Ayn Clouter's Blog

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO MUZZLE A MUSE:
The usual idiots at the ACLU are incensed at the city of Portland, Maine, for requiring sidewalk painters

to obtain a $75 permit to set up an easel. "The city says it is worried about congestion, but it's a red herring," said Doug Emerson, a Portland photographer. "It's an issue of control."

He's absolutely correct. One more local government has seen the wisdom of following the original source of all those philosopher's footnotes.

Plato wanted to ban artists because he believed their work was only mirror images - an appearance, but not reality and truth.

That point comes from a review by Jeanette Winterson, acclaimed by liberals for her lesbian novels, which brings us to why this noble stand against the liars with paintbrushes is happening at the local level. When otherwise sound thinkers get to the national capitol, the flattering attention can easily warp their judgment. A case in point is our Second Lady. Associating with all those "artistic types" as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 to 1993 got her confused about priorities.

Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife and the mother of a lesbian, said yesterday that states should have the final say over the legal status of personal relationships. That stance puts her at odds with Vice President Dick Cheney on the need for the constitutional amendment under debate in the Senate that effectively would ban gay marriage.

She's obviously still following the old memo, about supporting the former Senate Majority Leader on his state's rights stand. Fortunately out there in Real America the Podunk pols ponder Plato not pundits. His real target in that passage from Chapter 10 of The Republic was not graphic artists but wordsmiths.

...we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State.

Putting his prescription into practice, when some unpatriotic rebel decorated his yard with a sign reading "BUSH MUST GO!" and "Dump emperor George W",

someone complained about his sign to the Village of Great Neck. A code inspector showed up. Shortly after, a "notice of violation" arrived from the village ordering him to take the sign down....

They wimped out later under pressure, but they tried to squelch such subversion. Likewise the city of Boston is showing the liberal elitists who really runs things at the grass roots.

The party designer is all lined up, the $1,000-a-head guest list is rounded out with Ben Affleck, Billy Baldwin, and Sean Astin, and the superchic Louis Boston is finalized as the setting. But there's one thing this convention bash won't be doing, and that's rocking into the night. Not in Boston.

The city denied its application to let the Red Hot Chili Peppers play until midnight. They have to quit at 11. And they're not the only ones being told they can't go late. Parties around the city are being turned down for requests to go into the early morning during the week of the Democratic National Convention.

But local officials are not just blindly obedient to rules. They can exercise discretion when merely technical violations are clearly in the national interest.

Just after the dawn's early light of July Fourth, he stationed a disc jockey and a concert-size subwoofer on his glorious mountain perch overlooking Mendocino County -- and ignited a star-spangled spat. Piffero's 9 a.m. burst of patriotic words and music in Ukiah was so loud that the brave heard it in their homes several miles away, priests closed church doors so parishioners would hear their Sunday sermons, and a furious nurse named Alea Waters jumped out of bed and drove her station wagon 1,000 feet up the mountain -- where she successfully issued a citizen's arrest for disturbing the peace. ... The issue of Piffero's criminal record was settled Wednesday when District Attorney Norm Vroman decided not to file a misdemeanor disturbing-the-peace charge

If you're going to make music, make sure it's a joyful noise in praise of Our Noble Leader. There is no such thing as a poetic license to prevaricate about the only President we've got.