Maybe We Should Fine Deaf Pedestrians, Too
The headline is alarmist and the fine not exactly onerous, but can you imagine the sheer number of laws we'd have, if we applied this standard to everything?
New York may ban iPods while crossing street
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.
New York State Sen. Carl Kruger says three pedestrians in his Brooklyn district have been killed since September upon stepping into traffic while distracted by an electronic device. In one case bystanders screamed "watch out" to no avail.
Kruger says he will introduce legislation on Wednesday to ban the use of gadgets such as Blackberry devices and video games while crossing the street.
"Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry," Kruger said in a telephone interview from Albany, the state capital.
I guess great bloggers think alike!
http://minorsandmajors.blogspot.com/2007/02/this-is-getting-to-be-re-goddman.html
Jesse Ventura quote from http://www.reason.com/news/show/30973.html
Reason: One of your most memorable campaign slogans was, "You can't legislate stupidity." What did you mean by that?
Ventura: Let me explain with an example: Here in Minnesota, we have more than 10,000 lakes. Every year when springtime comes, we'll get seven days of beautiful 80-degree weather, but there will still be ice on the lakes. Somebody will decide that they have to take a snowmobile out on the lake. And that person will fall through the ice and drown. Right away, you'll hear an outcry: "We have to make it against the law to ride on lakes after the temperature has been over 75 degrees for seven days in a row." That's what I'm talking about. You can't legislate stupidity, because people do stupid things, always will, and government should get out of the business of passing laws to stop them. Every one of us has done stupid things. Sometimes a stupid thing can become fatal. But it doesn't mean that, all of the sudden, you have to go out and pass laws to protect people from doing stupid things.
Posted by: john on February 8, 2007 9:02 AM | permalinkI'm still waiting for this state to ban cell phones while driving. NY gets everything first.
Posted by: *dell on February 8, 2007 11:23 PM | permalink*dell:
You guys got HPV vaccination first. Then again, NY wouldn't have religious nuts fighting it tooth-and-nail.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on February 9, 2007 7:37 AM | permalinkThe strange thing is that our religious nut governor surprised everyone by agreeing with the vaccination plan.
By the way, religious nuts are everywhere, even in NY. That part of the country isn't immune.
That reminds me... You know how Tarleton got a lot of flack for its MLK party? The media didn't talk much about a similar party at Johns Hopkins (before) or the U of Connecticut Law School (after). For some odd reason they chose to hit the southern school really hard. People in the North pretend that such things don't happen there.
CNN and other media outlets reported on Vidor, TX because of a book that came out. The same media failed to mention that the book states that the majority of "sundown" town are in Illinois. The book also talks about wealthy cities in the North doing their best to keep black people from moving in. DC's wealthy suburbs are an excellent example, unless you take the Mason-Dixon line literally.
Posted by: *dell on February 9, 2007 9:06 PM | permalinkThe JHU thing got a good deal of coverage, at least up here. I hadn't heard of that Texas school.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on February 9, 2007 10:04 PM | permalink"The JHU thing got a good deal of coverage, at least up here. I hadn't heard of that Texas school."
I don't follow news from local news sources... The bigger media outlets (CNN, FOX, MSNBC, SF Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, etc) covered the Tarleton thing quite well. CNN even sent people here to do a story. I only heard of the JHU from you and in mentions in stories about Tarleton.
I'm really surprised that you didn't hear about it, tons of blogs also seemed to talk about it.
Posted by: *dell on February 10, 2007 12:59 PM | permalinkI can't seem to find the JHU Halloween pictures anywhere. The Tarleton and U of Conn photos are all over the place, even The Smoking Gun.
Posted by: *dell on February 10, 2007 1:05 PM | permalinkO'dell:
I saw pics of the UConn one only.
I didn't see the JHU ones; I don't know if there were pics of the party itself, and I ahven't seen a Facebook screenshot.
I have no idea why I didn't hear of the Texas one -- maybe it's a sign that my news and politics avoidance is workign!
Is that the school you attend(ed)?
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on February 10, 2007 4:13 PM | permalinkNo more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.