Sound the alarms! Send in the state police! OMG – the lead poisoning of children is so YESTERDAY! We need to refocus all our attention onto this new travesty! RIGHT NOW!
The folks in Lansing, Michigan are having a serious issue with priorities at the moment. After stonewalling the citizens of Flint, Mich. for 18 months over their poisoned water, they are doing anything they can to take the spotlight off of the governor and emergency managers. Forget the fact that they poisoned hundreds (thousands?) of children in order to save a mere $73,000 by not treating the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive. That is no longer important.
Last Tuesday, during the governor’s State of the State (SOTS) address, a protest was going on outside the capitol building. Approximately 500 protesters chanted, rallied, held signs, and generally had a peaceful protest. As with all large crowds though, there is always that one miscreant that wrecks the reputation of the entire group.
In this instance it was a chalk-wielding fiend that had the nerve to scrawl messages on the *gasp* sidewalk and on the smooth brick of the building’s side. The state police have opened a full-scale investigation and are busy checking all available video footage from the evening in order to determine who this vandal was so they can prosecute him or her for the damage and potential damage from the not-one-little-bit-permanent chalk.
Vice Chair of the Michigan State Capitol Commission, John Truscott, has made statements that the damage may be permanent. He is trying to spin a tale of woe that the porous stone of the capitol building that has withstood the ravages of harsh Michigan weather since it’s dedication on January 1, 1879 (that is 137 years for the people that don’t like maths) will be permanently damaged by the awful, awful, awful ravages of sidewalk chalk. Truscott has stated that some of the marks may be in CRAYON! OMG – the world is going to end.
If all this sounds absurd – congratulations – you are sane. The thing is, Governor Snyder doesn’t like to have his precious reputation marred and this whole ‘poisoned water thing’ is really cramping his style. So much so that, in addition to pushing for the prosecution of the nasty-nasty super villain chalk bandit, he has hired TWO PR firms to put a new spin on this whole mess.
Don’t get me wrong – the desecration of a historical building is no laughing matter. I just think that the poisoning of real live children is a bit more pressing than finding a chalk bandit. Why aren’t we arresting Snyder or his appointed emergency managers? There are 10 people DEAD (as in not coming back to life) from Legionnaire’s disease that is most probably tied to the whole Flint River fiasco.
Why aren’t we investigating whether PA436 of 2012 that removes democratic control from the people is even constitutional? Why are we discussing enacting legislation to punish the teachers of Detroit for being sick rather than repairing the very building problems that have made them sick? Why are we spending tax money chasing a vandal when we should be completing an investigation and punishing people that have committed REAL crimes?
Featured image courtesy of Dylan Hock (he was there and took the picture).
