Mari Ness

U.S. Customs and Border Partol detains Italian tourist for ten days.

I recognize the need for border security. But I also live in a section of the country that is economically dependent on tourism, and this sort of thing does not bode well for the tourist trade.

My annual outcry of: I hate Daylight Savings Time. Look, daylight is daylight; its length and quality is set by forces mostly far beyond our control -- the sun's rotation, the earth's rotation, where we've decided to live and so on. It can't be "saved." It can only be treasured, or, if you're me, utterly hated in the morning hours. It's a dumb, dumb, name.

But surely, you argue, we must be saving something, because surely, you note, our kindly efficient federal government wouldn't be torturing me like this if it weren't in a really, really good cause, right?

Wrong.

Also wrong, and incidentally, bad for the environment.

Also, on a minor note, nobody on Daylight Savings Time is saving money on their coffee bill. I'm just saying.

Saudi Arabia banning Valentine's Day, because it "encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women."

From caligatia and the Junkfoodscience blog: State of Mississippi introduces legislation to keep fat people out of restaurants.

The mind boggles.

I happen to agree with the contention that yes, severe obesity (not what Hollywood thinks of as fat) is a national health problem, as is its counterpart, anorexia. I'll even agree that this may be contributing to overall health care and thus my insurance costs. (I know not everyone on my friends list agrees with the second part.) But how the hell is keeping obese people out of restaurants supposed to counter this at all? Yes, a lot of restaurants serve high calorie, high fat, high carb food with huge portions. A lot of homes also serve high calorie, high fat, high carb food with huge portions and lots of high calorie, high fat snack food. I've known skinny people that eat at restaurants all the time and fat people that eat at home all the time.

(My own personal belief, for what it's worth, is that the increasing percentage of severely obese people in the country stems from overall lifestyle changes. Read diaries and journals from the 19th century, where photos don't show nearly as many obese people, and you'll see what I mean: in the 19th century, people walked everyplace, often walking nine to ten miles per day, plus doing physically intensive labor either at home or in on farms or in factories. These days, most of us walk a few steps, jump into a car, and go to jobs where we sit or stand instead of physically moving around and doing things. And corn syrup has been added to lots of foods we buy at the grocery store.)

Fat people are well aware that they are fat. Some of them want to lose weight. Some of them don't care. Some of them are trying to lose weight. Some of them aren't. Most are aware that restaurant food is not necessarily healthy, although while we're on this subject, a minor problem with this bill is the assumption that no restaurants serve healthy food that could be part of a weight loss program. True, most don't, but some do. A more useful approach: Encourage restaurants to offer nutrition information to interested customers. But this bill does nothing except deprive restaurants of customers.

*********

As a cheering and completely unrelated counter to that, Cows With Guns, animated, from devinjay.

So back on June 10, 2008 I happened to be down in Davie visiting either julbkwrm or urbanwebkat. I can't tell you which, because I don't remember, but what has been abundantly well documented is that shortly afterwards I zipped through the little Griffin Road toll booth, and my SunPass transponder, which is supposed to automatically pay the toll, didn't, so Sunpass gleefully snapped a picture of my car going right through the Griffin Road toll booth. Moments later – in rather less time than would be considered strictly legal in the State of Florida – I zipped through the toll booth right around Commercial Blvd, and my little SunPass went ping! And all seemed well with the world.

In a just, Lawful Good world, I would have been pulled over for major speeding, which I was clearly guilty of, would have learned a valuable lesson (well, probably not) and become a safe and productive member of society. Alas, this is not a just, Lawful Good world, as I found when, skipping forward to November I attempted to renew my online registration and was told that my driver's license had been suspended since I hadn't paid a ticket. After some investigation, I found out that I'd gotten a $105 ticket for not paying the Griffin Road toll even though my transponder had been charged that same night at the Commercial Blvd toll. Not that anyone had bothered to tell me of the original violation, the ticket, or my license suspension.

No big deal, I said, optimistically. (Optimism is not one of my defining characteristics, but every once in awhile, I like to play with it.) I shall simply call Sunpass up, give them my transponder and everything will be cleared up.

This first involved actually reaching a human person at Sunpass, which was more difficult than you would think, but after five calls, I got through, to be assured by the human that yes, yes, yes, clearly I was innocent, clearly everything was ok, except that she couldn't do anything because I hadn't paid the ticket.

"Because I never GOT the ticket."

"Well, the ticket was mailed to you, and you had to protest BEFORE the final date on the ticket."

"But it's an INVALID TICKET! You've just said so!"

But, she advised me cheerfully, I could protest the ticket in person. "Where?" I asked.

"At any Broward County Courthouse."

"Any Broward County Courthouse," I repeated.

"Yes," she said.

As you might guess, state of Florida officials are not necessarily the most trustworthy bunch. The North Broward Courthouse in Deerfield Beach happens to be more or less inconveniently between my house and my office, so, since my car registration had expired and this was becoming an urgent problem, I headed there yesterday morning only to promptly told that while yes, they were a courthouse and yes, you could certainly pay traffic tickets there if you wanted to, they did not handle SunPass tickets – I'd have to do that in Plantation. So I popped back into my car and drove down to Plantation. Where the nice helpful official agreed with me once again that no, I was absolutely not guilty, yes, the transponder had clearly been in my car the entire evening, and that sure, she'd remove the ticket and I would not have to pay the $105.50. Yay me.

And promptly proceeded to charge me for the court processing fee and to have my license reinstated.

I did point out, right, that the transponder was there in my car the entire time?

"You had one month to protest this," she said.

"How could I, when I didn't know anything about this?" I said.

"We mailed you."

Government. It sucks.

"I'm not paying this."

"If you don't, I won't be able to reinstate your license and you will not be able to register your car."

Government. Did I mention the suckage?

(For those outside Florida – car registration includes shiny little yellow stickers placed on your license plate. If you don't have an updated little shiny yellow sticker, the police are authorized to pull you over and either write you a ticket for not having a sticker or if they're annoyed, impound the car. Not something I felt like dealing with.)

Anyway, after this I trotted down to the other room to get my car registration, which went surprisingly quickly (no one is at the Broward Courthouse on Wednesday mornings) headed out quite disgruntled to my car, which I'd parked at the library...

...only to find that some friendly cop had ticketed me for an expired tag.

sigh.

At least I didn't get a speeding ticket. And on the decidedly bright note, someone has finally recognized that yes, my car is old, and has lowered my car insurance bill, a major plus for this month.