin spent some heated moments poring over hundreds of steamy romance novels (703, to be exact) to figure out what words were associated with the books that ranked highest among readers.
“There are self-reports and observational data. But here, you have this natural language,” UT postdoctoral scholar Kate Blackburn told the Houston Chronicle. “And one of the things that I love about doing research is that natural language gives us answers about who we really are and what we feel.”
According to the Houston Chronicle, Blackburn and her research team used an online publishing platform called Smashwords, where readers rate books on a five-star scale.
The team created a list of the top 25 words found in highly rated books. And one word had a greater correlation between its use and a novel’s high rating than any other. We can’t print it here. But we can say it’s a colloquial term for a male body part, and that it rhymes with sock.
https://giphy.com/gifs/gobble-UgGPL6rtm1z44
Blackburn said while she was not at all surprised that the most popular books contained words associated with sex and arousal, she was a little taken aback by this result. And not for the reason you probably assume.
“It makes sense that they’re focused on male parts, but I think it was surprising we didn’t see this as much with women’s parts,” she said. “We didn’t see ‘breast,’ or some of those things that you might think would pop up with moments of arousal. And that was kind of surprising.” (Pop up, huh? Interesting choice of words.)
But it shouldn’t be that surprising, says the Houston Chronicle, which points out that romance novels are written in a woman’s voice.
According to data from the Romance Writers of America, 82 percent of romance readers are women — largely between the ages of 25 and 34. So while mainstream movies and general fiction exist in a largely male-dominated world, the billion-dollar romance industry, is told from the perspective of women. Readers see from women’s eyes.
And those eyes can often be found staring at … well, men. (Eighty-six percent of romance readers are straight, according to RWA.)
What might actually be surprising is that the word “c**k” was only mentioned about four times per novel, making it one of the least used words to make the top 25 list. Small but mighty!
The word “kiss” was the most used (scoring an average of about 39 times per book), followed closely by the word “nod,” which was used about 32 time per book, proving that romance novels aren’t all about sex.
And that’s not exactly news to Sophie Jordan, a bestselling romance author, who tells the Houston Chronicle, “Whenever I meet someone — who, I’m sure they don’t intend to be insulting — but they’re like, ‘You write porn.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I don’t write porn. Porn is sex devoid of story. That’s not what romance is. We want the romance behind it — the story behind it. We’ll hang in there for 200 to 300 pages before we ever reach an act of intimacy. We’re getting invested in who they are as characters, getting invested in the story.”
You don’t have to be famous to come up in a Google search. If you type your name in the search bar, you might stumble upon your social media profile(s), your professional site, and maybe a few embarrassing posts or pictures that were somehow picked up by the search engine. And since the web doesn’t really need your permission to post this kind of stuff, it can feel like an invasion of privacy when you see unwanted content about yourself online. Like when someone reads your diary or something.
While it takes a lot to erase something from Google — you’d have to erase the entire thing off the internet, and we all know how hard/impossible that is — there are ways of polishing your image. Or at least the image that Google has of you.
Popular Science compiled a list of some steps you can take to get more of a handle on Google. Check out three of the most useful ones.
Create more positive posts to push down the bad ones
The simplest and most straight forward way of getting rid of the ugly posts on your Google search is to create better ones that will push the older ones down. SEO expert Vanessa Fox says: “Add a bunch of other information to the web. If you don’t have that much about you online, and someone searches your name, Google doesn’t really have much to show except for that one weird YouTube video.”
Create a Linked In profile, take care of your professional website, and make sure to have your name on all your relevant social media sites. If you have a common name, try to personalize your profiles by adding in your location and areas of expertise since those can help people identify you.
If you’re very embarrassed about an angry post you wrote on an emotional day, or an ugly picture on yourself you have second thoughts about on Facebook, take them down. Duh. If someone tagged you on something that you don’t like, you can alter the privacy settings to choose who sees the photo. You can also delete it from your timeline and “untag” yourself.
When sites are threatening your privacy, Google allows you to complain and is receptive when you want to take down a post. Google has forms you can fill out when a site reveals personal information, such as your Social Security number, your signature and sexually explicit content. You can check out Google’s removal policies here.
For a lecture course I teach at Brown University called “Love Stories,” we begin at the beginning, with love at first sight.
To its detractors, love at first sight must be an illusion – the wrong term for what is simply infatuation, or a way to sugarcoat lust.
Buy into it, they say, and you’re a fool.
In my class, I point to an episode of “The Office,” in which Michael Scott, regional manager for Dunder Mifflin, is such a fool: He’s blown away by a model in an office furniture catalog. Michael vows to find her in the flesh, only to discover that the love of his life is no longer living. Despairing (but still determined), he visits her grave and sings to her a stirring requiem, set to the tune of “American Pie”:
Bye, bye Ms. Chair Model Lady
I dreamt we were married and you treated me nice
We had lots of kids, drinking whiskey and rye
Why’d you have to go off and die?
This might as well be a funeral for love at first sight, since all of this comes at delusional Michael’s expense.
If you find yourself smitten with someone you’ve only just met, you’ll question whether you should give the feeling so much weight – and risk ending up like Michael.
Psychologists and neuroscientists have tried to find some answers. But I would argue that for the best guidance, don’t look there – look to Shakespeare.
Sifting through the science
Even in a class tailored to romantics, when I poll my students about whether they believe in love at first sight, around 90 percent of the 250 students indicate they don’t.
At least one study suggests that the rest of us agree with my students. Like them, participants in this study believe that love takes time. Two people meet and may or may not be infatuated upon first meeting. They gradually develop an intimate understanding of each other. And then, and only then, do they fall in love. That’s just how love works.
Then again, maybe we’re more like Michael Scott than we think. Other surveys suggest that most of us indeed do believe in love at first sight. Many of us say we’ve experienced it.
What does brain science say? Some studies claim that we can clearly distinguish what happens in our brains at the moment of initial attraction – when chemicals related to pleasure, excitement and anxiety predominate – from what happens in true romantic attachment, when attachment hormones like oxytocin take over.
But other studies don’t accept such a clean break between the chemistry of love at first sight and of “true” love, instead suggesting that what happens in the brain at first blush may resemble what happens later on.
Regardless of whether chemical reactions in love at first sight and longer-term romantic love are alike, the deeper question persists.
Does love at first sight deserve the name of love?
Shakespeare weighs in
While science and surveys can’t seem to settle on a definitive answer, Shakespeare can. Cited as an authority in nearly every recent book-length study of love, Shakespeare shows how love at first sight can be as true a love as there is.
Let’s look at how his lovers meet in “Romeo and Juliet.”
Romeo, besotted with Juliet at the Capulet ball, musters the courage to speak with her, even though he doesn’t know her name. When he does, she doesn’t just respond. Together, they speak a sonnet:
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Even though it’s their first encounter, the two converse dynamically and inventively – an intense back-and-forth that equates love with religion. Love poems typically are spoken by a lover to a beloved, as in many of Shakespeare’s own sonnets or Michael’s requiem. Generally, there’s one voice. Not in the case of Romeo and Juliet – and the energy between the two is as stunning as it is silly.
In the first four lines, Romeo privileges lips over hands, in a bid for a kiss. In the next four lines, Juliet disagrees with Romeo. She asserts that, actually, hands are better. Holding hands is its own kind of kiss.
Romeo keeps going, noting that saints and pilgrims have lips. Since they do, lips mustn’t be so bad. They should be used.
The Bard of Avon may have been on to something. Stocksnapper
But again, Juliet answers Romeo readily: Lips are to be used, yes – but to pray, not to kiss. Romeo tries a third time to resolve the tension by saying that kissing, far from being opposed to prayer, is in fact a way of praying. And maybe kissing is like praying, like asking for a better world. Juliet at last agrees, and the two do kiss, after a couplet which suggests that they are in harmony.
Romeo and Juliet obviously have unrealistic ideas. But they connect in such a powerful way – right away – that it’s ungenerous to say that their religion of love is only silly. We can’t dismiss it in the same way we can mock Michael Scott. This is not a man with an office furniture catalog, or two revelers grinding at a club.
That two strangers can share a sonnet in speech means that they already share a deep connection – that they are incredibly responsive to each other.
What are we so afraid of?
Why would we want to dismiss Romeo and Juliet or those who claim to be like them?
We talk excitedly about meeting someone and how we “click” or “really hit it off” – how we feel intimately acquainted even though we’ve only just met. This is our way of believing in low-grade love at first sight, while still scorning its full-blown form.
Imagine if we did what Romeo and Juliet do. They show the signs that we tend to regard as hallmarks of “mature” love – profound passion, intimacy and commitment – right away. For Shakespeare, if you have this, you have love, whether it takes six months or six minutes.
It’s easy to say that people don’t love each other when they first meet because they don’t know each other and haven’t had a chance to form a true attachment. Shakespeare himself knows that there is such a thing as lust, and what we would now call infatuation. He’s no fool.
Still, he reminds us – as forcefully as we ever will be reminded – that some people, right away, do know each other deeply. Love gives them insight into each other. Love makes them pledge themselves to each other. Love makes them inventive. Yes, it also makes them ridiculous.
But that’s just another of love’s glories. It makes being ridiculous permissible.
