( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Yesterday I was reminded again that I work with some really smart wonderful people. I was chatting with a few staff when one of them started ranting about a bill that is about to clear our state legislature in record time. I hadn’t heard anything about it because I quit paying attention to alot of the local news a while ago. Our tv stations and newspapers have gone the way of media consolidation are are pretty much worthless. And it just makes my blood boil to listen to them or read them…so I stopped.
Anyway, back to this new law speeding through our state legislature. As my title indicates, its known as the “Hannah Montana Law” and it passed the House on a 119-12 vote and the Senate unanimously.
What’s all the urgency about Hanna you might ask? Well, it seems that ticket scalpers had a software program that allowed them to snatch up almost all the tickets to her concert here recently and WAY too many cute little white suburban girls couldn’t afford to go see their idol. Far be it from our heroes at the State Legislature to allow such a travesty to continue without the long arm of the law intervening to bring justice to the huddled masses!!! They passed a law that makes the software program the scalpers used illegal. After all, our constitution does protect the right of white suburban girls’ to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Of course the staff person who brought this to my attention was a little peeved. You see, he works with kids who don’t live in the suburbs and couldn’t afford to go see Hannah Montana before the scalpers invaded the ticket lines (not that they’d probably want to, mind you). Not only that, but he’s not seeing the legislature jump on taking care of any of the needs of the kids he works with. These are the kids who make up the 12% in our state who continue to live in chronic poverty and can’t even afford to buy school supplies, or pay the fees that our schools have had to impose to participate in sports and after-school activities. And they’re the kids who are suffering from abuse, domestic violence, and crime ridden neighborhoods without the community supports necessary to protect them. He sees that kind of neglect day in and day out without noticing our State Legislature running in to play hero for these kids. Its just the chirp, chirp, chirp of silence. So yeah, he’s a little angry.
No one would want to deprive suburban white girls of their right to see Hannah Montana at reasonable prices. But someday…he hopes the kids he works with every day will be included in that group of “no child left behind.” It really seems like such a simple request, doesn’t it?
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I’m a little peeved too.
…to make sure that the sellers of tickets didn’t have to invest in providing a better product for their customers. It would suck if innovations like StubHub spread to things like Hannah Montana. Hallelujah.
But, but, but, you see, those poor deprived little white suburban girls are living the American Dream and deserve all the support and help the politicians can give them, and the legislature can’t start passing laws to help kids who have the insolent audacity to simply refuse to live the dream and make the legislature and the dream look bad, and they have to protect the little white suburban girls who are living examples of the sheer rightness of the dream at all costs from ever knowing that the “12% in our state who continue to live in chronic poverty and can’t even afford to buy school supplies” even exist in the land of the ubiquitous amusement park or they might (gasp, shudder) wake up and stop believing in the dream. Or at least start realizing it is one, and that is the beginning of the slippery slope to the end of empire.
Or something…. :-/
And then where the in the hell would we be? Are you some kind of socialist subvert or something?
Close you eyes and go shopping, or something. This is serious.
is how fast the system can move when it wants to — while really important legislation that is virtually life and death to some other people languishes in some committee.
your state legislature deserves at least some credit for making a form of thievery illegal rather than the usual practice of creating loopholes and exemptions making them legal.
Must not have been a bank or credit card company that came up with the scam. 😉
You must be joking?
Our legislature just did WHAT?!?!?!
You mean instead of solving our budget crises, sticking it to Pawlenty or doing something of use to bring our economy out of recession that are worrying about FREAKING SCALPING?!?!
Democrats are doing this?
Joe freaking Atkins?
Why do people like this guy?
What a pathetic guy.
Can’t we focus on some real issues.
Can’t we focus on kids who you know, need help?
And besides. Who cares about Hanna Montana. I don’t really get the appeal.
I guess a teenage guy isn’t the target demographic. But honestly. How is she different from any other crap pop?
Unbelievable.
The robo-scalpers almost beat me to some U2 tickets one time, but I beat them into submission with my backup guitar.
We protect consumerism by banning computer programs but don’t ban guns that kill innocents. And we call this “values.”
politics can be so irritating.
and rarely surprising..