Thursday, June 29, 2006

15 Minutes of Infame

"Burning the flag is a stupid and ugly act, but there is something lovely and enlightened about a regime that tolerates it in the name of freedom. And of course it has the added benefit of making it easier to spot the idiots."
-James Taranto.

I expect that most cities have ordinances against open burning. Arrest and fine ought to do it. The offender would be in Arlo Guthrie's genre (with appropriate adaptations):

"...and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up garbage for community service." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Open burning inside city limits." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench."


You can become anything you wannabe if you put your mind to it.

2 comments:

The probligo said...

Luv it Steve!

There has just been a Court case here in NZ involving firearm charges. Not much to that, you might think.

The man charged was Tame Iti, a Maori radical for whom I have more than a smidge of respect.

The charges were the result of firing a shotgun at a powhiri (formal welcome). One shot was into the air, the other into a NZ flag that Tame had tossed on the ground.

When the police found that they could not charge him with disrespecting the flag, the best they could find was "discharge of a firearm with disregard for public safety".

http://media.apn.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/ACFKVBX6aqcp.jpg

Steve Burri said...

Prob,
A side question... Do those Arlo Guthrie 'lyrics' mean anything to you? Did his song, Alice's Restaurant, have any hearers in N.Z. in the '60's?