Right Against Right
There have been lots of letters to the editor of The Dallas Morning News regarding the recent decision by the city of Dallas to ban smoking in bars and pool halls. The most agitated writers are the smokers. A typical sentiment: "If you don't like the smoke in an establishment THEN DON'T GO IN!!!!!!"
One could as easily say, "If you want to smoke, THEN DON'T GO IN!!!!!!" In the end, it comes down to the fact that the right to smoke clashes with the right to breathe clean air. The right of proprietors to establish the rules on their property clashes with the right of workers to a safe and healthy workplace. As Lord Peel famously said in a much different context, this is a case of right against right. Such cases are particularly difficult to resolve peacefully. Personally, I just hope that in this case, the peace is broken only by ANGRY SMOKERS USING ALL CAPS IN THEIR INTERNET BLOG POSTINGS.
Trey Garrison's Own Black-and-White Vision
Trey Garrison's Thursday Roundup focuses on red-light cameras (Garrison tells us they are bad), on how to stop home invasions (does Trey Garrison even need to say?), and on the falling price of oil (Garrison tells us some good things about falling oil prices - d'oh).
So far, so familiar. Ho hum. Another chapter of the Libertarian gospel according to Trey. Still, Garrison manages to say something deserving of recognition. My nominee for today's award for unintended irony: "A good tell that a news agency has little understanding of the basics of business and economics is in how they cast business stories in single-perspective black-and-white, focusing on a single negative."
This from Trey Garrison, who has made a career of doing black-and-white. Nuance? Not at all.
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