- Some victories in life are just sweeter than others, and few could be sweeter than winning the right to display a 10-foot-tall, black, rat-shaped balloon at a rally held outside a fitness center. The proud victors in this legendary legal battle are member of the Lawrence Township (N.J.) chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who fought a local ban on inflatable or portable signs and banners on public property and won. They were facing a mere $100 fine for the offense of displaying Scabby the Rat (actual name) while they marched on the sidewalk outside Gold's Gym in Lawrence Township in April 2005 in response to a dispute with a contractor working at the business. The fine isn’t the real issue here, though; the true issue for all Americans is out right to display large, rodent-shaped balloons wherever we damn well please, a freedom that is slowly being stipped away. Thankfully, the seven justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the union and ruled that while townships have a right to maintain an "aesthetic environment" and ensure public safety, its restrictions on expressive displays "do not justify a content-based restriction of non-commercial speech." Take that, Lawrence Township police! Suck it, you oppressors of free speech! “There is no evidence to suggest that a rat balloon is significantly more harmful to aesthetics or safety than a similar item being displayed as an advertisement or commercial logo," wrote Justice John Wallace Jr. Well said, Justice Wallace. Heck, rats are basically the official animal of Manhattan, so why not extend their popularity across the Hudson into the Garden State? This chapter is far from the only one to use Scabby as a mascot and display his likeness in 10-foot-tall, black, rat-shaped balloon form. Similar balloons have been used by labor unions as street theater since 1990 to protest what they deem to be anti-union activities. What I love about this particular balloon rat and the men putting it up is that a police officer had ordered the balloon deflated, but returned an hour later to find it blown back up. Disobeying an order from The Man, always cool. Giving the law a nice, big middle finger (albeit in the form of an ginormous, inflated rodent) is awesome. After admitting that he ordered the rat reinflated, the labor official in charge was given a summons. Unfortunately, lower state courts sided with the township, ruling that the township's ordinance was content-neutral and did not suppress the union's ability to spread its message. In the end, free speech wins out, The Man is defeated and Scabby the Giant Rat is free to stand tall……
- It hasn’t been a great week for Charlotte Bobcats forward Gerald Wallace. Well, unless you consider riding a charter bus loaded with movies and videos literally across the United States, coast to coast from Los Angeles to Charlotte. So why is the top scorer for an NBA franchise bussing 2,500 miles back home? Well, Wallace suffered a partially collapsed lung against the Lakers just under a week ago, so he’s been hospitalized while he recovers and it wasn’t until Tuesday when doctors cleared Wallace to return home. The only catch is that because of his lung, Wallace can’t fly. Thus, the team booked him the charter bus, loaded it up with movies and sent him on his way. I guess if you have to make a cross-country bus trip, that’s the way to do it, but even so, not a lot of fun. Better than doing it on a Greyhound bus with all the whack jobs and weirdos, but still an arduous journey. According to team officials, Wallace arrived back in Charlotte early Thursday, although it’s uncertain when he will be able to play again. His teammates have to hope it’s soon, as they lost the final three games of the West Coast trip without Wallace, who is averaging 16.4 points a game. One has to wonder if karma stepped in and took Wallace’s side in this situation, as he was injured on a flagrant foul by Lakers center Andrew Bynum late in the fourth quarter a game on Jan. 27. After reviewing the foul, the NBA upgraded it to a flagrant-2 foul, but that wasn’t enough to net him a suspension. However, just four nights later, Bynum tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee and is expected to miss eight to 12 weeks. Karma? Maybe so. Either way, I think Bynum should have been forced to ride along on the bus with Wallace, fetch him snacks, change the DVDs when one ended and make runs into 7/11 when Wallace wanted to stop for a cherry Slushie or Big Gulp………..
- It’s taken a while, but the source of that mysterious maple syrup-like smell that has been blanketing New York from time to time the past few years has apparently been found. The smell has been popping up in Manhattan and northern New Jersey since October 2005, leading to all sorts of bizarre theories as to its origin. Some believed it came from an odoriferous pancake house, but the truth appears to be that a New Jersey factory involved in the processing of fenugreek seeds is the culprit. Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the announcement this week, ending a saga that actually included several building evacuations as well as concern the scent was physically harmful. But thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and authorities from the Office of Emergency Management, we now know that the smell of syrup poses no danger to the public. The funny thing is that it took a detailed investigation, including analysis of local wind speed, wind direction and air humidity against the locations of citizen complaints about the smell, for officials from the city's Department of Environmental Protection to figure out where the smell was coming from. After the scent appeared and disappeared several times over the past three-plus years, they were finally able to narrow down the potential source to four factories in northern New Jersey that produce food additives and fragrances. The controversy rekindled last week after several dozen residents of Upper Manhattan (i.e. rich people, shocker) called to complain about the smell. In response, the environmental department used a new evidence gathering procedure to gather air samples from each suspected source in canisters. With those samples, they were able to determine that the smell was coming from a Hudson County facility owned by Frutorom, a company that develops and manufactures flavors for the food, fragrance and pharmaceutical industries. If you’re an angry New Yorker looking for the specific culprit to blame, look no further than esters, compounds "created by the reaction between an alcohol and an acid" during the processing of fenugreek seeds, which are used extensively at the plant. Just don’t look for Frutorom to be fined or penalized, because the company didn’t violate any rules or ordinances. Oh, and the smell will continue to be around from time to time, so get used to it……..
- Too bad traffic authorities in Bellevue, Wash. don’t have a sense of humor, because they could be getting a good laugh out of this one just like I am. Some jokers in the Bellevue area have been have been jerking with road construction signs, changing the electronic message boards typically used to advise drivers of road conditions and lane changes ahead to display messages that read Freaking awesome, but not everyone has enough of a sense of humor to laugh about it. Several motorists noticed the reader board sitting on the side of I-405 at the Wilberton Tunnel flashing the unusual messages and called it in to the authorities. One person who displayed just the type of humorless, stick-up-my-ass attitude I’m talking about it WSDOT spokesperson Jamie Holter, who didn’t seem at all amused by the antics. "They think it’s funny but it’s extremely dangerous," explained Holter. "First, they have to manually change the reader board so they are standing out on the side of the freeway putting their life in danger. Second, drivers think there are either Zombie’s ahead or it’s a joke, so they stay in the lane. The reader board should be warning drivers their lane is about to end as machinery is in the way. If drivers don’t know to change lanes then it becomes very dangerous." I’m sorry, did you say that driver think there’s actually a zombie ahead? Seriously? Look, if someone is enough of a moron to believe that the living dead are roaming the roads ahead, they a) don’t need to be driving anyhow and b) should probably be classified as mentally handicapped because their IQ is below 30. If you can’t look at the words "Zombies Drools" and "Jalopnik Rules" and realize it’s a prank, then you deserve whatever happens to you. If the website the jokers who hijacked the message board were referring to tried and failed to dissuade them from pulling the prank, you’re not stopping them either. The site, www.jalopnik.com, actually has a post about road signs that have been hacked all around the country. “We told you guys not to hack electronic road signs to say 'Jalopnik Rules.' But you went ahead and did it anyway," read the post by Jay Wert. Of course they did, who doesn’t love a good laugh? I’m having a great laugh just hearing about people like Jamie Holter and other traffic authorities who find it “scary” that there are links on the site teaching people how to hack road signs. Grow a sense of humor, pick one up on eBay or go live in a cave somewhere, you tools………
- Don’t bite the hand that feeds, or more specifically, the hands that you feed, John Schnatter. Schnatter is the founder of Papa John’s, one of America's largest pizza chains, but he went on the radio in the United Kingdom this week with some peculiar advice for customers: don’t eat too much pizza. Appearing on BBC's Radio Four program in the United Kingdom, Schnatter answered a question about whether the British government's anti-obesity drive would negatively impact pizza sales. "No. Pizza's actually healthy for you if you don't eat too much of it," Schnatter replied, adding, "You can't eat five or six slices but if you eat one or two slices it's very nutritious." You can’t eat five or six slices? My man, that is actually true if you want to be healthy, but since when it the health of your customers your concern? Besides, you need to be pushing that message here in the United States, where 67 percent of the population is either overweight or obese. You may be selling the British on the fact that the UK market is a "huge priority for Papa John's International." You may even have 118 outlets in the United Kingdom, making the UK Papa John’s International’s second biggest market outside the U.S. after China. Something tells me the owners of those 118 franchises probably weren’t down with you coming all the way across the Atlantic just to tell their customers to eat less of their product. But hey, it is your business that you opened hi in 1985 after selling yout beloved Camaro to buy your first pizza oven, so do what you want with it. Just try telling Americans and not Brits to eat less pizza, because this side of the pond is where we need that message……
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