06 Feb 2013
James Rambin / Views Editor
Nod: The case of the phantom handicap
Getting a ticket from UNT is nothing compared to what the city traffic goons in Tel Aviv, Israel are pulling.
On Sunday, local student Hila Ben Baruch discovered that her car, which she legally parked in front of her Tel Aviv apartment complex, had been unceremoniously towed by the city.
On top of that, in place of her car was a freshly painted handicapped parking space.
Rather than paying her fine and moving on, Ben Baruch decided to take a closer look, and requested security tapes of the parking space from a security guard at a building across the street.
What she discovered was shocking. Her car, parked in a legal space, was approached by two city workers, who proceeded to paint a new handicapped parking space around the car.
After workers left, parking enforcement discovered the brand-new space, the resulting brand-new violation, wrote Ben Baruch a ticket and towed away her car.
The real fun began when Ben Baruch posted the incriminating footage on Facebook. The video went viral, and like magic, the city administration started apologizing, not to mention quickly dropping the ticket. Even the mayor offered his sincerest regrets, promising the incident would “never happen again.”
We’re going to offer a nod to Ben Baruch for standing up and pointing out this injustice. Without her, these shady city workers might have gotten away with it — if it weren’t for those meddling kids on Facebook, that is.
Shake: California dreams continue
Earlier this week, we brought you the news of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s attempt to reach out to the good people of California via the airwaves.
His radio ads, which aired throughout the state this week, were intended to entice West Coast business owners and other entrepreneurs to dodge the state’s high taxes and relocate their ventures to the low-taxed veritable utopia of Texas.
But California Gov. Jerry Brown wasn’t going to let Perry out-governor him without an equally snarky reply, and soon after the ads hit the radio this week, he was quoted as saying that Perry’s ad didn’t constitute a “serious story.”
But he didn’t stop there, dubbing the ads “barely a fart” when compared to more pressing news items.
Look, we’re not saying we’re qualified to tell the governor of a state how to do his or her job. But this particular exchange from these two literal heads of state is pretty much at the level of a kindergarten schoolyard.
At this point, Gov. Perry might actually win the argument by striking back and calling Gov. Brown a “doo doo head,” but the credible threat of Brown subsequently telling mommy that Perry said a very naughty word still stands.
Is there some kind of reality show where normal people are given the office of governor for a day? Because we’re fairly certain that any of us could behave with more public professionalism than Gov. Brown, and we’d do it for practically free.
Our first elected action? Giving Brown a few shakes for behaving like an actual child.
