Wednesday, March 22, 2006
How to Stay Healthy, Whether You Want to or Not
I left home today, and the hotel I am in has rather balky Internet access, so this is going to be brief.
It has been the official position of this blog for a long time that we should give Texas back to the Mexicans and much of the Southeast back to the Cherokees, thereby saving the United States from having to deal with the various strange fevers that sweep the land starting in those places. Well, here's another reason: Cops in Texas have begun going into bars undercover to arrest people who are drunk. I suppose you gotta give them credit for picking the berries where the bushes are the thickest, but this seems a wee bit off.
The ostensible reason for the program is to keep people from getting into cars and driving drunk--a worthwhile goal, to be sure. State laws in Texas don't permit public intoxication anywhere, including in bars. But I somehow think that whatever statewide organization Texas bar owners can belong to will not be too crazy about this law as soon as it starts affecting business. Plus, if cops can go into bars looking for drunks, it doesn't seem all that far-fetched that they could, if they chose, drop by your house whenever they wanted to, just to make sure you're not sitting in front of the TV ripped to the tits on $3 chardonnay.
Speaking of legal maneuvers involving sin, Madison has modified its famous no-smoking-in-bars ordinance to let people smoke cigars in cigar bars. This wasn't without controversy. A UW student speaking against the modification said, "I worry that this is a slippery slope. This is one exemption but where do we draw the line?" Nothing slippery about it, really. It's a cigar bar. You'd have to be, well, drunk to go in there and not know that cigars are the main attraction.
And if you are drunk, watch out for the virtue police.
I left home today, and the hotel I am in has rather balky Internet access, so this is going to be brief.
It has been the official position of this blog for a long time that we should give Texas back to the Mexicans and much of the Southeast back to the Cherokees, thereby saving the United States from having to deal with the various strange fevers that sweep the land starting in those places. Well, here's another reason: Cops in Texas have begun going into bars undercover to arrest people who are drunk. I suppose you gotta give them credit for picking the berries where the bushes are the thickest, but this seems a wee bit off.
The ostensible reason for the program is to keep people from getting into cars and driving drunk--a worthwhile goal, to be sure. State laws in Texas don't permit public intoxication anywhere, including in bars. But I somehow think that whatever statewide organization Texas bar owners can belong to will not be too crazy about this law as soon as it starts affecting business. Plus, if cops can go into bars looking for drunks, it doesn't seem all that far-fetched that they could, if they chose, drop by your house whenever they wanted to, just to make sure you're not sitting in front of the TV ripped to the tits on $3 chardonnay.
Speaking of legal maneuvers involving sin, Madison has modified its famous no-smoking-in-bars ordinance to let people smoke cigars in cigar bars. This wasn't without controversy. A UW student speaking against the modification said, "I worry that this is a slippery slope. This is one exemption but where do we draw the line?" Nothing slippery about it, really. It's a cigar bar. You'd have to be, well, drunk to go in there and not know that cigars are the main attraction.
And if you are drunk, watch out for the virtue police.
