Elena Kagan .......... and .......... Nathan Lane
Independent thinking
We are already greater than the king wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring the matter to one point. Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says No to this question, is an independent, for independancy means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws, or whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us “there shall be no laws but such as I like.”
– Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1775)
Filed under civics 101
What’s in a name? Why, sales potential!
Raleigh’s city council has been needlessly unimaginative confining the field of naming sponsors for our spiffy new amphitheater to one maker of a low-cal beer.
[For those who aren’t fully briefed, Anheuser-Busch has bellied up to the bar with $1.5 million to claim naming rights for the 5,000-seat facility in the heart of downtown, which makes its debut in June, tentatively as the Bud Light Amphitheater. (The jury is still out on that one, by the way, because it so happens it violates state ABC law.)]
Truly, the sky’s the limit when it comes to potential concessionary sales, as illustrated by these venue names:
The Kotex Maxitheater, for the gal-on-the-go who’s lost track of the days in her mad rush to claim a front-row seat.
Pfizer Viagritheater. After all, guys, you wanna be ready when the band starts in with Marvin’s moody, “Let’s Get It On.”
Preparation ampHitheater. (The seats there aren’t padded, you know.)
Trojan Prophylactitheater … because we should all do it responsibly.
And lastly, for our burgeoning senior population, the Depends Incontitheater, so you can drink Bud Light to your heart’s content and not miss a note of the show.
Filed under civics 101, commerce
Just chillin’ with the squirrels
Rare moment: a squirrel quietly taking in the evening view from his front porch.
Wild animals are full of surprises. Just when you thought you knew all their habits, live long enough and keep your eyes open, and one will startle you with some behavior you’ve never seen before.
Case in point, this handsome young rodent. I’d only gotten home from work and was headed out to sweep off the front porch when I spied him through the window, in repose on the arm of my rocking chair.
In my lifetime of experience enjoying the antics of gray squirrels, I’ve yet to see one come to a full, sustained stop. I place them on the behavioral continuum somewhere between hummingbirds and black-footed ferrets. In short, they are perpetual motion machines, always on the move and forever up to mischief.
But here was this furry gent, simply chillin’ (to use the vernacular) on the front porch rocker, in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Not one whisker poised in the slightest for action. Indeed by all appearances, he seemed interested in nothing more than simply basking in the lovely evening, letting the breeze fluff his coat, and watching whatever action was out there pass him by.
How charming. How unexpected … for a squirrel, that is.
Filed under man bites bear
No room for fun in rules of road
Everybody’s favorite transportation reporter and mine, Bruce Siceloff, issued a call to readers for input as he prepares a piece about a nascent bill headed before legislators to address clashes between cars and group cycling in the Old North State. As he works on the story, I’d urge Bruce to keep one question uppermost in mind.
Can a society function in an orderly, safe fashion where its members lack consensus about the fundamental purpose of its road systems?
The situation is rife for conflict whenever cyclists and motorists come together on the highways at cross-purposes. Roads are a serious business, too. They were created expressly for the purpose of transportation, not for recreation. (I would challenge anyone to build an even mildly compelling case otherwise.) And when bike riders gather in large numbers on the street, riding two or more abreast, it’s pretty much always for the purpose of recreation. Their actions amount to mob rule, with the pedal-pushing mob redefining the purpose of the transportation network by sheer presence of numbers. And that makes light of the seriously bad things that can happen out there on the pavement.
As both a commuter cyclist first and foremost and a recreational cyclist occasionally, one who’s been in the game off-and-on more than two decades (very much “on” at the present time), I have no qualms saying that cycling behavior which is consistent with and characteristic of recreational use absolutely must yield to the singular function of our roads, namely that of transportation.
All our related statutes — whether addressing the movement of cars, trucks, bicycles, or pedestrians — are commensurate with the goal of transportation, and there’s no room in the law, and shouldn’t be, for cyclists to form recreational gangs to claim the roads for their own purpose and, in effect, rewrite the rules ad hoc for themselves and everyone else.
If you want to ride a bike on the street, then you willingly submit to the jurisdiction of the law in the intended use of that transportation system. Our laws make provision for slow-moving vehicles while according cyclists their due measure of rights and responsibilities as commuters on that system. However, where the law is lacking — because it never anticipated recreational group bikers — is in regulating the organic formation of massive obstructions to the flow of every other kind of traffic.
Any bill proposed by the General Assembly, if its remedy to the problem in view is single-file formations when bicycles are being overtaken by motor vehicles, will largely miss the mark by failing to remove the root cause of the conflict.
In the same way we have statutes governing the use of public spaces, establishing limits to public speech, and prescribing procedures for peaceful assembly, all in the name of common order and safety, whatever steps our lawmakers take on this topic must cut to the heart of our roadways’ intended use.
The facts make it clear: group riding isn’t a road sport. There’s simply no way around it.
Filed under civics 101
Begging his pardon
Governor Beverly Perdue’s doggedly worn excuse for sloth in the pardoning of wrongfully imprisoned Greg Taylor is the most insufferable pitcher-full of poppycock I’ve ever heard. (See The News & Observer articles, Taylor’s exoneration prompts police to reinvestigate case, Mar. 17, and Taylor will have to wait for pardon, May 8.) What seems indisputably evident is the true motive behind her inexcusable dawdling: she’s simply reading the tea leaves for omens of political backlash, because legal integrity could hardly be the issue of concern.
Governors and presidents are notorious for their last-minute pardons — both deserved and undeserved — liberally dispensed in the final hours of office, and Perdue will likely do the same on her way out the door. Which makes her indefatigable foot-dragging in Taylor’s situation all the richer with disingenuous irony.
You have the authority, Bev. Stop playing it safe and just pardon the poor man.
Filed under civics 101, man of letters
Energy Star fraud dim on paper’s radar
Talk about reporting in stovepipes! I can’t recall a more glaring example of staff writers donning blinders than Wednesday’s News & Observer article-cum-advertisement on the Energy Star appliance rebate campaign (Shoppers may snap up state’s appliance rebates), wrapping up its final day of misguided consumerism-gone-wild in North Carolina even as I post this.
One of ten bogus products successfully submitted for Energy Star certification by the GAO. It's rebate eligible, too!
Not 30 days ago, print media were awash in stories about what was, essentially, a Government Accountability Office sting that exposed EPA’s Energy Star program for the vacuous sham and transparent greenwashing skeptics [yes, that includes yours truly] had long suspected. Only last week, The N&O itself ran a follow-up wire piece on the mad scramble at EPA cause by the embarrassing GAO report. If that’s not germane to a feature article about an upcoming sales promotion based on Energy Star appliance ratings, then the newspaper’s reporting is as half-baked as a gas-powered alarm clock.
I don’t know which prospect is worse: that this flagrant omission was driven by deferential pandering to the interests of retail and manufacturing, or that it’s the consequence of just plain ignorant journalism and lackadaisical editorial oversight.
C’mon, N&O staff! Don’t you folks read the news first before you start writing about it? We expect greater independence and attention to detail from you than this.
Filed under commerce
