With two words, Anchorage television reporter Charlo Greene has become a vi-lebrity -- or "viral celebrity," as US Magazine calls it now vying with Alaska pol-lebrity Sarah Palin for national attention, and proving that.... Well, it's almost scary to go on. Who even wants to think about how this state must look to the rest of the country at the moment? Reasonable Americans can only be thinking Alaska is the airhead capital of the continent.
Granted, Greene's TV sign-off made more sense than Palin's 2008 vice-presidential blathering about Putin rearing his head, but only because Greene used simple, declarative sentences that are easily understood by everyone.
Yes, she twice repeated the sentence that starts with the f-word and ends with "it."
This is the common vernacular that bids us all -- black, white, Hispanic or Native American, native born or immigrant -- recognize that someone is upset. Very upset.
And Greene was upset. Greene is upset. She is so upset she put together a three-and-a-half-minute YouTube video to demonstrate why she made an idiot of herself on Anchorage TV. In it, she reveals she's been living not one, but two charades.
"My reporting name is Charlo Greene," she says. "My real name is Charlene Egbe. I'm the president and CEO of the Alaska Cannabis Club."
Translation: "My name is Charlene Egbe. I own a company named the Alaska Cannabis Club. And I used to play the role of reporter Charlo Greene on Anchorage TV."
Thank you, Charlo-Charlene, for further undermining the credibility of those of us who actually work in the news business like it's our business and not a front for something else.
Normally, it's hard to feel sorry for colleagues or former colleagues in the glamorous, makeup-tinted world of broadcast journalism, but I've got to admit to a tinge of sympathy for them now.
Not to mention for the supporters of Proposition 2, the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol in the 49th state.
In one short stint on the TV news, Charlo-Charlene singlehandedly did more to undermine the vote in favor of that proposition than the "Vote No on 2" crowd has been able to do in months. Until the 26-year-old former newscaster went bonkers, Deborah Williams, the former leaders of the Democratic party and now the front for something called "Big Marijuana; Big Mistake," had basically been running around making a fool of herself.
Those are harsh words, I realize, but what else can you say about someone who appears to have watched the 1937 propaganda film "Reefer Madness" and concluded it was a documentary.
"Alaskans should feel as if they had been disrespected, not only because of the use of the F word, but also because they did not receive fair and balanced reporting on this very important issue for our future," Williams said in an official statement shortly after the Charlo-Charlene show.
All of which is just another way of stating her opinion somebody should have been reporting more of the nonsense spewed by the "Big Marijuana, Big Mistake" campaign, like this little gem:
"Alcohol. The proponents of marijuana legalization would like to make the issue about whether marijuana is worse than alcohol. This is not the point. Alcohol is and will be legal. For a state that already struggles with substance abuse, why add another legal drug to the mix?"
"Add another legal drug to the mix?" As if that matters. How deep do you have to have your head buried in the Turnagain Arm mud to miss the fact that marijuana is already everywhere in this state?
Making marijuana legal will do little more than give the state the opportunity to regulate and tax it. And free up some space in our jails. And possibly make things a little better in some rural corners of the Last Frontier.
There is a growing body of evidence that people who choose to get intoxicated on marijuana are less violent -- especially with their partners -- than those who opt for alcohol. Domestic violence is a huge problem in rural Alaska. Much of it is fueled by alcohol.
The governmental solution to date has been to try to stamp out alcohol use. The effort has been every bit as big a failure as the national effort at Prohibition. On some fronts, in fact, one can argue Alaska's rural prohibition is an even a bigger failure.
Legal marijuana could prove to be the lesser of two evils in a world where some argue humans are saddled with an "intoxication instinct."
This alone might make it worth giving legalization a try, because what is obvious is that there are a lot of people in this state getting high and/or drunk, and all the existing marijuana law does is help keep the courts and jails full and add to the chores for already overworked law enforcement officers who long ago lost the war on drugs.
The war on drugs long ago morphed into our homeland Vietnam, the only real difference being that instead of killing people, we throw them in jail. There is no benefit to society as a result. People do not emerge from jail to open arms and new career opportunities that enable them to advance our society.
They emerge with a criminal record and all the associated problems of starting life over again.
Any reasonable voter should recognize that legalizing marijuana, regulating it and taxing it to raise revenues (which this state is shortly going to need) is the sensible public policy choice. For the record here, I don't vote and don't think reporters should because, well, it could lead them to make themselves look like Charlo Charlene Whateverhernameis.
And she looked bad, and ill-mannered to boot.
Worst yet, it was hard to watch her strange performance on KTVA and not wonder: Is that woman stoned or drunk?
Which is just what the Williamses of the world needed, the chance to say, 'See, this is how people act when they use marijuana. They become irrational potty-mouths.' Then they go to work for the media, which just can't be trusted.
And it can't be. Overall, the media is only slightly more reliable than the mouthpieces for organizations like Big Marijuana, Big Mistake or the Alaska Cannabis Club, which clearly has been Charlo-Charlene's job since at least April.
She wasn't a reporter. She was a woman with an agenda posing as a reporter.
The only real question is what agenda: Making money? Legalizing marijuana? Becoming a vi-lebrity? There are various possibilities, not just one, or there could be none. Maybe she's just a whack job. Go watch her video and decide for yourself.
"Nearly a century of marijuana prohibition and stigma has stained America, the land of the free and" -- pause, little laugh -- "home of the brave," she said. "But we have a chance to start taking back the right. Today it's marijuana prohibition and once we get that done nationally, we the people will realize we are stronger than ever and you will feel empowered to take up what you choose to fight."
Aw yes, "common sense" to quote another of the state's great orators.
Contact Craig Medred at craig@alaskadispatch.com
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.