I skipped a week of the newsletter because I just. didn’t. have. time. But now I do, so.
A Tire-d Argument (August 28, 2021)
I imagine nearly everyone has returned to their car from a leisurely afternoon of shopping in Downtown, USA, and found a chalk mark festooned on one of the tires. This is so the long arm of the law (made even longer by the chalk holder, as pictured above) can keep track of how much time your car has been parked in a particular spot. If the mark retains its original orientation for too long a period, a ticket is quickly dispatched and stuffed under your windshield wiper.
But one Michigan motorist, who had been issued a series of tickets over the years, enlisted an attorney’s help in trying to overturn the infractions — on constitutional grounds:
A woman with 14 tickets has won a major decision in a dispute over whether a Michigan city violated the U.S. Constitution by chalking her car tires without a search warrant.
It’s a novel argument. Alison Taylor’s lawyer said the Fourth Amendment’s ban against unreasonable searches was triggered when a Saginaw parking enforcer applied chalk marks and returned two hours later to see if the car still was there.
Saginaw cited an exception to the Fourth Amendment, but a federal appeals court said it doesn’t fit.
“For nearly as long as automobiles have parked along city streets, municipalities have found ways to enforce parking regulations without implicating the Fourth Amendment,” Judge Richard Griffin said in a 3-0 opinion Wednesday.
“Thus, tire chalking is not necessary to meet the ordinary needs of law enforcement, let alone the extraordinary,” he said.
[Read more here: https://bit.ly/3yNyzhc]
On the return trip from an engagement party thrown by friends of my future in-laws’ hometown in western New York, Carol and I were pulled over for speeding when passing through the hamlet of Sharon Springs. Carol’s parents were traveling behind us in their own car and stopped when they came across the scene. My father-in-law was a career employee in law enforcement and so, flashing his credentials, paid a visit to the state trooper who had pulled me over to see if any “professional courtesy” could be applied to the situation. The trooper indicated that, normally, he’d be willing to issue a warning vs. a citation — but the local sheriff was along for the day’s traffic surveillance efforts, so the trooper was beholden to the letter of the law while under such scrutiny. Fast forward many months later and that speeding ticket, which I contested via the mail because why the hell not, launched a series of events that resulted in our car being impounded and my license being suspended.
Fortunately, the Town Justice in Sharon Springs was an eminently reasonable man and talked me through a few steps over the phone to expedite remediation of this kerfuffle. But I’m fairly certain there are still a few “WANTED” posters with my then-license plate and then-more hirsute face stapled to a few random bulletin boards around town.
Bonne Chance the Wrapper (August 30, 2021)
If you spray paint a monument, it’s called graffiti — but when you wrap it in fabric, it’s “art”:
The idea for “L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped,” was formed in 1961, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude lived in Paris. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and in spite of Christo’s death in May 2020, the project carried on…
The 14 million-euro ($16.4 million) project is being self-financed through the sale of Christo’s preparatory studies, drawings, scale models, and other pieces of work, (the late couple’s nephew Vladimir) Yavachev said.
Visitors to the foot of the Arc de Triomphe during the installation, scheduled for Sept. 18 to Oct. 3, will be able to touch the fabric, and those climbing to the top will step on it when they reach the roof terrace, as intended by the artists…
The artists were known for elaborate, temporary creations that involved blanketing familiar public places with fabric, such as Berlin’s Reichstag and Paris’ Pont Neuf bridge, and creating giant site-specific installations, such as a series of 7,503 gates in New York City’s Central Park and the 24.5-mile “Running Fence” in California.
[Read more: https://bit.ly/3tf1GZD]
I’ve seen pictures of many of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s installations over the years, and Carol and I took a trip to NYC specifically to see “The Gates” in Central Park, strolling through on a bitterly cold February day in 2005. While still not certain what the purpose of that creation was, it certainly was an impressive piece of engineering and a testament to perseverance — since the couple had been petitioning the city for nearly 25 years to allow the project to move forward. And now this Paris project has been 50 years in the planning… astounding.
Also, I like Chance the Rapper and couldn’t resist punning on his name in this post’s title.
Not Oft Served (September 3, 2021)
It’s actually been a long time since I’ve set foot in a McDonald’s, so I wasn’t aware of the issues their franchisees have been experiencing with the machine used to create their ice cream treats. But, apparently, the FTC is:
McDonald’s McFlurry machine and its tendency to break down has been the inspiration for countless jokes and Twitter feuds, and now it could become the subject of a Federal Trade Commission investigation. According to The Wall Street Journal, the agency recently reached out to McDonald’s restaurant owners to collect more information on their experiences with the machines.
Why is the FTC looking into McFlurry machines, you ask? The answer may have something to do with the right to repair movement. At the start of July, President Biden ordered the agency to draft new rules to empower consumers and businesses to repair their devices on their own. Later that same month, the FTC made good on that order, voting unanimously to tackle unlawful repair restrictions.
By all accounts, McFlurry machines are a nightmare to repair. Moreover, Taylor, the firm that makes them, is at the center of a legal battle over measures it uses to prevent restaurants from repairing the machines on their own. When a McFlurry machine breaks down, only a certified technician from Taylor is allowed to fix it, leading to long wait times. Those wait times have increased during the pandemic. A federal judge recently sided with a company that produces a diagnostic tool that threatens Taylor’s monopoly on repairs.
[Read more here: https://engt.co/3tgzCoT]
There is even a website — McBroken.com — that tracks the operational status of the ice cream machine in every McDonald’s location in the US (and, I believe, some other countries as well).
And while I shun visits to McDonald’s, I *do* love soft-serve. My personal record is enjoying towering cones of chocolate-vanilla swirl at five different stands in the Finger Lakes in New York State — all on the same day.
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Things have largely quieted down with our renovation project — a few tweaks are required here and there, and we’ve still got some painting to do and shelves to install and pictures to re-hang, etc. — but the daily din of construction is behind us and my brain is returning to something resembling its normal level of function. Which, believe me, was nothing to brag about.
Hoping to get back to the weekly cadence for the newsletter and have the time to generate a few more rhymes each week. Thanks for hanging in there with me. If you’re enjoying the rhymes, I’d be ever so grateful if you’d share the posts / links / tweets / this newsletter with your social media circles.
Enjoy your Labor Day Weekend!
JB