And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench.

We come to find out that the city of St. Cloud is going to charge the fellow who put up the stupid posters. What is his crime?

A Waite Park man who posted anti-Muslim cartoons in several St. Cloud locations has been cited with violating a city ordinance that prohibits posting materials on fixtures.

Each of the two civil charges carry a maximum fine of $250.

This ordinance has kept St. Cloud safe from garage sale announcements and lost dog notices for many years now. Along with more than a few bits of graphic art including pictures of Abu Ghraib. (This one was on a junction box near North Junior High where I often take cigars for a walk.)

The thirst for justice has not been slaked:

Many speakers questioned local authorities' response to the incident, and asked why the man who has admitted to posting the cartoons doesn't face criminal charges. Others criticized city leaders for not doing enough to combat long-standing discrimination against Muslims and people of color.

Lam told city leaders she's been to plenty of "kumbaya meetings" about discrimination. This time, Lam wanted to know what will happen next.

"I've been here for four years, and I'm scared of this city," Lam said. "What are you going to do to show that you are going to protect all citizens of St. Cloud?"

In times of trouble, I often turn to Arlo Guthrie:

And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sergeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

Were the scribbler at the open house last night -- hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group with an excellent track record on free speech -- he might have gotten that form.

The city is trying to have it both ways. It recognizes that the poster, hateful and disgusting as it is, is nevertheless free speech protected by the First Amendment. The city attorney says criminal charges "wouldn't hold up in court." So rather than that, he uses a selectively-enforced ordinance against that person, and names the person in public. Will his picture next appear on those electronic billboards alongside the child molesters? How big a target does the city wish to paint on this person?

Labels: free speech, St. Cloud