I've had my fair share of love/hate relationships with towns, but I can honestly say "I Hate This Fucking Town."

I'm not quite to 95 theses to tack on their door yet, but I'm getting there. Here's the current list of grievances:

1. Citing us for "disturbing the peace" because our dogs had been barking all day. Never mind that the porch was littered with animal crackers, and it was obvious that the dogs were being taunted. Nope, our fault.
   
   
2. Citing us for parking on our own property.
   
   
3. Not bothering to inform us that a new statute had been passed requiring house numbers on our alley-facing fence. Good thing we got the paper and read to page A-12 that day
   
   
4. Posting a no-parking zone on our side of the block between the hours of 8a and 12p on Thursdays (other side on Mondays) because of street cleaning, and then cleaning the street at 6:45a those days. Real helpful.
   
   
5. Cashing my payment of a ticket received because I failed to move my car on a Thursday because I was sick in bed, forgetting that they cashed my ticket, and then issuing a warrant for my arrest and demanding $150 because of court costs. Also, the warrant would have been executed before the payment actually arrived for them had I tried to pay. Instead, I was forced to go through my records in order to tell them they fucked up.
   
   
6. Wasting my taxpayer dollars in order to inform me that I had 10 days to remove the trash from behind my house, because I had put it out there outside of "18 hours before or after your scheduled trash pick up." If I didn't, they were going to send someone over to remove it for us! Now, I'd put my trash out on a Wednesday night, and our scheduled pick-up is Friday morning. That means the issue had already resolved itself by the time I got the letter Friday afternoon. And, according to the letter, I could have simply waited until the trash truck had passed, taken my trash out, left it there for a week, and still been in compliance with city regulation. Either way, they wasted 42 cents, the cost of the paper, and however much they paid their secretary to type and send it, just to tell me to remove trash that the trash removal company had already taken. The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
   
   
7. And the most recent abuse of municipal code: We've been a little behind on some things. I let my inspection slide a month over by accident, and V's inspection expired on the last day of April (that'd be yesterday), and I'd forgotten to get it in on time. Too bad! While there were no repercussions for me, she got a ticket for $25 for parking on the street with an expired inspection. Guess when the ticket was written? 3:08 this morning. It's not enough for them just to write the ticket, no, they paid a parking officer double time to write tickets for expired inspections three hours after they expired at midnight.

So, fuck this town. I can't wait until I no longer have to pay inflated income and property taxes for miserable, malicious service that does nothing to serve the common good. I'm still waiting for the disintegrating curb to be fixed. Maybe that $25 you poached from me can get you cracking on fixing that? Hmm? Yeah, probably not.

-pb

I've come up with what I think is a pretty good question to frame the same-sex marriage debate:

Here is the case: Two men have entered into a relationship. It is a deep, abiding, loving, committed relationship which is strictly platonic. There is no sexual interaction between these people whatsoever. They have, however, "forsaken all others," choosing to remain completely celibate. They wish to marry in order to affirm their love for each other and for the very practical purpose of obtaining the 1,000+ rights and privileges accorded by civil marriage.

Would you support this union? If not, on what grounds would you oppose it?

That's sure to spin some heads. At the very least, it's sure to expose irrationality.

-pb

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the "D.C. Madam,"was found dead in Florida Thursday. Suicide notes were found near the body in a small storage shed next to a mobile home, police said.

This is just awful. This woman was rung through the criminal "justice" system for providing what she consistently maintained was a legal escort service. The problem I have here is that even if she was running a sex-for-hire service, why is she the only one held accountable? She released her complete client list, and how many of the government official and public office holders on that list have been brought up on charges?

None. Not a single one.

If she was convicted of running a prostitution ring, one would expect that somewhere along the line, someone had sex with someone else and money exchanged hands for that purpose, and they were able to prove that transaction took place. Why wasn't the customer held equally as culpable for the transaction?

I'm all in favor of legalized prostitution. Legalize it, regulate it, and UNIONIZE THEM. Stop prosecuting one side of the trade and letting the other side walk.

Tom The Dancing Bug says it best:



-pb