Minor Thoughts from me to you

It used to be that DUI citations were given out for actually driving while under the influence of alcohol. Increasingly, they're being given out for simply being "under the influence". This strikes me as a gross violation of civil liberties. Since when did it become illegal to simply have alcohol in your system?

The first story comes from Hamburg, New Jersey.

A New Jersey appellate court yesterday upheld the principle that convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) can be imposed on individuals who were not driving. David Montalvo, 36, found this out as he responsibly tried to sleep off his intoxication in his GMC pickup truck while safely stopped in the parking lot of the Market Place Deli on a cold February morning last year. At around 5am he awoke to see a Hamburg Police Department patrolman standing over him. The officer had opened the door of Montalvo's truck to rouse the man and insist that he take a breathalyzer test. Montalvo refused.

For his attempt to follow the law and drive responsibly, David Montalvo now owes the city more than $4000, plus legal fees. Punishing people for doing the right thing in an effort to motivate them to do the right thing. I think New Jersey has discovered an entirely new principle of human behavior.

Next up, Rochester New Hampshire. Dover man arrested for taping his DWI investigation

A 48-year-old Chestnut Street man was arrested early this morning for wiretapping for allegedly recording police while they were investigating him for driving while intoxicated.

Police say they were patrolling the downtown area at 2:54 a.m. when they discovered Christopher A. Power of 52 Chestnut St. sitting in the driver's seat of a vehicle with its motor running at the Rochester Common.

After speaking with Power, police began investigating him for driving while intoxicated and arrested him. During the arrest an audio recording device was discovered.

Not only is it apparently illegal to sit in a parked car while alcohol is in your blood, it's also illegal to record police in the performance of their duties.

Err, since when? They work for the public, in the public good. Shouldn't the public be allowed to monitor that that's actually what they're doing? What are the police trying to hide? I thought the government line was that only criminals should be afraid of surveillance. Are the New Hampshire police hiding something?

In Washington, Aid to Homeowners Debated - New York Times

Faced with a possible tidal wave of home foreclosures beginning this fall, Democrats and Republicans are battling over a philosophical question with huge practical implications: should the government ride to the rescue?

Both the Bush administration and Democratic leaders in Congress agree that legions of homeowners could be overwhelmed in the next 18 months, as low teaser rates expire on more than two million adjustable-rate mortgages, causing monthly payments increase sharply.

But the Bush administration and Congressional Democrats are ideologically divided about what Washington should do. Administration officials are reluctant to bail out people who bought homes they could not afford or simply gambled that easy credit and rising real estate prices would lead to quick profits.

Democrats, though opposed to a broad bailout, are proposing an array of measures to help lower-income people renegotiate their loans and stay in their homes.

The proposals would expand the program of insuring home loans under the Federal Housing Administration, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; create a national fund for "affordable housing"; expand the ability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored finance companies, to buy renegotiated subprime mortgages; and give bankruptcy judges more power to order easier terms for borrowers.

The Bush administration, with the Treasury Department heading the efforts, is looking for more limited solutions. Administration officials are working on their own ideas to let the F.H.A. insure slightly more expensive homes, which could make it easier for people with low incomes or weak credit to switch out of subprime mortgages and into more traditional fixed-rate loans.

I realize that bailing out overextended homeowners plays well in election years. But what's the long-term cost? If we bail out everyone that bought more than they could afford, if we bail out everyone who didn't ask hard questions before signing a $200,000 loan, if we bail out those too eager for quick riches to read the fine print, what message do we send?

A bailout is just another way of subsidizing risky, irresponsible behavior.

The government needs to let the housing market land however it lands. Everyone involved in the current crisis bears some responsibility for the crisis. Banks got a little too loose with their money. Would-be homeowners got a little too confident in an ever brighter tomorrow. Bad decisions were made all around.

A bailout would only convince people and banks that it's okay to take on huge risks -- Uncle Sam is waiting to save you and protect you from consequences. Ultimately, that's more dangerous to the economy than a turndown in the housing market.

I'm disappointed in Life Promotions, the organization that organizes the Lifest Festival each summer in Oshkosh, WI. (Full disclosure: I attended Lifest 2007 with my sister.)

Last year and this year, Lifest hosted the "Air Glory" ride at the festival. Air Glory is a bungee-jump type of ride, available for $25 a ride to festival attendees. Unfortunately, a girl died on the ride this year. Fond du Lac Reporter - Girl dies after fall from Air Glory free-fall ride at Lifest

A girl was killed in a fall from the Air Glory ride Saturday afternoon at Lifest.

The victim, who was not immediately identified, was taken to a local hospital, but Lifest officials made an announcement from the Main Stage about 9:35 p.m. that she had died.

The State of Wisconsin licenses all rides that operate in the state. The license is supposed to ensure that the ride is safe and that all operators meet the relevant criteria (being 18 or older). For the past month, state officials have been investigating the ride.

A few days ago, Lifest representatives said that Lifest bore no responsibility for the accident.

Mitch Lautenslager, vice president of operations and programming for Life! Promotions in Oshkosh, last week said the organization had no responsibility to check to see if Air Glory was registered or inspected in Wisconsin before it opened. "Everything we had done with Air Glory, all the homework, showed they had been cleared to go," Lautenslager said. "We didn't have any reason to believe otherwise."

Life! Promotions spokesman Wes Halula said Air Glory also appeared at last year's Lifest. "It's between the state and Air Glory," Halula said. "The onus is on Air Glory to keep up on all that paperwork."

I'm sorry, but I find this attitude unacceptable. Lifest invited Air Glory to appear at the event. Lifest promoted the event to thousands of parents and youth leaders as a fun, safe time. By putting Air Glory into their promotional materials, Lifest gave their stamp of approval to the ride. Like it or not, Lifest bore a responsibility to ensure that the ride was well-maintained, well-run, and -- above all -- safe.

It's not simply a matter of "keep[ing] up on all that paperwork". By it's very nature, state regulation is always going to be a hit or miss affair. Parents trusted Lifest -- not the State of Wisconsin -- to provide a fun, safe atmosphere for their children.

I believe Lifest had their own responsibility to check the ride before promoting it as an integral part of Lifest. That responsibility was a moral one, not a legal one. I would not sue Lifest for failing in that responsibility. Instead, I'll take my own responsible course: I no longer trust Lifest to provide a safe, fun event. I no longer trust Lifest to have executed due diligence before promoting an event.

Until Lifest takes responsibility for what happens at their festival, I will not be attending. My daughter will not be old enough to attend festivals for another 10-12 years. Lifest has that long to earn back my trust and prove that they're willing to do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

While I'm on the subject of trade-offs, I'd like to mention a recent article from the Wisconsin State Journal. Bridge repairs could cost Wisconsin over $2 billion

Wisconsin's bridges are considered safer than the national average, but the state still has more than 2,100 bridges that fall short of federal standards for carrying loads and providing wide lanes for cars, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review of state and federal records.

The civil engineers report noted Wisconsin needs some $1.75 billion for state and local bridge projects between 2000 and 2020 as outlined in a state plan. That doesn't include another $2.8 billion in road and bridge projects planned for the Milwaukee area and the southeastern part of the state.

I'm glad the Wisconsin section of the American Society of Civil Engineers is looking into this. With the collapse of the bridge of the Minnesota, every politician in America is focused on bridge maintenance and repair. If that money needs to be spent on bridge repair, then spend it.

But first, take it out of another section of the budget. Delay spending increases on other projects. Cut spending on redundant areas of the budget. Prioritize spending in all areas of the budget.

I know what Wisconsin's politicians would like to do: raise taxes by $2 billion to cover this spending. I'd like to do that to -- I'd like to just increase my own income whenever I have something new I want to spend money. Unfortunately, I can't. And neither can Wisconsin's politicians. Every time they raise taxes, I get a pay cut. It's impossible to tax and spend a state into prosperity and safety.

By all means, maintain the bridges. But focus on the trade-offs inherent in doing that and make tough decisions about the budget.

Trade-offs are an inescapable part of life. The sad truth is, it's impossible to both eat your cake and have it too. Unfortunately, far too many of our policy debates try to pretend that it is possible to have everything at once. Politicians follow their instincts and promise to give voters everything the voters want. But all of the promises in the world can't abolish life's fundamental trade-offs.

What am I talk about? Let me illustrate. Lately, a debate has been raging in legal and political circles about a clash between family life and work. Employers still expect employees to put in a 40-hour work week, occurring mostly between 8am and 5pm. An increasing number of employees want to work odd schedules, work from home, or take large amounts of time off to care for ailing family members. As a result, these employees are being passed over for promotion, denied raises, or being outright fired.

Family-Leave Values - New York Times

Since the mid-1990s, the number of workers who have sued their employers for supposed mistreatment on account of family responsibilities "” becoming pregnant, needing to care for a sick child or relative "” has increased by more than 300 percent.

... Williams argued that the growing tension between work and family was not simply a product of economic necessity. It stemmed, rather, from a marketplace structured around an increasingly outdated masculine norm: the "ideal worker" who can work full time for an entire career while enjoying "immunity from family work." At a time when both adults in most families had come to participate in the labor force, Williams argued that this standard was unrealistic, especially for women, who remained the primary caregivers in most households.

This New York Times article is fairly typical of the debate. It's heavily anecdotal and hard to excerpt. (If you want the human stories behind the rhetoric, click through and read the full article.)

The article starts by telling the story of Karen Deonarain. Karen worked for a small company as a full-time employee. When she went through a tough pregnancy (and gave birth 16 weeks early), she informed her employer that she'd need four months off to recover, before coming back to work. Her employer ended up firing her.

The article continues on, talking about the difficulties that Karen Deonarain now faced. I'd like to stop and focus on the difficulties her employer faced. Her employer was small -- less than 50 employees. This would tend to indicate that each employee was important and the work that Karen Deonarain was valuable. Karen informed her employer that she didn't intend to do any work for more than a fourth of the year. What was her employer to do?

A job had been left unfilled. Work needed to be done, by someone. Ms. Deonarain was unable to do it, so the company would need to hire someone new. It's hardly a good idea to spend time finding and training a new employee, only to lay them off when the former employee decides to return to work. It's also not fair to expect someone else at the company to cover the job until Ms. Deonarain was ready to return.

Here's the trade-off: businesses offer generous pay and benefit to those that can show up and get work done. Men and women who expect to take lots of time off whenever they have a family problem are not showing up and getting the job done. Is it so unfair then, that businesses wouldn't offer these people generous pay and benefits?

If workers aren't contributing something of value to the company, why should the company have a responsibility to contribute something of value to the workers? The job market is a two-way street: workers work for pay, employers pay for work. If workers expect to start and stop working on a whim, they shouldn't be surprised when employers expect to start and stop paying just as quickly.

This isn't a matter of discrimination and shouldn't be covered by state or federal anti-discrimination laws. This is a matter of fulfilling your obligations as an employee. Being a parent -- or a responsible son or daughter -- doesn't magically absolve someone of their responsibilities to their employer.

There will always be a trade-off between work and family. Lower wages and less stable jobs are an inevitable consequence of choosing to work fewer hours on an unstable schedule.