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TERRY’S TIDBITS

By Terry Gray

December 6, 2004

TORT

          If you want to sue because you don’t know how to ride a bike and fell off and cracked open your skull, you deserve to have a cracked skull.  There is no blaming anyone else for your stupidity.  It isn’t the bike’s fault, most times.

          So sue.  But I believe you should have to put something in the ante pot, as should your attorney.  What does a cracked skull go for these days?  If your attorney wants to sue for a million bucks, he should have to put up at least a half million ante.  If your case loses, he loses the bucks.  If your case loses, you can’t sue anyone for 5 years and you have to perform community service for 5 years.  When you go to the track, you don’t expect to win if you don’t bet.  You can guess all the lottery numbers, but it is moot if you didn’t ante up a dollar.

          Now get your skull fixed and stay off bikes.

ELECTION LAWS

          I won’t even get into how ridiculous the laws are.  They are primarily designed to help the incumbent stay in office.  The incumbent is part of the system, and the challenger is a challenge to the incumbent’s power.  The election laws are also designed to keep “off-beat” parties from getting a toe-hold in the system.  The “Big 2” know that they are running the show, and the show is in danger in every election.  There is no reason to encourage understudies to get involved.  “We run the show, we have been running the show, and we will continue to run the show.”

          Dana Seum Stephenson won her election but lost her election.  As far as I know, she was honest with the voters.  The state says she was dishonest with the state.  The state didn’t elect her; the voters did.  One of the requirements to run for office of State Senator is to be a resident of the district for 6 years.  She hasn’t been.  When one is a resident of the district for 6 years, one is probably knowledgeable of the district.  Does one know more about the district in 6 years than one would know in 3 years?  What is the magic number for knowing your district?  How many life long residents of the district know much about the district?  Most people don’t even know their city council person.

          Dana’s opponent, Virginia Woodward, says she was against Vehicle Emissions Testing – a hot issue.  If I’m against something, I don’t let it support me.  Virginia received substantial campaign contributions from 3 members of the Gordan Darby team, the VET people.  Stanley Gordan - President, contributed $1000, Michael Kennedy – Vice President, contributed $1000 and Clifton Mahaffey – Program Administrator, contributed $1000.  I wonder why?  I believe we can rely on Ms. Woodward to help these poor people bring VET back to Louisville.

          I don’t know the Kentucky Constitution and how it dictates elections.  But I do know that “The People” elected Dana Seum Stephenson for State Senator.  I also know that my Kentucky Constitution is regarded so cheaply that the Republican Party, in its primeval fear, created public fear concerning gays so as to adopt an amendment that excludes that minority.  But hey, the people voted for it and the people are what count, except in the Stephenson/Woodward election.

LEGAL POT

          The federal courts are now deciding whether or not to decide on legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes.  They could decide to decide, or they could throw it back to the states to decide.  Let’s not forget that we are in a war on drugs.  We are also in the beginnings of the war on obesity and well past the Ides of the war on smoking.  Oh yeah, the war on terror, I almost forgot.  We take away our constitutional rights in the war on terror so that we can feel safe.  But eating, smoking and getting high aren’t covered in the constitution, so we have to go after them separately. 

          The courts don’t like marijuana; people get high on it.  Legalizing it for medicinal purposes will open the door for unscrupulous doctors to write prescriptions to people who don’t need pot.  It will be an excuse for people to legally get high.  As Dennis Miller said, “Pot smokers need few reasons to get high – the sun coming up for example is just fine.”

          What is the point in marijuana being illegal at all?  No, seriously, think about it.  What has that plant ever done to anyone?  “Pot head breaks into home and beats up grandmother for her cookies.”  You’ll never see that headline.  Pot smokers don’t need a fix or a bottle.  They don’t panic when they run out of pot.  They don’t brawl in the streets.  They don’t break things – on purpose.  “Angry, stoned mob confronted by police outside of the Keebler Forest” is another headline you’ll never see.  They may conspire to get some free samples, but it stops there.

          But our supreme court doesn’t even want terminally ill patients to have pot.  They have said that it has not been proven to have medicinal properties.  Hey dudes, second hand smoke hasn’t been proven to be unhealthy for non-smokers, either.  I didn’t know that everything legal has to have medicinal value.  So what if Aunt Shirley wants to get high and watch The Price is Right in her last days?  It makes her feel good, and God knows that a dying person needs to feel good sometimes.

SMOKE FREE LOUISVILLE

          The Louisville nannies got a new website.  I checked it out, and it is pretty cool.  I wonder who is paying for it.

I’d like to show you some excerpts from the mass emailing that Mike Kuntz, President of Smoke Free Louisville, sent out to announce their new site and their new steps in legislating oppression.  I’m on the mailing list, so I stay current on all of the smoke nannies’ atrocities against freedom in our community.  Here goes:

          “We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you are rested and re-energized to continue in our fight to improve the health of Louisville by removing secondhand smoke from the air we all breathe.”

          Worse than cancer, these folks won’t go away.  And there is no way they can tell me that, once smoking is banned, they will stop their relentless assaults.  I take exception to the last part of his statement.  We don’t all breathe smoky air; only some people choose to breathe it.  How many establishments still allow smoking?  You almost have to go out of your way to find a place to smoke.  But what would oppression be without complete oppression?

          “Smoke Free Louisville has been busy, we have re-organized, revisited our strategic plan and recruited new community leaders who share our common goal to improve the health of our city.  You will be hearing more from them very soon! We will be successful in reducing the poisons that we all have been forced to breathe for far too long!”

          If you add a German accent to this you’ll get the full benefit of the quote.  You notice they don’t say what leaders they’ve recruited.  I stay current with the movements of our city council, and, by my last count, no one has shifted sides.  The vast majority still oppose smoking bans.  I take exception to the last part of his statement.  No one has forced anyone to breathe poisons in regard to tobacco smoke.  None of the research that has been done to date definitively states that tobacco smoke is dangerous to non-smokers.  On the other hand, some studies have proven that there are no negative health effects associated with second hand smoke in the levels that people are subjected to.  Further, has anyone heard any stories about non-smokers being dragged into smoky bars?  No one is going to make you breathe their smoke.

          “Perhaps the most significant new feature Smoke Free Louisville is offering is our Featured Restaurant.” 

          The current featured restaurant is the Meridian Café’ in St. Mathews.  I read up on the place.  Here is a quote about the restaurant:  “ACCESSIBILITY: Completely inaccessible to wheelchair users.  Several steps up to the front porch and another from there to the front room.”  I found this hilarious.  No smoking and no handicapped.  Smoke Free Louisville uses the excuse of protecting workers’ rights and the rights of innocents in order to ban smoking.  This organization is all-caring in respect to finding a reason to push their bans on this community, but they feature a restaurant that doesn’t even provide access to the handicapped.  And if someone in a wheelchair applied for a job?

I’ve been telling you for a couple of years about Smoke Free Louisville and anti-freedom groups in general.  Their relatives are the fat police, the profanity police…and the freedom police.  They don’t want you to enjoy yourselves.  They will do all they can to stop you from enjoying yourselves.  They’ll turn your kids against you.  They’ll raise your taxes, make you smoke outside in the cold, make you feel ugly, and turn neighbor against neighbor.  But the most important part of all is what they’ll do once they achieve their objectives.  They are loaded with hatred, and they don’t have that many avenues currently open for their vehemence.  They’ll crouch down in the shadows and ambush something else as soon as they find the time.  They are good for nothing but usurping freedom.

LEXINGTON BAR WINS FREEDOM

          Beaumont Courtyard Bar & Grill took the issue of property rights to court.

          In November, the owner, Monte McQuinn, said that he would continue to violate the smoking ban until he wins in court or fines force him out of business.  At the time of his statement, he was hoping for a hung jury.  On December 2, McQuinn was acquitted.  "They can't come in here and tell me it's illegal to do something that it's legal to do," McQuinn said.

          There was one smoker and one “occasional smoker” on the 6 member jury.  Obviously, the odds were stacked in favor of non-smokers, despite the wording of the Associated Press.  This “unbiased news source” did not mention that the majority of the jury was non-smokers.

          Another member of the mainstream news, reporter Sarah Vos of the Lexington Herald Leader, testified in court that McQuinn told her of his intentions to violate the ban.  Her testimony was stricken when she told the court that she couldn’t confirm that McQuinn had told her that.  When the story was first published on November 29 in the Lexington Herald, his purported statement was the lead line.  So, sure that she had McQuinn, Vos testified in court.  Investigative reporting isn’t what it used to be.

          McQuinn wasn’t bluffing, it seems, and this court case may very well be the result of the wounded pride of a health inspector.  Inspector Ken Ammeter testified that McQuinn “got in his face” during an August 18 inspection – poor baby.  In my humble opinion, any man who makes his living by enforcing oppressive legislation deserves more than that.  Getting in Ammeter’s face just doesn’t seem to carry the weight of what Ammeter deserved.

“The bar was cited Aug. 18, and again Sept. 15, by employees of the Fayette County Health Department's division of environmental health. Christine Atkinson, the health department's acting consumer protection director, said the verdict wouldn't stop the enforcement of the ban.”

“We will enforce it as written," Atkinson said. "There's an ordinance in place, and we've been given the task of enforcing it.”

You do that, honey.  It is your job after all.  But while you are doing your job, Americans in Lexington will be celebrating freedom despite you.  I can’t wait for the fallout.

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