LIBRARY OF LUDICROUS

The Redding library in California went to court this past fall to stop people from handing out certain types of information outside of their library.  The group in question consisted of members of the Tea Party and the offensive material they offered to all library patrons interested was a free copy of a well-known document called the US Constitution  (If anyone from the Redding City Council/Library Board of Trustees is reading this the following sentences are what is commonly referred to as sarcasm).  I’m sure we all agree the last thing people going to a library would want is an understanding of the document that establishes the rights and responsibilities for the citizens of our nation.  Once people start learning such things it could lead to them knowing their freedoms and we all know that’s nothing but trouble. 

The library challenging the handing out copies of the constitution couldn’t have come at a better time.  They did this during constitution week.  A time designated to commemorate the adoption of the US Constitution and to promote the study and education about this document.  What are these people like during Flag Day?  Tell people they can’t hand out flags to library patrons just banners of their favorite sports teams instead.  Can you say ridicules?

“What are you doing here in front of the library?”

“I’m handing out free copies of Mien Kampf and the Communist Manifesto.”

“Well I guess if you were giving away free copies of the US Constitution we’d have a real problem, but I think you’re okay.”

“Thanks.”

The Redding City Council got together after people tried to pass out copies of the US Constitution and were going to put a stop to such things happening on their library’s property.  They weren’t going to stand for people passing out free copies of the US Constitution to library patrons if they could help it.  The Redding City Council decided they were the library Board of Trustees and drafted new policies to limit such activities.  The policies were something like Nya Nya Nya NyaNya you can’t pass out US Constitutions in front of our library and there’s nothing you can do abut it.  I think one of the policies stated if the Tea Party people tried it again members of the Redding City Council/Library Board of Trustees would tell the parents of those Tea Party people and then they would be sorry.

It’s obvious the Redding City Council/Library Board of Trustees didn’t take a free copy of the US Constitution and read it.  If they did someone in the group might have learned that it contains something called the first amendment.  This is a really neat part of the document that states “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”  Yeah, I suppose it’s a section that has made us all a little crazy over the years with porn and the evil people at the Westboro Baptist Church, but it got a lot of good points.

Unfortunately for the Redding City Counci/Library Board of Trustees there are people who actually do read the constitution.  These people felt their new policies were a little over the top.  So a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Tea party group by the Pacific Justice Institute.  The plot only thickens as a lawsuit was also filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.  The Tea Party and the ACLU working together for freedom of speech, is this a great country or what?

The matter was presented before Judge Monica Marlow of Shasta County Superior Court.  Her job is to not only to read the constitution but interpret its legal application to lawsuits.  She told Redding City Council/Library Board of Trustees not so fast.  These are some real cool new policies you’ve written but they’re just not legal.  Judge Marlow ruled that the plaza in front of the library is a “public forum” where free expression is generally allowed.  She also ruled against the requirement for people who want to pass out leaflets to get a city permit.

“Why are you passing out leaflets?”

“My doggy ran away.”

“Do you have a permit from the city?”

“No, but I have a free copy of the constitution.  Want to read it?”

“Forget it, you’re okay.”

Judge Marlow also ruled their prohibition on “offensively coarse” speech-punishable by criminal penalties is too vague.”

“Police Officer I want this man arrested.”

“Why?”

“He’s talking bad about the Yankees and I’m a Yankees fan.”

“Unfortunately I’m a Red Sox fan and you’re the one getting arrested.”

“Why?”

“The Yankees won the World Series in 2009 and I find that offensive.”

“Oh.”

For their part the Redding City Council/Library Board of Trustees said “Aw, gee, we were just trying to keep the entrance to the library unobstructed.  Man, this just isn’t fair.  Why does everybody make such a big deal about this constitution stuff?  I don’t get it.”

This incident has all the elements necessary to make it a great book.  The ACLU joins with the Tea Party in a lawsuit so people can hand out free copies of the constitution in front of a library.  If I didn’t know this was a true story I would probably look for such a book in the Science Fiction section at the library.

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FROZEN DEAD GUY CELEBRATION SALE

            It has often been said that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade.  In Nederland, Colorado when a Norwegian family gave them a frozen dead guy, they decided to create a festival.  The Frozen Dead Guy Days is a festival that’s 10-years-old and attracts up to 15,000 people a year to that small town.  Unfortunately, the Nederland Area Chamber of Commerce in Colorado is now offering to sell the rights to the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival.  It seems the event has become too expensive and their Chamber of Commerce feels an event company could do a better job of running it.  I’m sure there’s a mortuary somewhere that would just love to sponsor this type of celebration.

            I want to point out an obvious benefit of living in a capitalistic society is the ability for small towns to make annual income from having a frozen dead guy staying within their municipality.  I can only imagine this would peak the interest of people with frozen relatives all over the world.  What’s next?  Will there soon be a conference to tell people the best way to market their dead frozen relatives to entertainment companies?

            “Annual income is down in our town.  What can we do?”

            “Do you know if any of your residents has a frozen dead relative?”

            “Oh, I’m sure we could find someone who does.”

            “Great, then all you need is to have a festival in honor of that frozen dead person.  This will bring in vast amounts of money to your town.  There is already a Dead Guy Days festival in Colorado.  If you have a frozen dead lady festival your town will really stand out.”

            “That’s a great idea.”

            It all started in 1989 when a Norwegian citizen named Trygve Bauge brought the corpse of his dead grandfather, Bredo Morstol, to the United States.  The grandfather had died when he was 89-years-old.  The body was preserved in dry ice and eventually stored in liquid nitrogen.  In 1993 the frozen dead grandfather Bredo was transported to a town in Nederland in Colorado, where Trygve and his mother planned to create their own cryonics facility. 

            “Grandfather has died.  I don’t know where to bury him.”

            “Why would we want to bury grandfather?  I say we pack him in dry ice and take him to the United States.  In time science will find out the cause of what made him pass away and then he can come back to life.”

            “He was 89-years-old when he died.  Why would he want to come back to life at that age?”

            “We both know how much he loved ice fishing.”

            “You have a point.”

            The story only gets better.  Trygve was deported because he overstayed his visa.  His mother, named Aud, continued keeping the frozen grandfather in a shack behind her unfinished house.  Eventually Aud was evicted from her home for violations of local ordinances associated with living in an unfinished house.  Being forced to leave her home with her frozen dead grandfather in a shed behind her house put Aud in a rather difficult situation.  She told her story to a reporter, who went to city hall with the story.  These events caused city hall to create a new set of Municipal Codes making it illegal for people to keep dead bodies on their property.  Putting on a display of true compassion the local government made an exception for the frozen Norwegian dead guy, Bredo.  He was their one and only legally frozen dead guy.

            In 2002 a shed supplier and a Denver radio station built a new home for their favorite frozen dead resident and the Dead Guy Days festival was started.  I’m sure the same people who go to Pennsylvania every year to see a groundhog predict the weather also make their way to Colorado for the celebration of a frozen dead guy.

            Some of the highlights of the festival are the Parade of hearses and coffin races.  There is also ice turkey bowling, brain freeze contest and a frozen T-Shirt contest.  The most popular part of the festival is the tour to see Nederland’s frozen dead celebrity, Bredo Morstol, at his shed.

            “These are some pictures from our vacation.  Here we are at a Denver Nuggets game, skiing at Vale and this is one of us next to Nederland’s frozen dead guy.”

            “What?”

            “It was easier to take a picture with than that groundhog from Pennsylvania.”

            “I can only imagine.”

            Now the city of Nederland wants to sell the rights to the festival.  If you buy the rights to the festival I hope you get the actual frozen dead guy.  I don’t think it would be much of a Frozen Dead Guy Days festival without the actual frozen dead guy.  I wonder if you can just supply your own?  Wouldn’t it be something if they held such a festival in a place like Death Valley?

            I believe what people like about this festival is how it’s unique and creative.  It deals with the uncomfortable subject of death in a very comfortable way.  I hope someone does buy the rights and continues the annual tradition.  If people can have fun celebrating groundhog predicting the weather for over a hundred years, I’m sure we can celebrate a frozen dead guy even longer.

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CITY BY THE BRAINLESS

            In order to be a member of the governing body for the city of San Francisco it appears you must have recently left an insane asylum, have the IQ of a door knob or mentally and emotionally live in an alternate universe where you’re the only resident.  This is the only explanation for some of the decisions of this city government.

            In an effort to be a beacon of environmental correctness a big push was put forth citywide to us low-flow toilets.  The one little thing they overlooked was that without enough water the material deposited into the toilets became sludge and started clogging the sewer lines.  This left a rather strong unpleasant aroma near their baseball stadium.

            “I’m lost, how do we find the baseball stadium?”

            “You smell that?”

            “You mean that smell of rotting eggs that makes my eyes water?”

            “That’s it.  Follow it until we’re about to lose our last meal and we’ll be right there.”

            “Oh.”

            The city paid $100 million to upgrade their sewer lines and another 14 million for 25 million pounds of bleach to handle the unpleasant smell near their baseball park.  I think how they handled that situation stunk (You know you were thinking it). 

            With their continuing desire to combat global warming, ooops, I mean climate change or save the planet stuff or something like that; the city of San Francisco transformed its 1,500 vehicle city fleet to run on biofuels.  The SFGreasecycle program collects cooking oils from restaurants to use as fuel to power their city vehicles.  The result has been clogging of the air filters in the diesel-converted buses.  The other effect has been the smell of fried food emanating all over the city.  If I owned a restaurant that sold fried food I would be very thankful for such free advertising. 

            The San Francisco Board of Supervisors last year put on display their ignorance of parenting and food by banning the sale of McDonald’s Happy Meals in the city.  Huh?  Is this what these people spend their time worrying about?  I have a suggestion.  How about with every McDonald’s Happy Meal sold in the city of San Francisco parents get a guide on how to properly feed their children?  Did anyone ever tell these people that parents are the ones responsible for deciding what their children eat and not the restaurant? 

            This coming November 2011 residents of San Francisco will be able to decide on whether to ban circumcision of male children in the city.  Why is this an issue?  People in support of the measure gathered 7,700 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot.  The people who signed these petitions said they considered it a form of genital mutilation.  What?  These individuals must have been either women, transgendered or under the influence of some type of narcotic.  This is something that’s been done for thousands of years.  It’s best to have such a thing done in your younger years.  I’ve had friends who experienced such a procedure later in their life and it wasn’t pleasant.  I enjoyed teasing them and watching their faces when something accidentally hit their groin area but it I’m sure they didn’t enjoy it.  Besides obsessing about happy meals and male foreskin what else do they do in San Francisco for fun?

            Not only is this city at the forefront of male gentile rights but the San Francisco Control & Welfare Commission wants to ban the sale of pets.  However they don’t want pets to be referred to as pets, these kooky individuals want them to be called animal companions.  It sounds like something you’d get from calling an escort service.

            “What’s your pleasure?”

            “I’m from out of town.  Do you have a dog I could walk around and pick up its droppings?  I’ve been away from my dog for a long time.  I’m not normally the type of person who walks other dogs, but I’m really in a bad way.  Are you discreet?  I would hate my dog at home to find out about this.”

            “We guarantee complete dog walking anonymity.  What breed would you like?”

            “I’ve always dreamed of walking a German Shepherd.”

            “One will be at your hotel room in an hour.”

            “Thank you so much.  I just can’t wait.”

            It is believed the measure will lessen the number of abandoned animals.  I hate to be the one to point this out but San Francisco isn’t a world unto itself.  In the realm of reality they’re just a city, so maybe, just maybe pet stores located near that city just might provide all the pets the citizens of San Francisco would want.  I know this type of common sense and logic will shock the people who run the city’s Animal Control & Welfare Commission, but I am only telling the truth.  The move was supported by animal-rights activists who believe owning a dog is a form of species-ism.  Talk about a case dumb and dumber getting together to create one stupid idea.

            Are the people who run San Francisco dim-witted, crazy or both?  Like most people who don’t comprehend reality they seem more interested in their good feelings rather than dealing with reality.  Maybe they use their feelings to guide their decisions.  The only problem with that is reality always comes into play.  Like many people I’ll stop pointing at the things they do in San Francisco and laughing, if I ever have a reason.

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ROMAN-TECH

            It’s always interesting to see the new and different ways people like to propose marriage.  Decades ago when I asked my wife to marry me there were no such things as the internet, cell phones or iPads.  Because of this lack of sophisticated technology most of us just opted to used the old fashioned, get down on one knee, hold your prospective wife’s hand and ask her to spend the rest of her life with you type marriage proposal method.  Upon receiving a positive response you’d slip an engagement ring on her finger.  It didn’t have a lot of bells or whistles but was an effective way to propose marriage.  This was something we usually did in person and without a lot of attention.  An approach such as this is now considered old fashioned and lacking in anything modern.  As with every other part of modern life people who love technology have found ways to work it into every aspect of their lives including wedding proposals.

            In Cincinnati Greg H. proposed marriage to his girlfriend Dana B. by using Groupon.  This service offers so many great deals including now being able to get the woman of your dreams to marry you.  The Groupon deal was titled “A Surprise for a Dana from a Greg.”  Should she click buy Dana accepted Greg’s proposal for $1 and got $999,998 off the $999,999 value.  How romantic can you get?  I can just imagine years from now when they have children.

            “Why did you marry daddy?”

            “I got him for a dollar.  Some days I wish I would’ve done a little more shopping.  I’ll always wonder what kind of husband I would’ve gotten if I’d not been so cheap and was willing to paid $20.00, but we’ll never know.”

            “What did daddy pay for you?”

            “He’s never finished paying for me.  If he doesn’t do the lawn work like he promised he’ll really be paying, trust me.”

            “Oh.”

            It only gets better.  The fine print reads “Groupon is entitled to no less than 15% of their marital bliss.”

            “Who are you?”

            “I’m from Groupon and I’ve come for our 15% of your marital bliss.”

            “Here you go.”

            “That’s it?” 

            “Sorry, we’re hoping for an increase in our marital bliss, but with the economy the way it is and his mother living with us we’re pretty low on marital bliss right now.”

            “That’s understandable.”

            I know there are a lot of people who are absolutely addicted to video games.  They spend endless hours playing them and lose track of time and reality.  The only thing more frightening than someone who’s let video games take over their life is someone who get’s video games involved with their romantic life.

            A man wanted to marry a girl who loved playing Mario.  He decided to put her love of the video game to his advantage.  He actually decorated his living room to look like the Mushroom Kingdom.  It only gets better.  Rather than actually give her the engagement ring he had her knock it out of a question block with her head.  I wonder if she was disappointed she couldn’t play more of the game after getting the ring.

            There is also the story of a LinkedIn employee who coded a custom iPhone application to send to his girlfriend.  The application sent her on a scavenger hunt throughout San Francisco.  It included a map with location points connected to video clues which provided information on where to go next.  The final destination was the top of a hill where the LinkedIn employee proposed.

            “Will you marry me?”

            “What are you doing here?  I’m on a scavenger hunt.”

            “I know.  I’m the one who custom made the application.”

            “You did what?”

            “I designed the scavenger application and made the videos.

            “You couldn’t just ask me?  You had to send me all over this city looking for something?  Aren’t we a bit manipulative?”

“Sorry, will you marry me?”

“Don’t worry about it.  I think I’ll just text you the details of my scavenger hunt for you to find my response.”

“Want some help?”

“Pbbbbbbth.”

One of my favorite marriage proposals came when a man put the engagement ring for his future fiancé inside of a Poke ball like they have on the Pokemon animated series.  I wonder what would happen if you threw such a Poke ball and yelled “Nuptial Nerd Attack, go.”

In an effort to prove that video gamers are the epitome of amorous fools a financial software programmer tweaked a game called “Bejeweled” for his marriage proposal.  When his girlfriend reached a certain score a ring and proposal popped up on the screen.  He set the score pretty low and he got her a pink sapphire engagement ring.  The game manufacturer heard about it and offered to pay for their wedding.  Who knew getting a low score on a video game would come with such benefits.

What could be more inspiring than a techno–geek wedding?  I wonder if the bride and groom would actually be at the ceremony or would just text “I do” to the official presiding over the service.  Maybe they would set up video games you could play at the reception about the bride and groom and the one with the biggest score gets to take home left over ice cream?  I believe the possibilities are endless.

I know I show my age when it comes to technology.  I still believe being physically in the same space as the person you want to marry when you ask such a question is the best way to do it.  No gimmicks, no games, no crowds, just an honest proposal given with sincerity.  I hope techno people realize that marriage really isn’t a video game and is probably the best reality they’ll ever experience.

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