Author: Michael A. Ventrella

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Hooters loves women’s rights

A Hooters restaurant (and I use that term loosely) recently posted a sign saying that they wouldn’t serve San Diego Mayor Bob Filner because they believe, and I am not making this up, that “women should be treated with respect.”

When I commented upon this on a liberal Facebook page, I had a number of people who agreed but many more saying something along the lines of “Hey, those women have every right to be proud of their sexuality” and so on.

Well, that’s true. I am certainly not one to advocate closing Hooters simply because they only hire women who are good-looking and fire them if they gain weight. If women want to take those jobs, let them.

But don’t go kidding yourself and think that strutting around in shorts and a tight t-shirt while working in a place called “Hooters” where you are hired primarily because of how you look is the same thing as “respect.”

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Another case for the Birthers

You know those Birther people – the ones who claim that Obama can’t be a legitimate President because his father wasn’t an American? This despite the fact that he was born in America, and his mother was an American from Kansas (and as we know any child born of an American is a “natural born” American)?

Donald Trump and a bunch of others won’t let the issue go, convinced that this should have kept him from being President.

Well, now there’s another person thinking of running for President. Get this — we have absolute proof that he was born in Canada, and he doesn’t even deny it! Worse yet, his father was a non-citizen from Cuba! Clearly, all the Birthers are falling over themselves to prevent him from being President, using the exact same logic they use against Obama!

Oh, wait. This person, Ted Cruz, is a Republican. And a conservative. And white (well, Latino white, so that’s close enough.)

That makes all the difference in the world.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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World’s easiest law school exam question

You don’t even have to go to law school to get this one right:

Is it Constitutional for the police to randomly stop people on the street and search them?

I mean, duh, you’d have to be really stupid to get that one wrong, wouldn’t you?

Well, I suppose you could be the Mayor of New York. Or a bunch of people who apparently have never taken the time to read the Constitution.

But a court recently ruled in a “No, duh” decision, that New York city’s policy of randomly stopping young black men and searching them for no reason was not allowed.

Sadly, I wish they’d go farther. The 4th Amendment says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”police car

Requires a warrant. Clear and plain as day. No exceptions listed.

The courts, of course, have found exceptions to this all over the place, the most obvious one being that police can search if they have “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being committed or that the suspect is armed and so on. The general idea of “reasonable suspicion” is not bad — I don’t mind letting police search someone for their own safety after an arrest — don’t want to waste time getting a warrant in every single instance. But that has been defined in such a way lately that they can search in almost every instance. The next logical step was, of course, a policy like New York city’s, which, for quite some time, was perfectly legal.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, said he’d appeal, so this isn’t over. Your tax dollars at work.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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He’s not the Messiah!

Some people just name their kids really stupid things that can haunt them for lives.

But when someone in Tennessee named their kid “Messiah,” that was too much for a judge. “The word Messiah is a title and it’s a title that has only been earned by one person and that one person is Jesus Christ,” she said.

Good thing that judge wasn’t around in 1958 when Madonna’s parents were deciding on a name.

So the judge, over the parent’s objection, changed the child’s name, like a magical fairy.

I mean, while I certainly don’t want parents naming their kids “Hitler” or “Asshole,” I also don’t like the idea of the government coming in and deciding for the parents what the child’s name should be.

And it’s especially true here, where the reason for the name change was religion. That judge just didn’t want her personal religion made fun of, apparently.

Hey, wait, wasn’t there a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting this sort of thing? Like, the very first one?

Editorial cartoon of the day

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Smoke and Mirrors

Smoking is fast becoming as unacceptable in proper society as spittoons were at the turn of the previous century. And that’s a good thing — peer pressure will do more to curb smoking than all the laws a government could write.

Some smokers complain, however, that their rights are being violated. Well, no. There’s no “right to smoke” in the Constitution. The government could make tobacco completely illegal, like they have done for other drugs and substances that give you cancer. After all, that worked with marijuana, right? They made it illegal and no one smokes that!

Anyway, sarcasm aside, while I support laws prohibiting smoking in public places, there are still some gray areas with which I am uncomfortable.

For instance, when I was hiring a new secretary, I said “no smokers need apply.” Smokers smell up the office, need more sick days, and cause health care insurance rates to rise. It seemed like a reasonable request to me, and one many businesses now do (especially jobs where being healthy and in shape are important, like for police officers).

But there is a worrisome slippery slope there. After all, if the worry is about health care and sick days, should an employer also be allowed to say “No one who is overweight will be hired” or “only vegetarians need apply” or “no soda drinkers”? How much of our personal decisions should an employer be able to use when deciding whether to hire us?

I don’t really have an answer to that one.