The High Cost of Swearing

Did you grow up in a family, or know someone who did, with a Swear Jar? The concept was every time a family member cursed he or she had to put a dollar in the jar. The jar served two purposes. It supposedly cut down on swearing in the house and the proceeds usually went toward a weekly family take-out meal like a pizza or such.

Well times have changed. In Pennsylvania, if you swear in public you are ticketed. If proven guilty you can be fined up to $300 (that'd be some pizza party) or jailed. I kid you not. Geez, a small fortune could be made at Philadelphia Flyers games - just ticketing the players!

One woman was given a citation that carries a maximum penalty of $300 and 90 days in jail after she swore at a motorcyclist who cut her off. In another case a man was arrested and jailed for several days after swearing at a policeman giving him a parking ticket. Come on, we've all done that! Well, maybe not to his face.

Virtue, Liberty and Watch Your Mouth!

But fear not profane citizens of Pennsylvania, the American Civil Liberties Union is on your side. The ACLU is suing the Pennsylvania police, arguing that the right to use profanity is protected by the U.S. Constitution. Huh!

And they've been getting clients off because there's a difference between profanity and obscenity. I guess if you drop your pants and moon someone, that might be a different matter. But the ACLU has taken advantage of this crack in the law to get their clients off.

Shit, where was the ACLU when I was a kid?

This post first appeared on The Parody Files

The Polka Dot Door

A long time ago, when I was 22, my first child was born. That kid grew up on a little Canadian kid's show called Polka Dot Door, produced by the TV Ontario network. And Dad, more often than not, sat through those shows with his little one. Nine or so years later when a brother, and a year after that when a sister came along number one son was moving on to Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. But there was a nice overlap where his siblings picked up where he had left off with Polka Dot Door. And Dad was right there to welcome them. So you're looking at a Polka Dot Door veteran. The show began in 1971 and ran to 1993. I didn't watch the full run but I did get in my fair share. The formula was pretty simple. A young male and female host, which seemed to change every week, sang songs, told stories, made crafts and generally did their best stimulate little brains. The show opened as follows... Imagination Day! Oh boy! ...

Hello Goodbye

Today a bit of a reflective piece. Rather than being funny, this is about the funny. It's a day of mixed emotion at nonamedufus . You see, after several months of inactivity I've dropped a couple of former blogger buddies off my blog roll. I kept hanging on and hanging on hoping they'd return to active blogging but, alas, after waiting in one case five months I've decided to let them go. I'm going to miss - going to? I have been missing - Margo at the Screaming Me-Me . She was one funny lady. From time to time she and I would engage in a feud or two for several days at a time but it was all in fun both for us and, I think, for our readers. And we'd leave each other funny comments, poking fun at each other. I miss her friendship and our humorous exchanges. The other blogger I'm letting go is Chelle, The Offended Blogger . Chelle was a special lady. In addition to her own blog she created and managed Humor Bloggers Dot Com where humour bloggers like m...

The Dangling Conversation

There's a debate underway in my household between my wife and I. I say "underway" because it hasn't quite reached the "raging" stage. If you want raging, my wife (a Francophone) and I (an Anglophone) from time to time (usually in a weak moment of my own making) slip into our number one discussion around why we don't speak more French at home - ergo - when am I, a former public servant who learned French at the expense of our gracious taxpayers and was technically rated bilingual (even though I hardly used it), going to improve my use of Canada's other language? This one never gets resolved, hence it's ongoing nature. But the current debate is over a remark I casually made the other day. I'm no geek, but with a lot of time on my hands I surf the web, converse on Facebook and such and - I have to admit - "I'm nonamedufus and I'm a Twitterholic". In an epiphany-like moment I was struck by the apparent impact of social networkin...

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