Happy April Fools Day
It is probably telling that I was so easily taken in by the local NPR station this morning. Their trick was to couple the truth with a lie. They started with the truth.
In Arizona, the legislature has recently passed a whole swath of fairly bizarre legislation. On the one hand, they’re trying to pass a law which will give the state government the ability to nullify any federal laws they don’t like. On the other hand, they recently passed a law telling Arizona cities that they don’t have the right to do things like ban happy meals.
Now, I think banning happy meals is silly, but whatever. That’s beside the point.
In the NPR broadcast they had our local mayor saying we were fighting back by creating a law which would mandate all fast food places use locally sourced packaging material, and serve only organic food. It would also ban drive-throughs city-wide and replace them with walk-and-bike-throughs.
And yes, I totally ate all of this up – hook, line, and sinker.
Nothing you can write on April Fools will be crazier or more surprising than what is going on every day in the real world.
The Marketplace segment this morning closed with a bit about the French measuring gross domestic ennui, rather than well-being or happiness, because it was more “French.” I wasn’t fooled this time.
However, a year or two ago their joke was about the Feds sending people items instead of the equivalent cash tax refunds, in order to stimulate the economy and prevent people from using their refunds to pay down debt. They even mentioned the price of shipping it all, and had someone quoted as saying “We own the Postal Service, so it’s not really a problem for us.” I totally bought it.Report
For my part, I have wondered why Irony and Satire don’t die from a surfeit of material…
And Happy Birthday, PDQ Bach, 1826-1767 (?)
Here is one of his political works, on the old Smother’s Brothers show:
The Farmer on the Dole (for piano, voice, and mannicotti : Report
Well, the joke is on me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4omW3Cp3qfQReport
Not to delve back into seriousness now, but the behavior of state legislators, perhaps now more than ever, is one big strike against federalism and localism. The AZ legislature at the center of NPR’s story, busy working itself into a vengeful froth about immigrants as they sell off state office buildings for expensive leasebacks, is a prime example of that.
Often part-time and without meaningful staff help, they propose and (surprisingly) pass half-thought-out garbage. Union-busting and abortion-posturing aside, take the example of the legislator in TN who sponsored a bill requiring presidential candidates to show so-called “long-form” birth certificates, only to later admit that she doesn’t really know what one is. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the people you want to devolve power to.
Certain nostalgia-minded types picture the Cincinnatus figure working carefully on local problems close to his constituents. Instead, we have overwhelmed and underinformed part-timers making up stories about Mexican gangsters, proposing to abolish drivers’ licenses and making damn sure we can bring guns to bars and churches. Turns out there is something to be said for professionalism.
Say what you will about principles, the reality is that state lawmakers and executives are far more corrupt and stupid than their federal counterparts. Things don’t get better on the local level either.Report
Arizona can not stand having South Carolina being the great nullifier. Of course old Andrew Jackson faced them down in 1832, and they tried nullification on a grand scale in 1861 and failed as well. (As of course did the rest of the Confederacy). One contention I have with the folks who argue original intent is that the Civil War was a major amendment to the meaning of the constitution paid for with 600,000 deaths, which is a lot more than most real amendments cost. As an example consider that at Gettysburg it was These United States, today it is The United States.
To say that a struggle like the Civil War does not change what documents mean is to mock history, as wars do change things, and Civil Wars perhaps more than regular wars.Report
I was initially taken in by this morning’s story on NPR about a surgery meant to allow patients to see 3-D movies without using those clunky 3-D glasses. It mentioned near the end of the segment that some patients complained that their vision was blurry when looking at anything else. Corrective lenses were being developed to deal with this possible side effect.
I was totally sucked in until they mentioned that the surgery would be rolling out for mass consumption April 1st. After that they couldn’t fool me for the rest of the day.Report
San Jose *did* ban Happy Meal sales. It’s not particularly gullible to believe that other places might do the same thing.Report