Reality Bites for the week of Nov. 1

Reality Bites for the week of Nov. 1

“I’m going to need an ID that has your birthday on it”
 

Maybe it’s lack of sleep, I don’t know, but I seem even more irritable than usual lately.  I decided to come up one rung on the ladder of “phoning it in” this week by creating a list of things I think are obtuse, pedestrian and supercilious at best.
  This past Tuesday morning, a five term Congresswoman from California was stopped from boarding a one-way flight from Boise to Cincinnati because she was on the terrorist watch/do not fly list.  I couldn’t figure out what’s funnier – the United employee laughing when she was handed a US Congress ID or that someone was traveling from Boise to Cincinnati, one-way.

  The hearing regarding the full liquor license for the International Club at 5 Marshall Street was so indicative of how things can get blown out of proportion in this city.  If you attended the hearing this past Monday night, you would have walked away with several notions.  First, that there is enough “enthusiasm” in the first half block of this “epicenter” of cultural discord to allow the possibility of deaths similar to those at European soccer matches.  Second, that we have an Alderman in Ward 4 who could be the local definition of what Bill O’Reilly would call a “Secular Progressive” – he actually got up and announced to the Licensing Commission that there was no possible compromise between the neighbors and the establishment – without ever having a meeting with both parties in the same room.  Third, that somehow the Acting Chief of Police believes that the International Soccer Club could morph back into Pal Joeys.  Give me a break.
  The controversy over selling wine in grocery stores is so absurd it is staggering.  Opponents want you to believe that by voting “No on 1,” we will better protect our children and our neighborhoods, not overburden our police departments and I love the one I heard the other day about keeping the money out of the hands of big foreign corporations so they can’t fund terrorists.
You would think that overnight there would be Jay and Silent Bob types in front of every Quick Stop in the Commonwealth, peddling Black Box Wine and sending money through PayPal to their cousin Borat back in Kazakhstan to pay down their lay-away of WMDs at the Middle East equivalent of Wal-Mart.
  The reality is we need to shake off one of the last vestiges of Puritan ideals we have been holding onto for far too long around here.  Allowing sales of wine in local grocery stores will help these local businesses – which need all the help they can get.  The whole idea of it costing money to monitor and enforce and take valuable police manpower might be true to some extent, but I guess that’s the price you have to pay for living in the 21st Century.
  Maybe it’s me – I’m going to go take a nap.

Comments

[Ron Newman]

I haven't decided how I'll vote yet, but are there really any 'local grocery stores' in Somerville who need 'help' from Question 1?

Stop & Stop, Star, Shaw's, and Market Basket aren't exactly 'local' businesses that need any financial help.

[Ikea and the other corporate giveaways]

Johnny's foodmaster is a smaller local place, and without them and others opening their books and showing us how much they make on wine sells and without doing a long study we can't really have any idea what the effects will be. Lots of good intended laws have cuased unintended consequences. The point is we don't if it is good if we don't have the flexibility to try something and then roll it back if it does not work. Since local cities can still controll the licenses issued it would seem ok. But can we have one of these places suing our city becuase they think they now deserver as many licenses as they want without regard to the local community?

The rest of the arguments are just plain stupid.

Ikea and the rest of those government subsidised wellfare chains in assembly will have bigger impact on our police force. Especially once the orange line opens.