We're All Criminals Down in Texas

I've heard that Texas was originally populated to some extent by citizens of more civilized states who went on the lam. Well, a few years back the Texas Legislature passed a law that you couldn't obscure your license plate in any way. Subject to a $200 fine or if you "knowingly" did it...a $2000 fine and six months in jail. We scoffed at the time although we understood that the bad guys might obscure significant parts of their plates while, you know, being bad and that this would of course be a law for them. However, some law enforcement type stopped a guy for having a frame on his plate that obscured the space shuttle, part of Texas and the all-important slogan: "The Lone Star State." The officer discovered the driver was intoxicated. In his case they tried to suppress evidence saying this law didn't intend to cover a frame that didn't obscure the license number or make it impossible to pick out the state and that therefore the stop wasn't for due cause. Now I'm thinking that the guy was weaving or driving too slow or fast or whatever. But they cited him on his plate.

So a judge had to rule and said the legislature was within its rights. I guess they just have to go out and see what we are already doing, declare it illegal and make criminals of us all. The funny part is that they've built all these toll roads and they've been pimping TxTags for easy (and cheaper) use of them. Of course, if the tag attached to your windshield doesn't work, they give you one that (you saw this coming didn't you?) obscures part of the license plate.

Art and Porcelain

Ninety years ago Marcel Duchamp gave the idea of what one might consider 'art' a radical flushing.

In the latest news of unintended consequences we have art and we have urinals.

First up: art.

OK, this has nothing to do with Duchamp's porcelain. This is Georgia O'Keefe and her cronies. This story is not one for people with attention defcit disorder. See, O'Keefe was married to Alfred Stieglitz. The famous photographer. He collected art. He died. He willed all the art (some hers, some his, some others) to her. She in turn willed it to various institutions. Including Fisk University. An historic black university. However, she left these strings attached. That the collection be kept and exhibited together and not sold. I think the idea was that blacks needed an opportunity to see this work that was denied them elsewhere. Anyway, a couple of the paintings, including one by Ms. O'Keefe herself, are worth a lot of money and Fisk wants to sell to maintain the rest of the collection or maybe keep the institution going. Here is one story. (I read it in The Wall Street Journal. Just as an aside, I think if you subscribe to the paper you ought to get the online stuff, but that's not the way that site works.) If this story doesn't cry out 'unintended consequences' then I don't know what does. What did Ms. O'Keefe and her advisors envision for the year 2007?

Ah, but what about urinals? Well, let's set the scene. It's New Mexico. You have a problem with drunk driving. Someone invents 'talking urninal cakes.' Now the inventor, surely, had motion-induced advertising in mind. But authorities thought, hmmm? Let's make the cakes give a drunk driving warning. After all what's the thing guys do before getting in their cars drunk? They relieve their bladders. Now the other shoe hasn't dropped on this. But I couldn't resist. So many unintended outcomes lurk in this one. Oh, and the voice is a female voice.