Showing posts with label Idiocy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Idiocy. Show all posts

Friday, July 24, 2009

Alabama ABC Board Censoring Wine Labels

Apparently a wine label based on an 1895 bicycle advertisement is just too risqué for the delicate sensibilities of Alabama residents. Or so says the ABC Board, which has deemed it "immodest" and demanded that the wine bottles be removed from bars and grocery stores.

More...

Bob Martin, staff attorney with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, said the ABC's licensing bureau deemed the label inappropriate last year.
The French painter G. Massias produced this bicycle advertising poster in 1895. A wine with a label featuring the poster has been banned from sale in the state of Alabama because it features a person "posed in an immodest or sensuous manner."

"It was submitted twice last year, and it was rejected both times," Martin said. Early this month, however, a citizen sent a bottle of the wine to the ABC board to show it was still being sold in stores, he said. So, the board's enforcement bureau sent a letter to stores and restaurants statewide, reminding them that its sale was prohibited, Martin said.
Oh, good grief -- somebody tattled? When are we going to grow up in this state? It's already illegal to sell sex toys; now we're banning wine labels with what I'd venture to call tasteful depictions of nudity? All for the sake of the children, I guess. Hey, maybe we should ban field trips to art museums too. Or take away their mirrors when they reach puberty.

And just to add to the creepy:
Several restaurant owners, retailers and distributors declined comment when contacted Thursday by the Press-Register. Licenses to sell or serve alcoholic beverages are renewed yearly, with applications due by Aug. 1.
Gee, I wonder why they were afraid to declined to comment.


Saturday, November 29, 2008

God Forbid

Stephen Calabresi explains it all to you. In a discussion of Mark Halperin's assertion that pro-Obama bias cost McCain his rightful presidency Calabresi keeps his eyes on the prize, or returns to the new GOP vomit like an obedient dog, and begins babbling about the Fairness Doctrine. My favorite line is in italics.

Steven G. Calabresi, Professor of law, Northwestern University:

The important question is what do we do in the future to protect against media bias, and I think the answer is not to get government into the business of regulating and burdening the content of core political speech on talk radio as the grossly misnamed Fairness Doctrine would do. Under that law, every time Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken says something stupid on the air, the radio network that is broadcasting them would have to make equal radio time available for an alternative point of view. Reduce...

The effect of such a rule would be to penalize and burden by law controversial speech, which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Senator Charles Schumer says this is OK because after all we regulate pornographic communications on the airwaves. That is true, but it obviously does not follow that we should regulate folks like Limbaugh or Franken who are engaged in core political speech. The internet has opened up vast new resources to those who want to speak and respond to the Limbaugh’s (sic) and Franken’s (sic) of the world. American citizens have taken advantage of those resources and will continue to do so in the future in even greater numbers. Instead of worrying about media bias in the presidential election, which is over and done with, let’s not add to it by censoring talk radio.


aimai

Bonus points: can anyone tell me what is the difference between Franken's speech and Limbaugh's speech at this point? What rules apply to politicians and their speech during campaigns that don't apply to Limbaugh's speech?